Comments on: The RIAA Rides Again http://www.seanpaune.com/2006/12/08/the-riaa-rides-again/ Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:27:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Shari http://www.seanpaune.com/2006/12/08/the-riaa-rides-again/comment-page-1/#comment-12154 Shari Sat, 09 Dec 2006 09:46:21 +0000 http://seanpaune.com/?p=881#comment-12154 The record industry is like a spoiled child that has always been given 98% of the pie and suddenly finds it is only getting 95% and it's having a hissy fit. Artists have been gouged pretty much forever by record companies who they used to be at the mercy of. I recall reading that artists received 25 cents per side on lp sales in the late 70's (when a record sold for $7). The record compnay got $6.50 out of every $7 and the artists had to split their take among management and other members of the group. Getting more recent profit information is complicated. I've read that artists receive "up to" 4 cents per online song sale and up to 40% of net on CDs. However, the way in which net sales are calculated can be hugely complicated, distorted and criminally undervalued (as we know with the way movie studios manipulate their accounting to make it look like a movie made nothing). I'm also pretty sure that the amount an artist gets varies depending on how popular/powerful they are at the time of the first contract signing. U2 were luckier than nearly any other band because they got more money from and control of their music than any other young band when they first signed on to Island. The excuse for this has always been that they promote less successful artists with the profits from highly successful artists but, these days, that seems quite dubious since there are relatively few artists promoted at any given time. A few of them are groomed and packaged and then they bribe video and radio outlets to saturate viewers with the artist's content. Since half the battle with music is getting it repeated enough for people to like it, this works pretty well. The record industry is like a spoiled child that has always been given 98% of the pie and suddenly finds it is only getting 95% and it’s having a hissy fit. Artists have been gouged pretty much forever by record companies who they used to be at the mercy of. I recall reading that artists received 25 cents per side on lp sales in the late 70’s (when a record sold for $7). The record compnay got $6.50 out of every $7 and the artists had to split their take among management and other members of the group.

Getting more recent profit information is complicated. I’ve read that artists receive “up to” 4 cents per online song sale and up to 40% of net on CDs. However, the way in which net sales are calculated can be hugely complicated, distorted and criminally undervalued (as we know with the way movie studios manipulate their accounting to make it look like a movie made nothing). I’m also pretty sure that the amount an artist gets varies depending on how popular/powerful they are at the time of the first contract signing. U2 were luckier than nearly any other band because they got more money from and control of their music than any other young band when they first signed on to Island.

The excuse for this has always been that they promote less successful artists with the profits from highly successful artists but, these days, that seems quite dubious since there are relatively few artists promoted at any given time. A few of them are groomed and packaged and then they bribe video and radio outlets to saturate viewers with the artist’s content. Since half the battle with music is getting it repeated enough for people to like it, this works pretty well.

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