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Recording Deals In The Digital Age
cascadefx writes "There is a really interesting panel wrap-up over at the National Association of Recording Industry Professionals's website. The Incredible Shrinking Profit Margin panel discussion looks like it included some interesting discussion into the deals that are made with performers now that the rules have changed. These notes offer interesting (perhaps hopeful) business predictions about Britney Spears' career as well as answering the (new)-age-old question about just how much an artist makes off of an iTunes download. Check it out."
Artists have always been share croppers for the man (record co's.. iTunes is the beginning of change. Artists, with guts, can make their deals direct with the new distribution channels, and they should, especially, anyone with a name that has a contract up for renewal.
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
They say that their core buyers aren't buying. IIRC, every year, the recording industry beats inflation in terms of revenue and profit growth but they keep saying that they are going down the drain. And now this recording professionals group seems to be parroting the same line. That is one drain I'd like to go down.
I'm not saying file sharing is necessarily good for them but it seems to be a case where they are trying to get enough people to say they are losing money often enough such that everyone believes them even if the facts are the opposite.
Because the system is so embedded it's all people know, and people work subconsciously for the system. A friend of mine who produces his own electronica used to distribute it via his webpage through his ISP. (iinet, in australia). Twice they pulled his account due to complaints about his offering copyrighted works. No explanation was given as to the nature of the complaints; not whether it was from people who claimed to be the true copyright holder, or just from mischievous people feeling good about "dobbing in someone with MP3s on their site".
He's moved ISP now and things have been good for the last couple of months, but there's that spectre still above that distribution method. He's got a product he's made himself, and wants to sell it himself, and the system has worked against him.
EA (Electronic Arts) will clear 60 masters, then use just 15 songs in a game, all at low rates. And they want to pay these low rates on a buyout basis, with no share of revenue, no points, and no step-deals.
That's nice. I'd like a convertible with bucket seats and a six-speaker audio system. "They want" "They want" "They want" It's nonsense.
Here's the product. Here's the price, LICENSED for a limited period in a specific market excluding all others. 15% advance in TALL LONG GREEN CASH DOLLARS WALKIN' DOWN THE BOULEFUCKINGVARD starting day one with a double-the-rate step up when the clouds part. Two minutes and we fold up the card table. Here's a pen.
Artists own 100% before they sign the deal. The best way to make a good deal is not to make a bad deal.
Phone companies take 50% of all downloads
Only if the artists agree.
"The phone could replace the iPod
Everyone wants to be Apple.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Slightly offtopic since this is not mentioned in the article at all, but since we're talking about recording deals...
;p
Don't buy music from sites like the iTMS or Napster. Ever. According to this article French Apple enthusiast site Mac Bidouille, support personel (eg dancers, clip director, sound techs etc) are not getting their cut from legal online sales.
The reason? Record labels are unwilling to change their contracts, which ties royalties to the sales of physical media, not the song itself. That's outrageous. That's outright theft, pure and simple.
(Article is in French. Grab a translation here.)
Support the little guys. Download your albums off Suprnova NOW!
Reading an article recently on Prince's sales model. He makes $7.50 for each $10 CD. He controls distribution, handling advertising everything. If you've noticed the bill board charts lately his latest CD is doing well. My GF is a member of his sight where she can hang with other fanatics, or famatics as they call themselves. Prince has even managed to circumvent Ticketmaster to an extent. He sells a percentage of the floor seats through his site directly to his fans. I think everyone will agree that he is also the opposing force to any manufactured talent out there.
Don't get me wrong -- I have great sympathy for musicians, other artists, and everyone else trying to get their fair share, but I can tell you that my salary as a programmer would be in the high six digits if I was paid 10% of the revenue my software generates for my employer. The artists' percentage alone is not really cause for much sympathy.
What is royally fucked is the fact that artists could command much higher percentages if the music industry wasn't dominated by a cartel with the aid and abettance of easily-purchased legislators.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Sharecroppers is a pretty good term, but indentured servant almost applies, since many artists end up owing the label money, with their work tied up legally so they can't rerecord it, and sometimes contracts they can't escape from. Most artists don't earn jack from the record label (even fairly big and well known artists). If something gets a lot of airplay (or clubplay, or anything that BMI/ASCAP collect money for), they may get some money from publishing, but even that's iffy for a lot of artists who have a small but steady following. For every Madonna or Britney Spears, the labels have screwed a thousand smaller artists who don't suck, but aren't consistent with the business model of "small range of product, huge distribution".
w eb.html). The issue of independent bands and filesharing comes up, and most people he knows don't have much problem with filesharing- they're not getting paid by their distributors anyway.
The reason you're seeing "name" acts like They Might Be Giants (and one of my favorites, http://www.neubauten.org) going it alone is that they weren't making any money being on a record label anyway, and they can find a way to do better by dealing with distribution on their own over the web (or combination web and snailmail). A lot of these bands never had terribly good support from their label anyway, and got to be known through word of mouth/college radio/touring. Over the next few years we can probably expect to see some bands make it big without being on a major. Then they just have to deal with Clear Channel's attempts to control major venues...
(only partially off topic: I know a computer wargame company that also has done extremely well by self publishing after having bad experiences with the big publishers, and then subsequently acting as a very developer friendly boutique publisher for similar games. http://www.battlefront.com)
Here's the obligatory link to Steve Albini's "Problem with Music" article: http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
and another to a long (~hour) video clip of him giving a talk and answering questions (http://www.mtsu.edu/~nadam/downloads/Stevealbini
Most of you all have seen the cartoon of a tree swing made by committee. (?)
p
r ic kell/
http://www.businessballs.com/treeswing.htm
It reminds me of the record business.
Seriously, some of the talent scouts really CAN tell what's really good just by listening (some got the job from their uncle/auntie).
That's where the trouble starts, no one can make a decision-much less a decent pitch without invoking the gods of pop for comparison.
The reason no one is buying is because they're picking stinkers.
Example:
Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time.
http://www.bonnieraitt.com/disc_nick_of_time.ph
Took marketing totally by surprise!, she was deemed "washed up".
Surprise!
The listening public had NO trouble picking this little gem out and making it gold (what? double platinum).
Another artist they don't push:
http://www.universalrecords.com/quicktime/edieb
Brilliant stuff (for the genre).
If the recording companies were smart they let us pick the hits.
You know, a Fresh Artist, New release download area (with marketing pushing the site heavily).
Many Ears make for a NO Brainer(TM)
My favorite example:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/corinnemusic
These artists are hiding in plain site.
The record companies (why yes, I DO know of what I speak) need to fire some people a get with the program.
~hylas