Money in the Music Business

paulbd writes: "Electronic Musician has a good article on the economics of selling music on CDs. Its a sobering read that gives some of the hard numbers that do a little to counter the sense of record companies being vultures. Recommended for anyone who seriously imagines making a living from selling music."

Comments

Re:Compare to Albini's "The Problem With Music"

[paulbd]

the problem with Albini's analysis is that it doesn't mention that the obscene $710,000 profit the record company made has to be used to amortize all the losses it made on the new mariah carey cd. see, there's this problem: you're a successful musician, and the record company appears to be ripping you off. they probably are. but a large part of the apparent rip off is because they are also making lossy investments in new artists which never work out. now, you could choose to excuse yourself from this charade, like ani defranco and others have done, by working on your own - you win, then you win big, but if you lose, you lose everything you put in. however, as long as you choose to allow somebody else to help you with the initial costs, you need to deal with the fact that their losses on other artists need to be covered by their profits on you. in such a system, the artists are simultaneously screwed and simultaneously supported. of course, the record companies are making obscene profits on the backs of underpaid musicians. but don't assume that when you get those numbers down somehow that the inherent inequality in the relationship will go away. if someone if going to make a risky investment in several artists, the ones that succeed will need to pay for the ones that fail. do you want your success subsidizing your fellow artists failures? do you want your failure subsidized by your fellow artists? or put another way, do you feel lucky, punk ? :))