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And then if we got another cone, what would it even look like?

Exactly.
For further reference; http://www.negativland.com/new...
An insiders view of the industry to sweep away your sunshiney delusion about how things really work.

For reference, Steve Albini's The Problem With Music.

... Look around at pop music and what's being created today. Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Justin Bieber style music is all that anyone can make money doing nowadays. ...

This is why you aren't taken serious. Only a few musicians actually get rich making music. Their record companies though get very rich off them and other musicians they sign. It has always been this way, and they are fighting hard as hell to keep it that way.

Musician here. Spot on, at least as to the record labels having historically horribly abused & cheated the artists.

To get some idea how this works and how bad it typically is for the majority of artists who are, or are trying to become, "signed" with a label, check out this piece by Steve Albini on negativeland.com

"This oft-referenced article is from the early â(TM)90s, and originally appeared in Maximum Rock ânâ(TM) Roll magazine. While some of the information and figures listed here are dated, it is still a useful and informative article."

http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17.

One of the record labels' top priorities is controlling the means of distribution. That's the actual, underlying reason they are pushing DRM and copyright-related laws/regulations, particularly those that involve the internet and digital (copyable) media formats, streaming, etc. It's aimed ultimately at erecting barriers to entry for independent artists in both marketing & distribution channels using the internet as a vehicle.

Once it becomes commonplace for artists in the top-100 to be independents without a mainstream "label" contract, the old recording labels and their associated parasites will be truly doomed. They know this. That's the reason for the war on sharing, various forms of independent distribution/marketing channels, and internet radio.

Want to support artists? Go to shows. Buy CDs & merch. Share their music with those who haven't heard of them. Encourage those friends to do the same. Tell the bar/club/venue owner when you like the band, and that you'd come back and bring friends when they play there next time.

There are tons of amazingly-talented and hard-working artists & bands playing in bars/clubs/festivals/etc all over. Simply not buying cookie-cutter record-label music is not enough. You need to support the bands and artists you would rather see take their place.

Keep in mind that even the members in most above-average-talent bar/club bands could make more money working part-time at McD's or Walmart. A modest-but-decent used bar-gigging-quality guitar can easily cost over $500. Used modest-but-decent amp easily over $1,000. Let's not even talk drum sets.

That's also not counting the PA and lights that many small/medium bars/clubs do not provide, and then a vehicle/trailer to haul all that crap around with and all the costs associated with that.

Strat

Seems like as good a time as any to post Steve Albini's article on the topic: http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

Finally, a DSLR that can detect squant!

One of the main reasons I refuse to buy new albums is that in most cases, I know only a few pennies of my money goes to the artist; I attend live shows & buy t-shirts at them instead. This article is the best I've seen for detailing the matter.

In fact, tonight I'm seeing an older artist called Les Chambers in concert that, despite being the lead singer for a couple of hits that have been used all over the friggin' place since the 60s, was never paid any royalties, even ended up homeless for a while (I don't know the story behind that, just that he never used drugs or abused alcohol). It sounds like it was one of those cases where, as a young man in the 60s, he was -- like almost all artists back then -- eager to sign the contract and trusted the RIAA to treat him fairly.

Representations about the sort of split artists have with "middle men" are casually fraudulent [wordpress.com] and slanted pro-Free Content propaganda.

Yeah, sure. "Pro-Free Content propaganda" my ass.

The link below is a more accurate description of how the "music biz" works as it relates to artists and their relationship with the labels.

http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

BTW, I'm a semi-pro musician myself and I also hope the labels and distributors go belly-up. So do the signed artists I work & perform with regularly. The only signed artists that care about people sharing music are the very few at the top that are being marketed hard by the labels and have sold out (Metallica, I'm looking at YOU), or are in a weak position with their label and cave to pressure to join the anti-sharing propaganda machine.

Strat

Producing the music and advertizing it costs money.

The main reason why producing and advertising costs so much is because the people who write the checks and the people who cash the checks are the same people. Here, read this.

What do you think would happen if you had a manager and you told him, "Hey, we think these advertising costs are a bit much. I'd like to hit a few ad agencies on my own for quotes and see if I can find a better bargain." Do you think that would be met with, "Okay and jolly good! Let's try to save some money!" I'm betting not.

The real issue here is the middlemen. They've had a fantastic time of it so far, haven't they? They lock down bands with contracts as the barrier of entry into a closed system. It's closed because they have lobbied for it to be closed. That's why it's closed. Then they set the rules for who gets paid and how much. Then they write checks to themselves in whatever amount pleases them. Then they have the audacity to claim they are "protecting the artists". Then finally in a move of unmitigated gall they complain about the ethical implications of people who try to avoid their protection racket!

I'd love to pay the artists, but currently there isn't a legal way to do so without paying these parasites in the middle. And I think you'll find this to be a fairly popular idea. But the current system is so broken you can't sing Happy Birthday in public. Or how SoundExchange can collect royalties on songs they don't own. Even one you make up and stream yourself - they want royalties for that, and they are legally entitled to them.

It's like telling someone saying how important it is to obey the law. And then realizing Emperor Palpatane is running things. Makes the ethics a little fuzzy.

As TFA states, very few artists make any money from touring and live performances.

If TFA does say that, then it and you are flat-out wrong.

Most artists/bands make the majority of their money from music in playing bars/clubs/festivals/etc for pay. The only ones that make any real money at all from recordings are the tiny, tiny percentage of artists/bands that sign with a big label, *and* happen to be the "flavor du jour" being pushed by that label. Even many signed touring acts make more money from performances and merch sales than the recording sales.

Here's an excellent, though depressing, piece on how things work for bands/artists with labels.

http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

Strat

It's like I've been saying in forums for years. The industry is dead, Musicians can give away their music to promote their live act . There really isn't a need for an industry.(copyright could go in the trash for that matter) Musicians would be much better off on their own. Trent Reznor brought forth a great example of what an artist can do on his own. GIVE AWAY THE MUSIC. Take control of your own career. Sell value added bundles of records,DVDs and goodies. Book your own tour. Advertise your own tour. DIY. It's been discovered, years ago, touring is where a band profits. If you eliminate the costs incurred by a record contract, an artist could begin profiting as fast as he can book. He could also expect not to be in the poor house after a "third album" or have his songs irretrievably owned by someone else.(just give it away)
          Sorry but I feel little sympathy for Lowreys lack of imagination and fix-the-old-tractor mentality. Times are changing, the ability to sell intangible garbage is a fad supported by only a small portion of the populace. The world is tired of being ripped off and downloads whatever they want now. There is old wisdom that says struggling against the world is a fools errand. The old business model has fallen ill and is laying in bed wheezing and rattling as we speak. The antics of the RIAA in courtrooms across the world is pretty much proof of that. The next one will be the scenario I described if men wish to take their own destinys and free their bonds, ridding themselves of a parasite while they're at it. Let's just go ahead and give the industry a shove over the edge. Sorry, but any artists foolishly clinging to it ,go over too.

BTW, for those wondering about credentials for my hubris , I've been an artist, journalist, studio owner, agent, and luthier for over 3 decades. I've even had my hand at producing $! I've seen the beast from the inside out and believe me the illusion of a new boss with a new way is about as misleading as presidential campaign promises. Want another opinion from a professional, heres a man with some saavy instead of Lowrey. http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17 , Steve Albini, another guy who's been in the shit and seen the horrors. His credentials are on the page as well.
 

See also The Problem With Music by Steve Albini.

He also lists all income/expenses of a fictional band, it's not a happy read for aspiring musicians.

Amanda Palmer just posted a very long and informative blog about where all the money goes when people donate to her Kickstarter effort to finance her upcoming tour/album. In that post, she references Steve Albini's classic rant against an industry churning through young talent and keeping all the candy for themselves (well, one of his rants on the topic, anyway).

I'm glad to see these issues starting to get major traction and hopefully change can come from without, since it will never come from within.

Dont fuck around with MY livelyhood just because you couldnt round up two brain cells to rub together.
First, get a damned clue, chump. http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17
Now come back and tell me about some haughty idea and when you do, you just recall all the rock, blues, jazz musicians that came before and got screwed this way and waaaaaay worse.
If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Dumbshit!

"We've decided to stop paying artists entirely, that is up to them."

As far as I understand things, they're largely there already..

  * Courtney Love does the math
  * The Problem With Music by Steve Albini

I'll tell you how to increase income amongst the unemployed and shit-workers!
Quit buying music altogether. Sound counter intuitive?
Here's how this works so you can imagine how many can prosper:
Everyone finally gets a blast of intelligence and quits funding the corrupt ,thieving music industry and it languishes.( I wish)
Musicians promote themselves by distributing their recordings, free, take over their own publicity via modern resources (internet).
Musicians make money playing live. the biggest moneymaker, this time tour is funded and profited by musician not industry.
Imagine talented musicians rising like cream for all to see rather than getting the powdered creamer from industry picks.
Picture prices for live shows dropping with no industry cut. Pepperland will fill with music again if you only get rid of the Blue Meanies.
There is no need for a parasitic, unwelcome, unneeded industry for this scenario and so many MORE people will find a new avenue of income doing what they actually LIKE to do. The world needs a bit more of that, don't you think so.
The industry, just let it die. Quit buying music. Music is free (intangible). Performance/labor is paid (concrete).
Wanna see why musicians need the industry like worms need jet engines? http://www.negativland.com/albini.html Educate yourself and understand the true nature of the industry we fight to kill.

IF you are going to fight, don't use terms like:
" disney copyright"
"0.000001% of the profites showing up in the checkbook"

you sound like a loon, and won't be taken seriously. You can say it shouldn't matter, and you would be correct.But it DOES matter. And changing that is a different fight.

Johann Lau does not "sound like a loon", nor is he wrong. USA's Copyright Term Extension Act is known as Mickey Mouse Protection Act,for being notoriously pushed by Disney, whose main purpose was to avoid Disney's earlier work to go into public domain. And if you are trying to claim that Johann Lau is a loon for stating that fact then, before that, you must accuse Lawrence Lessig of being also a loon, and a bigger loon as wel, as he publicly made that very same assertion regarding Disney's copyright.

And regarding the percentage of profits that actually go to the artist, music industry insiders such as Steve Albini already already explained quite well how the music industry actually works.

So, you are either a Sony shill, trying to astroturf some damage control here on slashdot, or you are incredibly out of touch with reality, factually wrong on multiple accounts and simply an idiot.

Or when you can see Squant without the plug-in.

There's a pie-chart meme several years old:
http://artandavarice.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/record-company.gif

That graphic might be derived from information in this article from the 1990s:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

I've not been able to find a direct source for that famous pie chart, let alone the original data source. But in my experience as a musician and publisher, it's plausible.

[heed the signature]

And who defines what is the level of that 'nice' .......... a lot of the videos i checked around up till this point, were removed due to dmca claims. so, they were removing a lot of videos.

They just shut down it due to its size. period. ah, and he sponsored a few songs in usa about how piracy is not so bad compared to what the content industry was doing - probably that causes the attack on him and his assets - its ok when content industry brainwashes everyone, but if someone opposing them does the SAME thing, its a crime !

It's only good - criminals are taken to court and jail so companies can again produce goods and software and they don't have to see the widespread piracy that is going on

excuse me guy, but that stupid thinking is why we are having all of this shit in the first place - the REAL pirates have persecuted someone challenging their rule and you are clapping for it :

how music labels avoid paying artists : http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/13/1737224/riaa-accounting-how-labels-avoid-paying-musicians how music labels screw aspiring artists and bands to neverending debt : http://www.negativland.com/albini.html how labels avoid paying royalties to artists even if they earned the right to it : http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-major-labels-cook-the-books-with-digital-downloads

ANY cent you pay to buy music so not to 'steal' from a big label, goes NOT to the artist - but to the pocket of an intermediary called the label and pocketed to an extent of 95%. you pay 15 bucks to an album, your artist gets a few cents, and the label gets almost entirety of 15 bucks. then they force the artist to go on concerts worldwide, to make money. it is taxing, and most artists and bands break down, and resort to drugs or excess to relieve stress. radiohead released one of their albums for FREE without a label, told people to pay however much they want, even take it for free. 80% of people who got it, did not pay. however, the rest 20% caused radiohead to make MORE money in just 4 hours than they would make in a whole year of touring if they gave the album to a record label. and that album, is still selling over the internet since a year or so now. so go figure................ in short, ANYone who supports this scheme that sucks artists dry, and screws customers up, is either a very very dumb, ignorant person, or a hapless idiot. there is no way to explain someone supporting a scheme that screws him/her over, otherwise.

record labels are making a LIVING based on how well THEIR art is received, you say ?

are you a fucking moron ? excuse me, but really, are you a fucking idiot ?

record labels do NOTHING other than keeping bands perpetually in debt to them, and give just cents over dozens of dollars of album sales, forcing them to go on tours worldwide not to make money, but to be able to pay the 'loans' they got from the record label in the initial contracts.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/07/13/1737224

THEY DONT EVEN PAY ARTISTS !

http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-major-labels-cook-the-books-with-digital-downloads

http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

you dont know shit about this, yet you are making grandstand statements like 'When you're making a living based on how well your art is received, then let's talk'.

LETS talk then. lets talk about how record labels are not paying musicians, keeping them in perpetual debt, dodging taxes and royalties, and gulping 90% of the revenue generated by content sales.

or alternatively, you can just shut the fuck up, and educate yourself before you make another grandstanding statement for next time. i think that's the better option.

Musicians usually don't make much, if any, money at all on merchandise. The merch contracts are usually set up by the labels and make sure that everyone gets their cut off the top, leaving the artists with the scraps. If you haven't read Steve Albini's "The Problem With Music", he explains how merch works (as well as a ton of other ways the labels screw their artists).

Check this out: It goes into detail about the predatory contracts the record companies stick desperate musicians with. http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html this is an older article but still remains the definitive word on recording industry practices.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html Major labels have always screwed their artists, which is why I've always attempted to go it alone - even though I've so far been fairly unsuccessful, that's still better than going with the majors.

it has been shown that the content creator receives very little for their efforts.

Freakin' citation please.

Courtney Love. Steve Albini.

Well, this is now content creators agreeing with them.

Not really.

Well, this is them doing half of that.

Sure, if by "doing half of that" you mean "locking down content even more and abridging fair use by not allowing timeshifting or spaceshifting." Oh, wait that's exactly /against/ fair use principles.

This is in opposition to the "imaginary property" advocates that maintain that all content should be free-as-in-beer because it doesn't cost any money to duplicate, damned be the (sometimes significant) creation costs.

This is so wrong, I'm not even sure I'm being trolled or not. Try to understand people's arguments before you put up strawmen of them.

Guess what? You're also screwing the content creator, whose work you apparently want enough to pirate.

No, the content creator was screwed when they signed a contract with the big publishers; anyone who doesn't realize this probably isn't a creator who's had to deal with the big publishers. The Internet has largely made big publishers moot, but unfortunately this cloud thing (which is a fad) is again threatening not just fair use, but the very basis of our culture. What are you going to do when (*NOT* if) they disappear part of your culture?

And before you label me as just another pirate, let me just cut you short by letting you know I pay for my media, usually directly to the artist, and I get a permanent copy (permanent meaning no one can restrict my access to it, either by DRM or "losing" it in the cloud). If it's not avaible in CD or FLAC, I don't buy. F*ck the cloud.

Sometimes a spade is just a spade.
Overanalysis by biased interpretation as course study seems in step with modern education factories.

If you label my conversation an emotional appeal, merely for not introducing ideas scientifically , with complete rigor, then I suppose it becomes a handy tool for pedantic argument,rather than me, speaking as an artist contemplating the factors(which I've made note of over the years while focused on this subject).
      Well I suppose your critical thinking class would be fine should you seek employment at the DNC/Republican headquarters/Scientology offices,etc.
      For this conversation you lack much background.
A crash course in Music Industry found at http://www.negativland.com/albini.html should be prerequisite.
          As for business models, the forthcoming DIY business model will do nicely.The Industry is failing and I am merely pointing out the hysterical irony that they are cutting their own throats trying to preserve power rather than doing anything useful to survival. Meanwhile there are many useful music licenses out there for whatever way you may want to approach marketing in this brave new world.
      Your mistake is believing that popularity of an idea equals superiority. History is full of contradictions to this hypothesis. Corrupt political offices, misdeclared wars, Jonestown massacre, come to mind in an instant. The majority has no business deciding the superiority of anything.
        Further even,artists don't decide on copyright, it's all covered in fine print buried 50 pages into their contracts. The label owns the song or artist du jour does't have a contract.
      If you really can't see the fall of modern media, look further than slashdot. When the leaves turn brown and fall off the trees, we know winter isn't far. Failing that, see your doctor about that cranial rectumitis.Proof is all around you,well proof or colon I guess. See, the original post presumed you had a handle on this.
      About the home studios; it makes turning music loose for free feasible to the independent musician. Who could give a rats ass if the industry recoups? ("Don't worry Danny, the world needs ditchdiggers too")
          So if you are sick of it, I suggest you go ask Professor Pedantic how he copes with the ridicule of his fellow man for using his "superior" powers of analysis that you are learning.
     

The Problem with Music by Steve Albini

Looks like Courtney Love pilfered a lot of her article from Mr. Albini (that doesn't surprise me one bit), which really adds a nice rich chocolatey irony sauce to the whole thing.

This has been true for some time. Witness The Problem With Music or Some of Your Friends May Already Be This Fucked, which is a ripping expose of the music industry, written in the 90's by Steve Albini of Negativland.

And Courtney Love's article was heavily based on an article by Steve Albini in "Maximum Rock and Roll", 20 years ago - http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

I have a cookie for anyone who can one-up that. :)

Absolutely nothing new here.

Steve Albini.
Courtney Love.

Both, I believe, 10+ years old.

Reminds me of this horrific classic of how recording artists get ripped off:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

You have created a strawman.

No, you disagree with my point and the easiest way to destroy it is to twist my words into something logical.

What I said is that creating something via the use of money does not give it an intrinsic value. The value is decided by the market, well it is in most markets, in the entertainment industry it's given an arbitrary value that does not reflect the real cost of production. When a market decides your product is worthless or not worth the asking price, you are not entitled to a cent, you are entitled to make something worthwhile/adjust prices or go out of business. The real straw man was created by the GP.

he artist is entitled to be paid if those people who have a copy of their work made use of it.

Once again you do not understand. No they are not entitled to get paid, they may get paid if the market decides it is worth their asking price.

An enviable position to be in... the artist having no recourse whatsoever in the eventuality that greed might result in you being less than generous.

Now this is a real straw man. You've create a fictional scenario where the artist is actually paid for CD sales. This is not true, the artist earns money by touring, now this is something that cannot be re-created thus has an intrinsic and measurable value. Have a read of this and try to tell me that the artist will starve, you are repeating stale and inaccurate propaganda as their true income source, the live shows and merchandise will not disappear even if copyright ceases to exist.

In order:

1. That's the way capitalism works. Not that I agree mind you, but the /. crowd are mostly dyed-in-the-wool capitalists. There are better ways, like a tax on media and publicly administered content (e.g. the BBC), but then, that's socialism, isn't it?

2. It took me 5 seconds on google to find this: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html. $80/night is pretty good for a bands. Most are making about what a 7-11 clerk makes (about $60).

3. Studio time is now cheap, has been for a long time. Computers + cheap sound proof foam let me make a home studio for about $4,000. Auto tune makes music engineers obsolete. What is not cheap is building the mystique that goes with stardom, but that's not music, that's a circus act.

You can still be a professional artists around here. What you cannot be, good sir, is a douche bag.

... is squant!

To get truly astonishing pictures, they should add a black pixel, to improve contrast.

Perhaps but can it reproduce Squant?

Actually I don't consume. Movies were barely worth seeing when admission was $2.00 adult on a friday night. There are no new stories, crap they even remade "Nightmare on Elm st." Is there really a point? I can see CGI on the net and all the free movies I have time for. As for music, I support my local scene and advocate bands releasing music for free as promotion while making money with performance. Theres no point to selling your soul for a contract that will give your music to a Corporation and guarantee you will never perform with your friends as a band if you split the company early. The only "rock stars" that make any money are so old they hoodwinked the Industry years ago and believe me patches are in place for those hacks. The industry owns the houses they live in, the cars they drive and the clothes on their skinny asses. It's all illusion folks. Don't take my word for it, take it from a prominent insider. http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

... to restore our lost squant vision?

You said "but I'm presuming the music company take an artist/band they think will make money and attempt to make them even more money whilst making themselves a bit on top"

          Regarding your presumption, The industry takes a band they think will make money for them and utilize the band as one would kleenex or toilet paper. The welfare of the band is never a consideration. It's all show. Even a successful band won't see profit till the 3rd HIT album, maybe. It all goes back to paying back the promotion and middlemen. Any personal glitz, cars, mansions, vintage instruments, etc. All owned by note by the industry. It's an illusion.
          If you would like to get a more realistic view read Steve Albinis tell all http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

        Musicians don't have a fighting chance with these unnecessary middlemen in the way. The same middlemen who've been ripping off musicians since music was distributed on sheet music before recording. Now with the advent of the internet, the parasite can be killed and there is a level playing field for all. We will all be better off in the end. As for the industry jobs lost, to quote Ted Knights "Caddyshack" character, Judge Smales," Well Danny, the world needs ditchdiggers too".
      To think that prostitution, drug dealing and rape are all illegal, yet the music industry receives government help and legislation is very much a living contradiction.
        No, I do not jest.

It was the six months producing the album that the track behind the video was taken from that cost all the money.

Basically all that money went to the label and their minions, it just had to be loaned to the band first to leave them in debt to the label. Steve Albini explained this process much better than I ever could.

Steve Albini wrote that first 8)

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

This article barely tells anything. You want a real close up perspective? read this : http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
It's a tell all by Steve Albini, producer of Nirvanas last album and member of Big Black and Rapeman .
When you read this , you will see why I hate the industry soooooo much and am dedicated to its death.
So read this and get out your p2p and help kill the industry to make the world safe for music and musicians.

Thanks for keeping us in the loop NYCL.

These seem to be serious allegations. I hope there's action taken this time.

These deserve to be kept in mind:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/ (Courtney Love Does the Math, from 2000 - looking at it now, oddly prophetic)
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html (The Problem with Music, by Producer Steve Albini - great insight into the process of Major Label music)

This is why we should care. I know that it's clichéd, but these companies care nothing about you, or about music, or about the well-being of the world in which they operate. They are wholly evil, in a way that almost no other business is.

The only way I will ever agree with either music or movie industries about loosing money is if they use general accounting practices. Lookup hollywood accounting and you will see what I mean. Here is one about music. http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

There's a general misunderstanding I see here anytime record companies are discussed. Time after time, people say that the label pays for all sorts of things to help artists. The truth is that all of that stuff isn't given to the artists, it's an advance on future royalties.

The artist has to repay the label for the cost of recording an album. The labels charge artists for promotion, too. It's a universal practice to include a "breakage" fee, which means the artist only receives royalties on 90% of sales. Concert touring expenses are also recoupable, paid for by the artist. Royalties are calculated on wholesale prices, not retail prices, so deals with record clubs can be based on deeply discounted wholesale prices and lower royalties

I'd also add that the labels structure the "royalty advance" and subsequent charges to that advancement such that they band winds up in debt to the record label. After all is said and done, they OWE the record label money and need to release another CD to pay it back. Record labels (at least the major ones - don't mean to include indie labels in this) are a form of indentured servitude. See Steve Albini's The Problem With Music for more information as well as a chart breaking down how a $250,000 advance plus a quarter million CDs sold winds up being a $14,000 debt! http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

How true do you reckon the arguments made by the likes of Courtney Cox about how the "gold ring" isn't such a great deal are, in general terms?

Here's a link I've posted before on this subject to a piece that explains the realities of the "biz" for bands and artists very well. Although it was written in the '80s, it's mostly still quite accurate.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Strat

And there's the classic Steve Albini analysis of how a typical major label contract shakes out monetarily. (Summary: The band gets screwed.)

Don't waste your breath on these miscreants. These people create no artistic works, they make nothing of artistic value, they simply believe they can take what they want when they want it. They believe © means they have a right to copy and give away anything they please.

+++!!!ERROR!!!+++ Sarcasm Quota Exceeded, Please Insert Cheese.

I personally believe IP law needs serious reform, but you have to draw the line someplace.

'Drawing a line' in common usage refers to being forced to make an arbitrary decision based on a fuzzy distinction. I would think that if you applied that to this subject it would be a better argument against copyright as arbitrary decisions are rarely sought after.

And least you forget, all record companies are evil ( even though they lay out huge sums of money and make a suckers bet every time they back a new artist ) and deserve absolutely no return on their investment.

I think perhaps Steve Albini answered that one well enough some 15 or so years ago.

Yeah, the only difference is, like it or not, right now the studio artist makes $1-2 for each album sold, without it, well, he'd make nothing.

That's actually not so true today. Check out the distribution one can buy these days:

http://gc.guitarcenter.com/tunecore/

The problem is there are too many stupid artists, and I say this as an artist myself. Most seem to not take any time or trouble at all to even learn about basic copyright, never mind researching the various types of contracts available or that could be demanded from labels if they bothered to organize and put collective pressure on all the labels. More are beginning to adopt online distribution, however there are still plenty of pitfalls for the unwary & lazy.

Most are too self-centered around their art and ego. The big "Gold Ring" they drive for is to "get signed", and most of them are without any real clue as to what that can actually mean when you're talking about dealing with a record label.

Those kinds of artists get chewed up and spit out, ending up as burned-out cynical husks touring crappy venues in a crappy bus, living on less income than they'd make at a burger joint, trying to pay off what they "owe" to the record label after the third album, which the label didn't really promote much anyway, while still tied contractually to the label and unable to break free without paying the label tons more money on top of the mint they've already made the label.

Here's a piece I post a link to when this topic comes up. It's a bit cynical and also dated, but the situation he describes here is generally pretty accurate in how labels tend to treat bands/artists, which is generally as crappy as the band/artist lets them get away with.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Until artists make more effort to educate themselves about the business/legal end of the music biz and stop throwing themselves into the big-label roasting pit carrying their own bucket of BBQ sauce, not much will change. As long as the labels have lambs begging to be slaughtered and handing them the axe while shoving the previous lambs' remains off the block to make room, why would they want to change?

Strat