Artists Protesting Single-Song Downloads

prostoalex writes "The 99 cent downloads are stirring some discussion in the music community. Linkin Park, Radiohead, Madonna, Jewel and Green Day are protesting music stores' policy of single-song downloads and introduce some stipulations, requiring their work to be sold as albums. "The fear among artists is that the work of art they put together, the album, will become a thing of the past," says attorney Fred Goldring, whose firm represents Will Smith and Alanis Morissette."

Comments

This is complete BS

[coolmacdude]

Apple already reported that over half the songs sold so far on the iTMS were in album format. Aside from that, these people are missing the whole point of this service. That is the ability to preview which songs you like on an album and choose which ones to buy. If there is a CD that has one or two good songs and the rest are crap, do you think I'm going to spend $17 for two songs? No! But with the iTMS, the record labels make 1 or 2 dollars. If they go back to album only, they will make $0 from me.

Re:Well???? ( A quick lesson in publishing)

[skribble]

$0.12 per $1 isn't bad (in fact it's quite good). That said I don't think you really know what you are talking about. First I'm quite sure that just like book publishing, Musicians royalties are based off the price the price which the publisher sells the product, not retail. (And these prices are crazy, some sales channels pay more per unit then others... etc.)

From a book publishing POV (which I have quite a bit of experience), a large percentage of books published *loose money*! Most authors never earn out their advances, and often publishers don't recoup thier editorial and printing expenses. The publisher only makes money off of a very few best sellers. This of course has the effect of the few best selling authors occasionally making a fuss about how they get ripped off by the publishers.

Now the average author, often complains that they didn't make much money for the work involved (which is unfortunately often the case), 9/10 times here the authors still make more money then the publisher (infact they are usually the only one's who make any money). This is how the business works. There's no telling what will sell and for what reason, there are literally millions of great authors and great books that never ever sell. Why? Well if can figure that one out ahead of time then there's a future for you in publishing! If you are Steven King you can get 40% Royalties and Millions of dollars in advances, because a publihser can be pretty sure to make something off of it, everyone else needs to play the game, otherwise nobody *could* play the game.

That aside... there is one really hugh difference traditionally between Books and Music. With book publishing the author usually walks away with all of thier royalties (if they earn them out to begin with) minus a small reserve against returns (which ultimately the author gets back, if they remember to ask for it!). Any book marketing and publicity done by the publisher is paid for by the publisher. Most editorial and printing costs are paid for by the publishier too. In music almost everything is charged back against the royalties, and the marketing dollars that music publishers spend with artists money for "promotion" is crazy high, and in most cases eats up royalties and makes it impossible for the artists to get any.

BTW I don't feel sorry Artists, they should know what they are getting in to before the do it. They get to live doing what they love, and while they might all live like superstars the quality musicians get bye. Most of the big complainers are lucky to be where they are (Cortney Love, please!)

Of course the issue above isn't about any of that, it's about the musicians wanting to have a say in how thier art is conveyed. I think they should, the money thing aside, at the end of the day they created something, and they should have some say in how it's used. If they feel thier music should only be played as an album... well, whatever, they have that right (of course then turning around and releasing a bunch of singles and videos doesn't do much for there "artistic credibility", but oh well, hypocrisy or ignorance isn't a crime (though maybe it should be))