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Steve Vai released a limited edition "DNA" model guitar with his DNA as the paint job. Now that is extreme epic win.
http://www.vai.com/Machines/guitarpages/guitar117.html

Oh but the artist should perform at concerts to make his money! Well that was simplistic and quite frankly unfair. Why should a musical artist be forced to make money by touring? Why can't his song be a commodity like any other work of fiction? When E-books are shared, do you expect the book author's main source of income being from performing public readings?

You seem to have forgotten that the author's books are available in the library to be checked out and read for free. This has been the case for a long time, and somehow authors still manage to make money. It should be noted that only the really popular authors can generally earn enough from writing to not have any other kind of job, but even those generally must keep writing to continue to earn enough to support themselves/their family/etc. There are exceptions, I doubt J. K. Rowlings will need to write another book for the rest of her life for example, but most authors have to continue to write to earn money. By your logic those authors shouldn't have to keep writing to earn a living, they wrote the book once they should be paid for it forever right? Musicians have to tour and continue writing more music for the same reasons that authors continue to write -- so they can continue to earn money. I don't think that's unfair at all, they get paid for what they do, but to make a living from it they have to work at it. You know, just like the rest of the world.

The problem being that your assumptions are based on the knock off being of inferior quality and not an exact digital reproduction. When talking about songs, each digital copy of a song in the wild lowers the value of the authentic song file. Why pay for something you can get for free?

And now I can answer this question better. I buy books, even though I can get those books at my public library for free. Some books I buy new, some I get used. So why would I buy a book when I can get it free? Because I want to own my own copy, I want to support the author, etc. The same applies to music, and the success of the iTunes store proves that people will pay for music even when it's available for free. Those who are downloading and not buying anything will likely never buy anything, they just don't think it's worth money. Some will buy music in the future, they can't afford it now (teens and college students fit into this category pretty well). Some people will also buy more music because they were able to test-listen to it for free first.

To be fair, I am mostly irritated by the idea of giving an artist (or ticketmaster) a valid reason for charging even more money for a concert. It would be nice if a concert ticket remained within the economic means of an average teenager/young adult.

I don't see why this would raise the price of tickets, most artists/bands already have to make all their money from concerts because of the horribly unfair contracts the record labels force them into. If they're managing to make money from current ticket prices there's no reason (beyond inflation) that prices should go up.

I was led to believe that an artist tours to promote their album...

You were lead wrong then, sorry. This was probably true up to around the 1960s, maybe 1970s, but nowadays artists/bands must tour to make a living. Often they have to do so to pay back the record companies too. Don't take my word for it though, Courtney Love gave a great speech about it (the link is a transcription of her speech). Steve Vai has a copy of his letter up that he sent to congress about the record companies' accounting practices. Finally, Steve Albini has an an article up also telling how the contracts work in the record compani

"You probably already know that retail margins are anywhere from 10% (Amazon) to 50% and more (Best Buy, etc.) across all categories. Music is no different."

If an artist receives 15 points in their deal (and remember, that's a very good deal) then he is entitled to aprox. $.09 a track.

91% >> 50% (and 9% to the artist is a "very good deal"!)

"the end-to-end costs of recording, producing, marketing and selling a CD" ... are mostly decreasing. Why are the labels not then increasing what they pay to the artists?

There is always live performances, piracy will never kill that for the artists. I wonder if record labels get a cut of that.

On the economics of the music business:
Steve Albini
Courtney Love
Steva Vai

the whole idea of the double accounting books is a myth from the times when these companies were owned by a single person

It is unheard of in our industry for an artist to undergo an audit of a label and not discover a large percent of their royalties unpaid, that's if an artist can afford the time and money to audit their label. One in every thousand artists have the resources to audit. There are stock calculations that labels make in order to justify "creative accounting", and when the artist does find outstanding funds that are rightfully due them, labels "negotiate" what the artist will actually receive as a settlement, and most of the time it's not more than a third of what is found.

Quite true, and many more costs besides. The artists have to bear the entire cost of creating and selling the album, before they get any royalties.

Fair enough, you say? Perhaps - except they don't get to keep it. That album, that they conceived, wrote, performed, recorded, marketed and paid for in full, is no longer theirs. Copyright for the album is owned by the LABEL, and NOT the artist. That really sucks.

They are not working for the artists as we all know, but this is a compelling argument detached from the copyright infringement case.

Just to add to this, here are articles by different artists about being ripped off:

Steve Albini
Courtney Love
Steve Vai

Or this one from Steve Vai.

Too bad they didn't include this song by Steve Vai.
Not only would it be a good exercise for the censorship department, the second half of the song would cause severe finger injuries to many players.

Too bad they didn't include this song by Steve Vai.
Not only would it be a good exercise for the censorship department, the second half of the song would cause severe finger injuries to many players.

From what I know, majors typically pass on between eight and sixteen cents per track to the artists, and that number hasn't changed much since the ITMS launch.

Most artists are lucky to get 15% of gross take, so given 65c going to the labels, that's less than 10c. Then, the labels deduct the standard 26% for free goods, packaging, restocking and breakages (all obviously still quite relevant for digital downloads), and my personal favourite, the 50% "new technology" deduction (which previously applied to CDs, even though labels made far more per CD than they did for vinyl). After all that, the artist is usually entitled to around 4c for the song.

Of course, this is not to say he/she actually receives that. First there's all the recording and promoting expenses to pay off as well, even though the artist does not get to keep the copyrights to their own songs. Then there's no easy way to be sure the label actually pays you what you're entitled to under your contract anyway, and the barriers to successfully auditing this are set as high as possible. Finally, even if you do manage to scrape up enough money to mount a successful audit, the label will offer to settle (typically for around a third of what you're owed), or to drive your legal expenses up a lot higher still.

It's a very rare actor that can demand millions up-front. Most have to settle for a percentage of the profits. However, due to accounting practices "considered odd by any normal business standards", 95% of movies, even box-office hits, somehow fail to make a profit - as defined by the studio, anyway. This article lists many of the ways in which this is managed, including spreading of gross receipts amongst poorer-performing pictures, "distribution fees" far in excess of reality, a 10% "overhead" fee to be applied to all marketing expenses, tax breaks that are kept by the studios & not counted for the picture, and many others.

Stan Lee got nothing from the Spider-Man movie, because the studio claimed it did not make a profit, at least as defined by his contract. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was produced cheaply and was a huge success, yet somehow "lost $20 million". Even Babylon 5, which took in $500 million in DVD sales alone, is apparently "$80 million in debt". As the creator, J Michael Straczynski said, "Basically, by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits."

Steve Vai says very similar things about the record labels' own standard contracts, not least their various bogus deductions for digital download sales. As the saying goes, the really creative people are the accountants.

It's not just Weird Al who signed a bad contract. Nearly all artists get stuck with the same ridiculous clauses. All the major labels give you a simple choice: Sign the standard contract, or be a nobody selling your CDs at pub gigs.

Take a look at this letter from Steve Vai - it lists some of the many ways that the labels burden the artist with every expense, fair and unfair, but retain all ownership of the songs. They short-change them even the few royalties that are due, require large upfront costs for any auditing to check this, disallow auditing of crucial figures like actual manufacturing numbers, then typically "settle" with the artist for around a third of what the artist is actually due anyway.

Regarding iTunes, he says even a well-established and popular artist who is entitled to 15% royalties, would typically see only 4-5c per iTunes track, due to such creative deductions like 15% for "free goods" (there are none, for digital downloads) and the 50% "new technologies" deduction. After, of course, the label has deducted all production and marketing expenses for the songs they now own. Read the linked article, it's hair-raising.

Remember, this isn't some naive and ignorant wannabe speaking, he's been playing for 20-odd years, including many years with Frank Zappa before he went solo - he's been around. He still had no choice. The labels control the radio playlist (via illegal payola) and the shop shelfspace, so if you want to succeed, you have to do a deal with them, and they will only offer the same "standard", artist-raping contract.

Steve Vai said the same thing a couple of years ago: http://www.vai.com/AllAboutSteve/postcard_040220.h tml

Here's an excerpt about iTunes in particular:

For instance, If you go to Itunes and download a song for $.99, Apple retains about $.34 and the label receives about $.65. Labels then calculate a royalty base price to apply to the artists deal points. Following are some of the deductions:

        a. A packaging fee (container cost) of up to, and sometimes more than, 25%. That's 25% of retail which is $.99 equaling about $.25 (by the way, there is no packaging on a digital download).

        b. A 15% deduction for free goods. That's an additional $.15 or so. (There is usually no free goods with digital downloads unless someone is ripping it from the net.
        That leaves a royalty base price of close to $.60 per track that the artists royalty is calculated against. If an artist receives 15 points in their deal (and remember, that's a very good deal) then he is entitled to aprox. $.09 a track. This is then cut in half because of the "new technology clause" that is incorporated into most deals. The artists royalty is then calced out at $.04-.05 a download and from that, 100% of it is withheld by the label to go towards recoupment of any advances to make the record, advances in general, tour support, radio promotion and other things in some cases. Most managers and producers are paid from record one and are paid regardless of the expenses, leaving the artists with even more of a recoupment burden before they start to see any income.

IOW, freakin' artist needs to be extremely lucky to see ANY of the money, ever, despite the fact that it's his work being sold. OTOH he may be able repay his debt to the label - this is something they won't be able to do if their stuff is sold through allofmp3.com.

http://www.vai.com/ :0)

Robots that play better than Steve will only be made after AI is invented and Duke Nukem 3 is released. Which is a long way to say, never.

Um, mind explaining your sig? I'm confused.

Steve Vai is arguably the best guitarist on the face of the planet.

Wil Wheaton has arguably the coolest "celebrity" website on the face of the planet.

On his site, Wil regularly bares his soul, explaining his craft, sharing his views, and generally showing the world what a cool (or lame, depending on your viewpoint) person he is. From what snippets I've read about Steve Vai, he seems a cool person with lots of interesting ideas, but his website doesn't give fans nearly as much of an opportunity to get inside his head as Wil's does. Steve's music tells a great deal about him, but only in an abstract, emotional sense. I can't listen to "For the Love of God" or "Blue Powder" or "Melissa's Garden" and understand what goes on in Steve's everyday life.

My sig simply reflects that I think it would be cool if Steve bared his soul on his website as much as Wil does on his.

BTW: If you haven't heard of Steve, check him out. My personal favorite of his albums is "The 7th Song", which is a collection of his guitar ballads from across his career. Vai's guitar style combines the chops of Satriani and Gambale, the texture of Jeff Beck, and the lyricism of Eric Johnson. Sort of.

(If you haven't heard of Wil Wheaton, you are not truly a geek and you certainly haven't been around slashdot very long.)

Also BTW: According to Wil's IMDB bio he also plays guitar. Hmmm... although he writes about music all the time, Wil never talks about playing guitar much... maybe that's changed... ?

I heard it as well... very funny indeed
Highlight of the evening was Steve Vai on stage. Wish we got to see more of Satriani, Vai, Johnson, Petrucci, Vaugh, et al more often.

Rock out