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PressPlay and MusicNet vs. Artists
gilroy writes: "According to a New York Times article (free registration, yadda yadda), despite taking the moral high ground (that they want to see artists compensated, as opposed to all those evil downloaders), the record companies have actually set up pay schedules so as to -- wait for it -- rip off the artists who record the music. Some figure they will earn less than $0.0023 per download -- yes, that's hundredths of a penny. Best quote from the article: 'For many acts, suddenly there appears to be little difference between the illicit file-sharing system and record-label services.' Good to see they're fighting for the artists, n'est-ce pas?"
Purchase tickets for their concerts, they recieve very little in the way of compensation from CD/tape sales.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Go here: http://archives.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http:// www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/technology/18SONG.html to get around their registration process.
As one rock manager computes it, if a consumer buys the standard Gold Plan on Pressplay, paying $19.95 for 75 songs downloaded to a hard drive and 750 streamed so that they can be heard only once, an artist, after these deductions, gets $.0023 per song downloaded. To earn a penny, more than four songs must be downloaded.
Aren't the artists getting shortchanged? According to copyright law, the current statutory rate for a U.S. copyright is 7.1 per song. (See, 37 C.F.R. 255.3(h)) This minimum rate is effective until January 1, 2000, after which it will go up every two years until 2006, at which time it will remain at 9.1 per song until changed.
There's a lot more to royalty calculations as well. More info on Freeadvice.com.
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
I think the best example of what MP3's can do for the music industry id Linkin Park. Las year, guess who sold the most records and CD's? Britney? Outta synch? Backdoor boys?, nope it was Linkin Park, a band that formed ::Gasp:: on their own! But surely Linkin Park Must have been spotted by some smart record exec and signed immediately. Nope, in an intrerview in the jan 28 issue of time, the band says that WB turned them down the first time they tried to get a deal, so what they did was plaster their MP3's all over the internet. They would go into chat rooms and pretend to be random people, saying "hey, have you heard the great new band linkin park" or something to that effect. Eventually they built up a legion of loyal fans through mp3's and the net, and THEN they were signed by WB. Would they have been able to do this without MP3's? maybe, but they sure made it easier. And WB certainly wouldnt be sitting on the goldmine they are neow, afte rall they turned down the band the first time!