Nettwerk

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Nettwerk

Founded	1984
Genre	Alternative music, Electronic music
Country of origin	Canada
Location	Vancouver, British Columbia
Official website	http://www.nettwerk.com/

Nettwerk is a large Vancouver, British Columbia based record label and music management firm. The label was founded in 1984 by Terry McBride, Mark Jowett, and Brad Saltzberg in McBride's small Vancouver apartment, initially to release albums by Jowett's band Moev. Saltzberg eventually sold his share of Nettwerk to Ric Arboit. Additional branches of Nettwerk exist in New York City, Los Angeles, London UK, Boston, Nashville, and Hamburg, Germany.

1 Artists
2 Nettwerk managed artists
3 Nettwerk and the RIAA
4 Nettwerk and DRM
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Artists

Notable artists who have recorded on the label include Aliqua, Alpha, Skinny Puppy, Sarah McLachlan, Sparrow Quartet, Ladytron, HEM, Jenny Owen Youngs, Single Gun Theory, Econoline Crush, MC 900 Ft. Jesus, Consolidated, Ron Sexsmith, Delerium, Sixpence None the Richer, BT, The Grapes of Wrath, Guster, Josh Rouse, Autour de Lucie, Lava Hay, Boxcar, Nathan, Tara MacLean, The Hermit, Rose Chronicles, By Divine Right, Doubting Thomas, Great Lake Swimmers, Trespassers William, Severed Heads and Jars of Clay (as of 2007 under the Gray Matters imprint).

The label specializes in alternative music acts, particularly in genres such as industrial music, electronica and folk-rock, releasing albums by both Canadian and international artists in those genres.

[edit] Nettwerk managed artists

Nettwerk also manages a number of artists, including the Barenaked Ladies and Avril Lavigne, who do not release their records on the label. Other artists under Nettwerk Management include Kinky (band), The Pipettes, Leigh Nash, Anathallo, Dido, Bombay Bicycle Club, MC Lars, Fear of Music, Sixpence None the Richer, Treble Charger, All Saints, Brand New, State Radio, Robert Post, The Be Good Tanyas, The Old Crow Medicine Show, gob, and The Format.

[edit] Nettwerk and the RIAA

Nettwerk has joined the fight against the RIAA by offering to pay the legal fees of a teenager in Texas who is being sued for downloading songs.^{[citation needed]} They will also pay any fines if they lose the case. They came in contact with the teen when she wrote to MC Lars (who is managed by Nettwerk) about his song, "Download This Song".

Nettwerk further sells actual MP3 music files for singles and FLAC music files for certain albums from its artists, and artists it manages, directly from its website. While these files are generally priced at 99 cents as many online music files, including those from iTunes and most songs from Amazon MP3 are, they do not include any digital rights management. Hence, unlike files purchased from Napster but similar to iTunes Plus, unprotected songs purchased from iTunes, these files allow consumers the freedom to copy the songs they purchase to any other device of theirs.

Nettwerk states on its website:

Litigation is destructive, it must stop .... as per Nettwerk copyrights, we have never sued anybody and all our music is open source to encourage fans to share it with others and help us promote our Artists. As per those Artists we manage on other labels (Majors), we take issue with those labels claiming that litigating our fans is in our interest, as it clearly is not.

[edit] Nettwerk and DRM

Nettwerk is one of the first major music companies to abolish DRM releasing songs in the unrestricted MP3 format, as well as the lossless FLAC and Apple Lossless formats. Many songs are available on Nettwerk's own store as well as Puretracks, a Canadian music download site. Nettwerk is also the first major music company to have their music listed on Amie Street.