Labels Go Broke

Marine Parade

international news_18th August, 2004

Labels Go Broke

There has been a few casualties in the UK dance music industry over the last few months as the after effects of the bankruptcy of indie distributor 3MV are felt across the industry.

Collapsing under the weight of a 7 million pound debt the company went into liquidation in May leaving the labels it represents without any income for the sales of their releases. Under the UK's Sale of Goods act ownership of a product changes upon delivery of those items so although the record companies hadn't been paid for the records they had delivered they didn't own them anymore, so when 3MV went bankrupt that stock became the property of the liquidators.

House labels, Hed Kandi and Tidy Trax are owed more than 500,000 GBP by the distributors, but the real casualties have been Marine Parade and React music who have become bankrupt as a result of the closure of 3MV. The amount of money owing to the 2 labels was just too much to continue trading in their current form.

Marine Parade made this announcement on their website
"Don't believe the hype', as our fore fathers Public Enemy once chanted. Some shit has gone down, we are going through some structural changes and have had to put a hold on our release schedule. Don't fear, we'll be back very soon with more greatnessc"

Many speculate though this is just a sign of things to come as increasing music sales via the internet forces the high cost traditional distribution channels out of work. However with the company filing for bankruptcy just after itunes UK came online it seems unlikely that it was the major cause of the company closure. It just looks like the impact of declining music sales is finally beginning to take hold.

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