Discipline Global Mobile

http://www.disciplineglobalmobile.com/

I love the wording that DGM uses on its releases. Here is the one from King Crimson's B'Boom:

The phonographic copyright in these performances is operated by Discipline Global Mobile on behalf of the artists, with whom it resides. Discipline Global Mobile accepts no reason for artists to give away such copyright interests in their work by virtue of a "common practice" which is out of tune with the time, was always questionable and is now indefensible. -- MichaelFeathers

Hmm, that looks pretty decent of them.

Well, DGM is a vehicle for people who've seen the horror the recording industry first hand. If you ever want to hear more stories read anything written by Dave Stewart of Hatfield and the North, Frank Zappa, and of course RobertFripp. Among the weirder anecdotes that Dave has is the one where he and his band lost all of their future royalties in a drunken dart game with Richard Branson. On that one though, I'd have to say that they would have to share some blame.

Oh, and a year later, despite record sales, when their bass player couldn't afford a room for his family and was about to have his children taken away by protective services, they were told by a secretary at Virgin that if they wanted money they should have gotten a job like her and not become musicians.

A similar, but pre-MP3 and much less sophisticated, analysis of the poor relationship between recording artist and label appears in CommodifyYourDissent