Omniscient Sound (LLC) is an upcoming digital, cross-genre music label with the following ethos:
- Artist-first: above all, our primary values are helping artists flourish and establishing a credible reputation for each artist. Profit is not a motive: the label cut of royalties is modest and serves only to support label functions (neither co-owner personally receives any money from label income). The only financial goal of the label is to break even: 1- in the event of insufficient funds, we (the co-owners) contribute to funds as individuals rather than making it the artists’ problem by pressuring for extra releases or increasing the label cut, and 2- should a future level of success lead to meaningful profit, it would all go toward either setting up and maintaining a label-run recording studio and/or branching out to physical media.
- Artist-owned: there’s just two of us (Skye Wood and Justin Horne), each with our own musical endeavors, giving our effort, time, and money to run an ethical label out of support for each other and the wish to extend this support to other artists.
- Small: there will be an absolute future cap at 25 signed artists (including ourselves) at any given time. We intend to remain small with just us two performing all core functions. This is because scaling, assuming that would mean we hire others to prevent too heavy of a workload for us, introduces an unethical power imbalance.
- Ecologically-conscious: Due to environmental concerns, AI (artificial intelligence) is indefinitely not allowed to be used by signed artists in their music or album art. Should the infrastructure change towards sustainability, this may change in the future, but in that event there would be explicit notice of this allowance and there would be no label use of AI unless opted-into.
- Fair-in-artists’-favor:
- The majority of royalties will always go towards the artists. Specifics TBD but likely around 85% of net receipts will go towards artists.
- Contract length is to be 2 years, and future renewals will be opt-in. Artists may leave and return later if that is necessary or desired:
- We understand things like serious injury and chronic physical or mental illness can get in the way of activity for prolonged periods of time. We also understand that not all disabilities are visible, so we don’t assume.
- We also understand that sometimes tragic or strenuous life events just happen. We do not wish to penalize anyone in these situations.
- It’s also fine to just have changing goals and desires!
If you’d like to support us, we will be having a t-shirt fundraiser soon, so stay tuned!