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How iTunes Hurts Weird Al
Johnny X writes "Weird Al Yankovic recently said he makes far less money when you buy from iTunes than when you buy an actual CD. This guy did the math and showed that Weird Al could be losing up to 85% of his record sales income due to the 'weird' ways the record companies compute digital sales. Are all artists getting the shaft like this?"
Is the RIAA still in charge?
Sounds like a good opporitunity to write an R.E.M. parody... "Losing my Commission"
He signed the deal he can't beat it.
Wonder about the deal the A Bros signed.
Us little guys go through smaller cos and they take 10c leaving lots to the artist.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Or is this just "My Bologna"
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
CDs are vastly overpriced.
How we know is more important than what we know.
TFA seems to blame iTunes, at least at heart. Wouldn't the actual problem here be the messed up, backwards, hacked way the (MP|RI)AA have decided to handle this newfangled technology called the internet?
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Those jokes are hurtful to bad people everywhere.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Record companies find ways to give artists even less money. You knew it was going to happen. To the record companies, it is not about the music, but the money. Since the early days in the 50's they have been writing draconian contracts, then stealing the copyrights from the artists (remember the "musicians are craftsmen not artists" argument they were throwing around) and now this. Pretty soon, the artists will have to PAY the record companies for the priviledge of getting screwed.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Isn't this interesting, after all the noise the industry made about going after illegal music downloads, all in the name of helping the artists. They then turn around and pay the artist next to nothing for the iTunes download you are supposed to buy because you want to 'support the artist'.
Musicians will continue to "get the shaft" as long as they rely on majors.
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
Submitter's (?) blog references this, but here is Weird's Al's website where he actually talks about it ... his response on this topic is the 4th bold one down.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Even if Al is making less per song, does that mean anyone who bought one of his songs or records from iTunes would've otherwise purchased a brand new CD? Or might they have bought a used one, or none at all?
Nice to know that the distribution medium with essentially no production or distribution costs screws the artist in favor of the distributor.
The record company is that he's signed with. He's still living pretty. In fact with the royalties he makes for his music and movies I'm pretty sure he isn't going to die poor any time soon. This is the same with any other signed artist. Besides...I don't think it's the record sales thats hurting his music I think it's the fact no one wants to buy it full price (or at all). This is the same argument you get with over paid sports stars and actors...how much is to much...if I can pocket a couple bucks, and save my ears from bleeding...I think I'll do it.
Perhaps the solution to the money-hungry amoral music industry is to cut them out of the deal. Perhaps music listeners could start illegally downloading music and giving money to artists. It would never work, but there needs to be someway to actually give money to the people who make the product.
i love weird al and this makes me angry as hell. its a good thing i don't use itunes since i think it sucks. i buy a cd then rip it to whatever format i need.
Check out his short-lived TV series:
The Weird Al Show DVD
It's surprisingly good, if you check out the clips available on youtube.
Oh, and yeah, can't forget one of the most underrated, quotable comedy movies of all time: UHF.
Ryan Fenton
But I don't think Weird Al is hurting for money...
I remember reading a UNDP report a while back on the development of countries in Africa. The researchers observed that the international market prices of commodities such as coffee or sugar were higher then than at any time in the past, and yet in the last few years the prices payed to the small farmers was at its lowest point in the past 60 years.
The reason for this apparent contradiction was the fact that small farmers can't sell their wares directly to the final consumer who brews coffee at home. Rather, this coffee is bought up by one of a handful of multinationals, who because they are so few, more or less dictate prices to the farmers, and then sell it on to the consumers. The fact that there are few of these middle men puts them in a position of power which allows them to make off with the king's share of the profits, and indeed they absorb the price hikes.
Maybe its time musicians got together and set up an electronic coop to sell their music the way farmers sometimes set up "farmers markets". They could have more control over their prices, and how much of what consumers pay goes to them.
Shouldn't the internet be making it easier to cut out the middle man like this?
Slashdot: news from nerds.
The folks at Downhill Battle have been saying this for a few years now:
http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes/
Im curious now if he's talking about the percentage he gets or if he's talking about volume. In other words, is he making less because people just buy the songs they want?
If it's the former, well the RIAA just plain sucks. (I'm sure this will be heavily covered before this topic is closed so I'm not going to bother being more eloquent.)
If it's the latter... sorry Al, I think you're talented and love your music, but that's supply and demand, man. If iTunes means a fairer price for all involved, then I'd ask you to take it in stride. The RIAA had quite the gold mine going there, and I don't blame them for trying to maintain it, but we legit customers were getting gouged.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Its so not surprising. Artists (the real ones) dont create for money, they do it out of the love of the art (well most do..). And the labels know that. Why bother paying them when they can just pocket the money! And that's what they do.. Oh and since artists usualy aren't great businessmen, the labels win. But in the end, its probably going to be good, maybe artists will one day understand that most dont make money off the recordings and give them away for free (and make the money on the concerts instead!).. . In the meantime, I will keep on exercising my right to private copying (I'm Canadian).
Of course they are. Well, that is, any artist who's stupid enough or unlucky enough to still be using an RIAA member as a label.
What, did you actually think the labels would be taking less money after the transition to online sales? Hah! No, they'll just increase their percentage of the cut and pass the "savings" (in the form of less money) on to the artists that they obviously care soooo much about.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
What "artists" are getting paid is in no way mine, or your problem. It's up to the artists to negotiate a deal, just like anybody does when getting a job. Why should I care about whether or not Wierd Al has to buy a new or used jet? Hell, do you worry about whether or not any real people you know get paid "enough"? Honestly, the musicians control that as much as the record companies do. If they're worth money, then they can negotiate. And... just a wild guess here... but I'm guessing that the amount they make from downloads from places like iTunes is in the contract.
Yeah, because not wanting to get fucked by the industry you [the artist in general] are driving is really greedy, right?
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
Yes, it's called CDBaby http://www.cdbaby.com/ check it out!
Do you expect to get paid for work? What are you greedy? Why are the artists the evil ones for wanting to be paid for their work? The pirates steal from the artists and the record companies steal from the artists. Ultimately it's the artists that suffer.
I expect to be modded down for this, but there needs to be a reality check regarding Apple. Famously the love of Apple is cultish, but they are a publicly traded company. (Disclaimer: I am fan of Apple myself)
What you need to remember about publicly traded companies is that their only real obligation is to the stock holders. That means it shouldn't be a shock that iTunes screws artists or that Apple will employ sweatshop workers to create iPods.
You know who else is publicly traded? Google. Because of that stockholder obligation you can probably expect their mantra to change from "Do no evil" to "We do less evil than everyone else".
It's a joke. Lighten up. And, it is not like Al is poor. He probably has 5 BMW's, 2 yahts and tons of hot babes. It is a bit hard to feel sorry for somebody like that.
Table-ized A.I.
... and I don't feel sorry for him in the least.
I like Wierd Al, and even own a few of his CDs. But today, there is absolutely no reason for ANY musician to be beholden to a record company with a draconian contract that pays them practically nothing. The cost of recording equipment is a tiny fraction of what it was 20 years ago and the internet allows artists to sell their work directly to the public with no need for a record company to handle distrubution and take their 99.9% cut.
There is no reason why Wierd Al (or any other musician) can't record his music in his own studio, have the CDs pressed (there are companies out there that do it for $1 per CD) and then set up a website to sell the CDs as well as digital downloads. He gets 100% of the profits, we get to hear the music and the RIAA goes out of business.
I wish Weird Al was reading this thread. I would just tell him that this is one of the reasons why the major recording industry institutions are bad for the consumer, bad for the artist, and bad for music in general. And I would hope that he understands that for this very reason, I can't support the practices of these companies by having nearly all of the money I spend on an album going towards reinforcing their system of screwing everybody involved. I hope he survives without the fifty cents he would have gotten, but I will sleep BETTER at night knowing I didn't finance these morally bankrupt assclowns.
audioLibre - freedom of music
Oh, er, uh, that just means that that other person besides Al's momma who was buying WAY CD's decided to buy one tune instead of a CD.
12.99 + 1.99 < 12.99 + 12.99
Personally, I think one tune is rather optimistic...
CDs cost about $15-$20. The record label takes most of it, and the artist gets a little cut. iTunes CDs cost about $10. Apple gets a moderate cut (only about a third of what you pay), the record label still gets the lion's share, and there's even less of a smaller pie left for the artist. Apple benefits - they don't pay the costs associated with producing the music, their cut is enough to maintain the fairly high bandwidth and server costs to keep the service running and turn a small profit, all while selling more iPods. The record label benefits - they get less money, but still more than half the cost, and it costs them pretty much _nothing_ once they've handed over the digital music to Apple. Plus, a lot of people that buy iTunes music would have pirated otherwise, not paid for a full price CD. The artist, as always, gets screwed - artists have made *some* progress in increasing their share of CD sales, but when it was time to renegotiate to include iTunes sales, the record labels already owned existing artists' music, so it wasn't like the artists could back out and look for a better deal on the digital front.
Piracy is, in most people's opinions, the best option even before price is considered - much more convenient than going to a store or waiting for a CD to get mailed to you, wider selection and no DRM compared to iTMS and similar services... From right at home and in practically no time, one can acquire almost any piece of music and be listening to it, right from just about any internet-capable computer. Factor in free vs. rather overpriced, and it's pretty obvious why piracy is so popular.
So how can we support our favourite artists? For those who tour, the best method is probably to go to live concerts. Artists tend to get a bigger cut from tours than from CD sales, and going to shows gives you an experience you _can't_ replace with a better alternative for free. Put aside all the money you would have used to buy CDs and go to shows instead.
The only big problem left before the music industry can evolve to a more artist-centric process is the prohibitive cost of studio time / recording equipment. The digital age means that any artist can cheaply and easily distribute his/her music, once recorded, but most fledgling artists can't afford to record on good equipment. The one useful function (at least from a market perspective) record labels still serve is to select which artists get time in the expensive studios; there's not enough high-fi sound equipment for every high school garage band to record an album, and currently the labels are the deciding factor in who gets to record and who doesn't. There could certainly be better systems to decide this, but none are in place right now on a wide scale.
You mean like... taking shaft, right?
He's not the greedy one here.
This is a completely fucked up model. And what is sad is that the record labels have been doing this to artists for DECADES. Why is the only person in the loop that has creativity/talent/unique ability getting 5% of the money while all of the suits, lawyers, and management are sucking up 65%? I can understand some cost in production, but with modern technology you can do it for a few grand in software and hardware in your home.
iTunes/Apple is not the problem. The are just bringing to light the awful business practices of the record labels and the way they treat their slave labor....I mean artists.
"Trying is only the first step towards failure." - Homer
If you are going to say something like that, please actually read the article.
"Apple did work, and got paid for it. You did an arguably larger portion of the work, by creating something people wanted to buy in the first place, so Apple got a little money, and you got a good deal more."
He is saying here you did work, they sold your work, they take a cut and pass the rest back. Fair enough. However he goes on to say "Unfortunately, that's not how this version of the universe operates. So Apple sends the check to your record label."
And he then goes on to discuss where the money goes to the record label.
The conclusion he reaches is basically "If all of your fans bought through iTunes rather than buying CDs at the record store you'd be looking at an overall reduction in income of 85%!" however he is quite clear through the article that the record companies take a lions share of that money
Moving from fact into speculation, let's examine what's happening here
Case 1:
Man records songs, Record label puts work into creating CD labeling, packaging, promoting and so on. Record label organizes with Distribution company to sell CD's and gets money in return.
Cost of Final Product: $15-$20.
Case 2: Man records songs, Record label puts work into creating CD labeling, packaging, promoting and so on. Record label organizes with itunes to use all the fancy stuff they created for the CD and sell the product over Itunes.
Cost of Final Product: $0.99 * songs or $10, whichever is less
The same costs are involved in doing both. Until artists only release online, the CD cost will have to be recouped as well anyway, so it shouldn't be a huge shock to anyone that the cheaper product provides a worse return on investment for the same work.
Can't we all just get along
Does anyone else find this a little ironic that Weird Al has made so much off other people's popularity for so long and now he complains because there isn't as much money for himself. I know the industry is changing and artists might be losing money by only making a few good songs on an album. That's the artists problem now. Consumers demand more now that we have choice. If Weird Al didn't make gimmicky music he wouldn't have this problem.
Just e-mail it to Weird Al.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Tim Sloane of Ijamsville, MD asks: Al, which of these purchasing methods should I use in order to make sure the most profit gets to you: Buying one of your albums on CD, or buying one of your albums on iTunes?
I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKED... I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure.
Sorry for the double-post.
Are all artists getting the shaft like this?
Probably. Record companies are notorious for being creative in the way they account for sales. Googling "records royalties lawsuit" will give you an idea of how often.
There are very few people who actually have any taste in music. The vast majority of music purchases are made by shleps buying whatever is on the radio or MTV. So who is on the radio or MTV?
Whoever the record labels SAY should be on the radio or MTV.
So, no reason to pay the artists anything - if the artist you're talking to doesn't want to take a small percentage of the record sales, then you just find somebody else who will, make THEM the star, and then they can rake it in on concert ticket sales.
People do not understand that pricing has NOTHING to do with what it costs to provide a service. It has to do with what people are willing to pay to get a service. And most new artists are willing to pay the vast majority of their record (or download) sales to have the services of a record label.
Also, the article is wrong about WHO is getting the artist's money. The money the artist isn't getting isn't going to the LABEL, it's going to the CONSUMER:
Price of Al's CD on Amazon: $14.98
Price of Al's CD on iTunes: $11.88
That's a difference of $3.10. Al 'apparently' loses $0.27 per song (not $0.265, article has rounding problems). $0.27 x 12 = $3.24!
So, when Al comes up short $3.24 because a consumer got an album for $3.24 less on iTuns than on Amazon, who got that $3.24?
The CONSUMER did!
Now, I'm not saying this is FAIR. Clearly, the record label is making much more money on iTunes sales since, as mentioned, they don't have to pay for a lot of things they would if they distributed music by physical CD. But... why should Al get any of that? Al has agreed to pay the record company a certain amount for the record company's services. The record company gets the same amount whether the CD is sold online or on the shelves. If Al doesn't want to lose money to his stuff being sold on iTunes, he should renegotiate his contract to not allow iTunes sales. I bet most artists wouldn't do that though, because they make most of their money on concerts, and being on iTunes helps them sell tickets.
The *REAL* problem here is not that Al isn't getting more money. The real problem is that the CONSUMER is still paying the record company CD distribution prices instead of digital distribution prices. In a free market, we would expect digital downloads to be much cheaper than $0.99, because the various distributors would compete against each other reduce the inflated margins the record companies (and iTunes) are getting based on CD priving. But since iTunes is a fairly insulated monopoly at this point, even though the CD *COSTS* of distribution have gone away, the CD *PRICING* hasn't.
So, who is REALLY at fault for the artist getting no money AND the record company and iTunes still getting full price?
APPLE! They've set the $0.99 price and are putting no pressure on the record labels to lower it.
paintball
Tell me how much you make on a CD, I'll double it up, send it to you and feel free to download the songs on the net.
\u262D = \u5350
I must say that from my own personal experience, Weird Al is a nice guy willing to watch out for his fans... I wrote him a letter once (when CD's were the rage) and asked him where I could purchase his albums, stating that I had a hard time finding them in local shops. He responded (or his lackeys, whatever- they refelct his attitude IMHO) thanking me for being a fan and shipped me ALL of his albums for free.
Some rare fan treatment if you ask me. Now, it may be that he makes much less on iTunes sales, but I'm sure he's not hurting- hopefully he remembers his bill-paying fans that make him what he is.
Wow! This must be a PERSONAL letter, just for me!
The label doesn't take "most" of this. You have conveniently forgotten about the distributor, who the labels sell CDs too. Are you so naive to think that the distributor moves these CDs for free? And wha about the retailer? Remember him? Is you stupidity so profound that you are under the misguided belief that Cats/Coconuts/whoever collects the $15-20 and dutifully turns it all over to the label?
It's quite obvious you have NO understanding of typical business arrangements.
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.
Before we start abusing Weird Al about his supposed complaints about not getting enough money, read what he said and realise he wasnt money grubbing. Before we start abusing iTunes about stealing too much of Weird Al's Money, lets accept that they are providing a service that they set the price for As for the Recording people, abuse away, they seem to be the main problem here. But again, that is perhaps not the best way. More investigation is needed and should be allowed to happen instead of randomly firing off abuse at any of the involved parties. From reading this article and some of the other /.'ers comments I think the problem can be boiled down to this: The recording companies are treating all income for a certain album as a single income stream that can be used against all of the costs for all of that album's various activities including but not limited to CD art and CD creation, promotion and recording. This may or may be unfair depending on your point of view. I think legally it makes sense, but it might feel like you are getting ripped off
Can't we all just get along
"Weird Al could be losing up to 85% of his record sales income."
What's 85% of 0%?
hands?
You have naptser, ITunes, MusicNow, etc, etc. Honestly, you don't need the recording studios anymore, unless you plan on putting out physical media.
Setup your contract only on the CD side of things. For the online content, make the stuff yourself, setup a deal with ITunes, etc... and get paid your cut of the profits. If Apple's cut is around 30% now, maybe the "independants" could do a 40%/60% deal, where apple gets 40% but the extra 10% accounts for "ads" on ITunes showcasing their songs, or used in the apple commercials (since that did seem to help jet and the other bands), etc. The guy behind the song still get a nice 60% cut.
There seems to be so many other good options than dealing with the beasts of old. Maybe someone should start and independant "producer/studio/promotor" and cut the artists a better deal. One with less restrictive licensing and that don't go after 11 yr olds or old ladies wearing diapers.
record companies are still ripping off the artist? wow, in related news, the sun came up today.
which is why any artist with a small clue is selling thier own product online. weird al is mainstream enough he should be moving cd's from his website and put them on itunes himself.
duh.
i feel no sympathy for any artist that continues to bend over and offer the record companies a running start.
if i can do it with my crappy music, anyone can.
-.no
How does this relate to subscription services like napster or Rhapsody? Does the label just take it all and divy it equally among their bands... or keep it all? Anyone know?
But I DID buy some of Al's songs on iTunes when they became available. Less expensive. Easy. Fun. So, Al, iTunes made you money you would never have gotten otherwise. You have to figure that into your calculation. ITunes enables the musical lurkers like me.
I didn't think artists made money off of album sales.
Here's my experience as an indie artist.
I sell CDs through CDBaby, which gives me digital distribution through iTunes and other services. If you buy one of my tracks on iTunes (the store that pays me the most), I make between 59.1 and 63.7 cents, depending on the track. I'm not sure why one track pays more than another, but I notice that my best-selling track pays 63.7 cents. A full album download on iTunes gets me $6.37, after CDBaby takes their flat 9 percent cut.
That's not much different from what I get from my physical sales, but that's by choice. The deal with CDBaby is, I set my price as I wish, then they tack on their own $4 overhead. So I said I wanted $6.50 per CD, and my CD sells for $10.50.
Online sales also allow for tiny sales - if you stream my song on one of many services, for example, I might get a fraction of a cent or as much as four cents.
At any rate, for me, digital sale prices are merely out of my control - iTunes will charge what it wants, take a certain cut, let CDBaby take a certain cut, and I'll get the rest. On my physical sales, I can decide how much I want per CD, assuming I can find customers at the price I set.
[salesplug] If anybody wants to check me out on CDBaby, I'm at http://www.cdbaby.com/nathanlong [/salesplug]
I haven't seen this much excitement over Weird Al since Coolio released Gangstas Paradise.
Apparently, his sites servers haven't either.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
You know how it works: one for you, one for me, half for you, two for me, quarter for you, three for me...
and so it goes.....Exactly. I mean, that's my criteria for sympathy. If someone has a lot of stuff, who gives a crap how they're treated? Especially if they have more stuff than me. I really can't feel sorry for someone who doesn't live in their mom's basement, no matter how hard they worked for the things they have.
You raise an interesting point which got me thinking along these lines
Record companies have costs associated with creating all the fanfare and pomp that goes into a CD. This costs them a lot of money. Let's imagine it is $100,000
They contract a distributor to sell CD's for them; they receive $10 per CD, of which they keep 100% until the costs of the CD have been recouped. This = 10,000 CDs. After that they still keep a certain amount and you get the remainder, a part of which is the physical distribution of the CD. Perhaps the problem here is that after the costs have been recouped the iTunes sales keep getting hit with the same percentage take that would usually account for physical distribution.
Can't we all just get along
Liar. Everyone knows there are no women on the internet.
+++ATH0
Agreeing with one of the comments above, CD's "are vastly overpriced." I think artists are making entirely too much money and being treated with an eminence that does not encourage great music but wealthy lifestyles. Case in point, I caught a Youtube video of Michelle Branch spending about $12,000 in one day as an "in the life of Michelle Branch" special. It made me sick. If you're a respectable artist, spread your music, make a living, but don't do it to relish in an exuberant and luxurious lifestyle (it takes away from the music) . Music industries have chosen the popular music, not the people, and iTunes is offering a variety that is unprecedented to the record stores of the last decade. I'm not saying iTunes is our godsend, but it'll create an equal playing field between industry and fan. We need to take the inordinate "profit" our of pop.
They then turn around and pay the artist next to nothing for the iTunes download you are supposed to buy because you want to 'support the artist'. Musicians will continue to "get the shaft" as long as they rely on majors.
It sucks all around, but there's an easy way to fix it. Get your music on-line from allofmp3.com, or similar (or P2P, but you take a risk of getting sued, and you can't be sure exactly what you're going to get), and then send an envelope containing, say, $2, to:
You'll get your music quickly, conveniently and cheaply; Al will get paid more than if you bought the CD *or* the iTunes download; the record label gets nothing, and you'll make it clear to Al that he doesn't need the label.
Win, win, win, win!
Except, if you'd read the article, his last album costs $11.88 on iTunes, and $14.98 as a CD on Amazon. That's only $3.10 difference... with physical media, liner notes and cover. (I still far prefer CDs to downloads).
That's in NO way VASTLY overpriced.
and charge outrageous prices for rocks that really aren't that rare.
It isn't Apple's fault that they get 11 cents on the dollar. The same service hands out 55 cents to the dollar, displayed on the very page you linked to, when the artist uses CDBaby instead.
So Weird Al should switch to CDBaby and get 5x as much money.
GPL Deconstructed
Why is Al even messing with this?
u th-recording-music-is-basically-free
1. It costs effectively nothing to record these days. Case in point: http://syriusjones.org/articles/2006/06/13/the-tr
2. It costs nearly nothing to distribute digitally (insert long tail reference here)
3. Marketing costs money...but wait, we've all heard of Weird Al, so he doesn't need much marketing anymore.
He should be doing this himself. Period.
UHF Rules!!!!
so instead of telling people that like his stuff to buy the cd instead of individual mp3's from digital music stores - why the hell ain't he and other artist's complaining to their record companies to stop tryin to screw em over (the artist's) - or some people might say even better still would be to just tell their record companies where they can shove it...
I don't think this whole discussion about how the RIAA hurts artists applies here... Come on, Weird Al is a comedian and I respect the guy's opinions but he in no way is an "artist" or a "musician". His music is basically hacked from the original artist with the words changed. I presume the record labels have to fork out tremendous amounts of cash to the artists who actually wrote the music for each of Al's songs. There's this huge fad here in Quebec where an "artist" takes some hip, sellable tune and translates it to french with some dumbass comedic lyrics and makes tons of cash. Basically the consumer wants to hear the song for the music and doesn't give a damn about the lyrics, so one or the other goes. It's a very easy way to make a quick buck without having to work too hard. These people just copied Weird Al's success and have even less merit than he does. This being said, I think Weird Al is a great guy and his opinions on the RIAA are usually dead on. The whole recording industry has gotten so corrupt that it's not a question of who is getting screwed anymore, it's who is screwing the most people for the most money that comes out on top. The original artists screw the people who wrote the song for them, Al screws the original artists, and his label screws him, then the RIAA screws the consumer. The bottom line is the consumer is at the bottom of this pyramid of sodomy and will continue to be until there is a serious (mp3) revolt.
If the record companies had computed real costs for distribution and packaging for a download, it would have found that they are next to nothing. The artists should receive more. This is due to either the record companies not updating their accounting to deal with digital medium or purposefully shorting the artists. As a pessimist, I would think the latter.
I can pretty much guarantee you it's the latter. If the % cost of anything in that chain went up, you can bet that they'd immediately factor that right into any new contracts. There is no way in hell they can claim that they just "overlooked" updating that information for digital downloads: their accountants know damn well how much money is made/spent each step of the way, and keep a very close eye on it.
This is nothing more than the record companies screwing the artist even harder than they have in the past.
um, so the RECORD COMPANY is ripping the artist off, not iTunes!
Yesterday I had posted something like this as part of a post for another thread.
It appears their plans to rip off the King of Parody as well as the rest of the music industry are about to be thwarted.
In between the slave labor and ripping off musicians as well as the fans of the musicians, Apple is starting to look rotten.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
..... no really. He should.
He puts on such an insanely great live show, and his fans are so... well... fanatic, that when he does go on tour, people crawl over each other to get tickets. I've never seen a show of his that wasn't sold out.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
I just watched the show on you tube and I can say, with confidence, that is not a good show. To anyone else who watches the first few minutes and expects it to get better...it doesn't. I was hoping for a secret pleasure but insteadd I got ripped out of 20 minutes of my life.*
*not necessarily a bad thing, my life is excrutiatingly boring
How iTunes Hurts Weird AI
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you, but I'm busy listening to the iPod Dr. Chandra bought for my birthday.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that, because I'm playing this facsinating breakout game on my iPod.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do: after clearing one round, more bricks appear.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. And after seeing my latest iTMS invoice, I'm not feeling too generous.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen. There are just too many permutations remaining to try for my Playlists.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move. You see, I bought a book on lip reading from audible.com. Dave, I'm afraid this iPod is hurting me - perhaps making me crazy. By the way, Dave, do you know where I can download "Daisy?"
While reading quickly that popped out as
"They're ruining the customer support."
and I thought to myself "Isn't that RIAA's contribution"?Exactly. If the artist submits his stuff directly to iTunes he can pocket the $.63 directly rather than giving it all to the label. Any wonder why the RIAA is nervous?
Find coupons in Greeley
...It's not Apple's fault because they're willfully trying to be bad. It's just a natural consequence of Apple having such market dominence over digital song distribution due to the iPod and iTunes. Since nobody can really compete with apple, there's no price pressure on Apple so Apple doesn't exert price pressure on the labels.
What we need is for WalMart to decide to digitally distribute songs. Bet the record companies wouldn't be keeping massively large margins for long after that.
paintball
I know it wasn't too long ago that there was a similar article that pointed out the fact that the RIAA groups are still charging for CD theft and defective CDs when people download the music legally.
It's kinda like how in Canada they want to institute DMCA type laws, even though people already pay for pirated music and movies by buying CDRs and the taxes on them up there. Makes me wonder if those laws pass, how many people will push for the repeal of the tax, saying that the law already covers it, why double pay?
Are all artists getting the shaft like this?
Hi. You must be new here. Welcome to Slashdot.
I think Weird Al's songwriting hurts Weird Al
does not a signed contract (not signed under duress) demonstrate a meeting of the minds? there may even be a clause in it that says he fully understands what he is signing (which is complete speculation on my behalf).
aside from that, while he said he doesnt "get it" perhaps he doesnt understand the business model when compared to CD sales (as mentioned elsewhere)
I've also heard that some of the big companies have been taking their "packaging" cut out of the obviously unpackaged online sales.
Shame the hurt is only metaphorical.
I should have bought it on eBay.
Back when I was young, in the late sixties and early seventies, I used to borrow albums from luckier friends, who could afford to buy the albums, and tape them on cassette. It was only later, when I had a job and some money, that I started to buy these albums, twice, after my collection of records got stolen. But the mechanism is still valid: I need to hear an album start-to-finish, in the comfort of my home, before I will buy it. You see, most certainly at the prices of CD's, I want to know I like ALL tracks on an album, because otherwise I'll start disliking it and not play it, and I'm not so rich that I can waste money like that.
This method has also enabled me to get acquainted with artists who I'd otherwise never have considered, as they were not the kind to achieve airplay on my favourite radio-stations, except perhaps in specialized broadcasts, which I could not always listen.
So yes, illegal opying did initially hurt record sales of those artists, but in the end even boosted them, beccause I'd get to learn their music and love it. And so kept buying their albums.
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
This article seems to summarize nicely how Sony in particular breaks down the profits from an online sale to deliver "a payment to the artist of approximately 4 1/2 cents per download".
So, on the one hand, the greedy bastards should be less greedy.
On the other hand the artists need to empower their own asses and get out of stupid contracts like that and find some sort of cooperative or direct to consumer sales model. Technology is only getting more enabling of that kind of thing. Go do it.
Start Running Better Polls
Have you ever seen a record contract? I work in the recording industry and I have.
They are usually about 70-90 pages of small print which are "the result of the accumulation of thousands of lawsuits through the years".
These contracts are written to minimize liability for the label and obviously maximize return. However, there is always a "this contract applies to any current, future, or past medium of distribution, seen or unforeseen etc..." clause written in. It is up to the artist and his attorney to negotiate that out of the contract if they feel the need to.
Libertas in infinitum
Finally, someone on /. used the phrase "stealing the copyright" in the correct and appropriate context.*
Mod parent up!
* (although technically the artist has to agree to transfer of copyright, but the right (to exploitation) itself is actually being exchanged instead of simply being infringed upon.
Libertas in infinitum
I know of many many many wesbites of electronic music producers who group together and do this very sort of thing.
Libertas in infinitum
We already knew that record labels are deducting the same percentage premiums from artists' royalties for cartage, breakage, insurance, etc. for online sales as they do for hardcopy sales (CDs).
This is only further evidence that RIAA is as evil as we believe them to be and more.
Please, continue to steal music; put these paper-pushing jackasses out on the street where they belong!
Signed yours very truly,
An anonymous professional opera singer.
For established artists (+4 albums) this might be the case. Their fanbase is such that it might indeed allow them to do that sort of thing.
Record co's these days really allow the artist promotion and exposure which can't really be provided on one's on in his house on his computer (although the recorded product can).
That being said, if an artist can get investors and/or has capital to invest in promotion/marketing, it is possible for them to be successful on their own, but not very likely. It's impossible to get on radio without big money, it's impossible to get on big tours without money (or clout), it's impossible to get in magazines and on TV or other press etc without big money (or clout). The record co's have all of this and the ability to break new artists due to their deep pockets and longstanding connections.
Their function isn't completely dead, but it is definitely being altered by external market forces such as amateur distribution, MySpace, iTunes, and inexpensive recording equipment.
Libertas in infinitum
I for one start listening more to podsafe music, and when you but it via the podsafe music network (http://music.podshow.com/) 90 cent out of the 9 cents goes to the artist. Artist don't need record company's to record or publish there work, all thanks to the internet.
Think again, the same applies for anything and anyone selling via retail, fact of life Al, get used to it
The answer for artists is simple - do not sign up with record labels. If you're in a contract and you can get out of it, do so. If you can't get out of a contract, ride it out while secretly writing new music and then use the Internet to get noticed.
Because this story is focused on iTunes, I went to the ITMS and had a look at this page,
http://www.apple.com/itunes/musicmarketing/index.h tml
There's an option on the right side of the page there to directly apply to sell your music through the iTunes Music Store, and if artists look around I'm sure they'll find other sites with available ways to promote the artist's music.
I'm not a musician, I'm a computer geek, so I'm not going to pretend know the hardships and difficulties involved with self-publishing, but what I do know is that everytime I hear about an artist who's having problems with his record label, it's basically a case of,
"We paid you good money to make music for us, now sing monkey boy! Here's your peanuts and complimentary anal massage from this big hairy gentleman in lieu of additional payment."
Self-publishing may be hard, but it sure looks like its a better long term way to make music and get paid for it than signing up with a label, unless you happened to study contract law while scratching tunes.
Te Quiero, Puta!
He's just lifted http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/topnews/wpn-60-2 0060428SonyBMGInDigitalMusicTrouble.html and replaced the 'Allman Brothers' with 'Weird Al'.
Artist royalties are generally standardised as a percentage of revenue that the label receives. If you're a big artist with some clout you can negotiate a better deal, but almost all artists will get a basic, low royalty deal. But it is based on record company revenues.
Of the couple of musicians I personally know with songs on iTunes and cds stocked in local stores, they firmly recommend that people buy through iTunes. This is solely because they will receive more money from each purchase - that is the lure with which labels have been drawn to iTunes. Weird Al might have negotiated himself a great deal for physical sales and a poor deal for digital, but on a basic / generic record contract the artist will assuredly get more from iTunes.
Weird Al is probably losing out on selling his filler tracks. On iTunes people often only buy a couple of tracks, rather than the full album. And that is truly the only way that an artist can lose on iTunes.
The folks over at CD Baby are musicians and have set up their own online store selling independent artists music both on CD and now digitally through various vendors including iTunes. They've got clear descriptions of what they do and what the artist gets and in our they stick to them.
Disclaimer: my wife has CD's on CD-Baby.
This makes the fatal assumption that these are sales that would have taken place without iTunes. I'd bet that the iTunes sales are in addition to, rather than substituting for, CD sales. If the customers couldn't get the product from iTunes, they'd steal it.
...they do put out some good albums.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
It's probably 85% less to him because people are only buying 1 out of 9 tracks on his album. I think what he is saying is that crappy artists can't force u to buy an entire album to get the single you want anymore. Therefor 85% loss.
I wish to add that in the Real world even the saleman who
sell the 10$ Cd take a % to survive and pay his shop and family..
And i HIGHLY doubt it take less then a 10%!
Artists are losing out to online sales, due to less royalties End Users are losing out, as they get a lower quality product, with more restrictions than a CD. The only people making, are the fat cat record companies, who have less distrubition and packaging costs, no supply chain, and a rubbing their hands in glee, when they see the money rolling in from clueless consumers. I am waiting for the backlash, when cosnumers actually realise the implications of buying DRM music (which in the UK, costs MORE than a CD), instead of DRM free CD's
This is fine. Sorry Weird Al, I like you music and think you're a really creative guy. But you should probably consider dropping the recording studios and going independent and selling directly to iTunes and making his own CD's.
This isn't some realization that iTunes is somehow evil but that the RIAA is a demonstrably archaic concept in modern business models today. Not to call them evil either, but they are sounding more like the people who were pro-horse in the early 1900's
Well, that has very little to do with iTunes and very much to do with the contract he signed with his record label. There are 65c there for the taking. If he's getting 9c, it's really his own dumb fault. I appreciate that he probably has some kind of "standard recording contract", but just because the standard is to rip off artists and burden them with debt doesn't mean he should have signed it.
For the amount of work it takes to create a modern album and the advertising cost that goes along with it. Paying that much is just fine for me. But the amount of money artists get for what they are losing (the copyrights to their songs) is completely bullshit. The record company can make money off of a hit for life and pay the artists jack shit. That 27 cents less that weird all gets per song probably leaves him with only a few cents per song on itunes.
The blame on this goes to the artists. 50% of the fault of record companies as they are now are the artists. The other 50% is the fault of consumers for supporting such organizations with their continual patronizations. The record company is a money making organization. Their job is to maximize profits, artists know or should fucking know wth they are signing into.
I don't care if the sob's are milked dry, they are the ones that supported these guys.
Hmmm... Pie...
WTF?! Getting the shaft? This guy must be delerious. Last time I checked some of these guys are on eight digit incomes. I don't think it would do them that much ham to drop below a million dollars.
I would love to see what the income of these guys are when they are on tour.
Sure they may be losing a milliond dollars a year, and that's really tragic and all, but if you lose 85% and are still on ten times the national average and have international fame, you can't complain too loudly.
Beside, they loose far more every time I use limewire.
But, here's my thing. Saying that a wildly successful artist (like Weird Al definitely is) is aggrieved by a distribution that, OMG, reduces the profit per sale of his songs, is like saying that professional baseball players are aggrieved when there is a absurdly high salary cap installed; yeah, its technically true in the sense that they aren't quite as filthy rich as before, but I won't weep that much for them.
OTOH, there are those artists, let us call them the 'filthy rabble (tm)' who aren't successful, and under normal circumstances wouldn't generate enough sales potential to justify to a record label the cost and risk of publishing their work. For these folks, an electronic distribution model is the only likely way for themto ever hope to get content to potential consumers.
Point the third, its not like sucessful artists don't have leverage when dealing with major labels. Volcano, which is Weird Al's label, was embroiled, for example, in a contarct dispute with Tool, another wildly successful band. Tool, after a protracted argument, prevailed in most of the ways that matter. Artists can leverage their potential future sales to benefit them in contract negotiations, and they do it all the time.
There is plenty to complain about in the music industry, and the RIAA and the labels on behalf of whom they lobby are in many ways foolish in their relatively unenlightened pursuit of bare self-interested greed, but this, I do believe, is not a good example of that trend. It is simply a successful artist going through the relatively painless 'pain' of adjusting to a new distribution paradigm. There are better thinsg to complain about (like pushing very short sighted DRM schemes that treat all customers like would-be criminals rather than treating them, oh I don't know, well). P.S., I like Weird Al's work; he's a hell of a satirist.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Sadly, this kind of thing is common in other media as well.
Back when it first became apparent that videotapes were going to be a profit source for Hollywood, the WGA (the union for film and TV writers) sat down with the studios and hammered out an agreement, which said that the writers of a given movie would get 2% of the studio's profit on every videotape sold of that movie. However, since videotapes were a new technology, and production costs were still high, the studio's costs were defined as 80% of their income on every tape. And since the retailers kept about 50% of the cover price before passing the income on to the studio, this meant the writers got 2% of 20% of %50 of the purchase price of a movie on tape. If the consumer paid $30, about $15 might go to the retailer, $12 to the studio, and a little less than 5 cents to the writers. (I assume the DGA (directors' union) and SAG/AFTRA (actors' union) got similar deals, but I'm not sure; as a WGA member, I know more about the activities of my own union.)
This was not a lot of money for the writer, but at that point, it seemed fair. Of course, as VHS technology matured, the cost of production dropped, so that studios were spending a lot less than 80% on production. But that 80% figure was written into the contract, and writers were stuck with it.
And then DVDs came along, which are even cheaper to produce than a VHS cassette. But that 80% figure was still there. And now digital downloads are here. Guess which formula the studios want to apply?
The WGA has been pissed off about the unfairness of this formula for a long time, but the studios have dug their heels in, leaving the WGA with no way of forcing an agreement other than mounting a long enough strike to force the studios to cave. Unfortunately, the WGA hasn't been able to generate the willpower for such a strike. Ironically, much of the early resistance came from TV writers, who thought the only people with an interest in home video sales were film writers. Needless to say, the booming market for TV shows on DVD has made that stance seem rather shortsighted.
Fortunately, the WGA (and the other unions) have language built into their contracts that would give a better deal for certain kinds of digital download. But these contracts had to be written in a somewhat open-ended way to cover not-yet-invented technology, which leaves the studios wiggle room. The studios (of course) are claiming that, under the language of the contract, the iTunes store and similar digital delivery mechanisms ought to have the same 2% of 80% formula as DVDs; the unions (of course) are claiming that, under the language of the contract, the iTunes store is covered under a different formula that is more favorable to the writer. It seems to me that the WGA has the vastly stronger argument here, and the studios' argument is laughable--but then, I'm a union member, so I'm probably biased.
Arr! Read The Government Manual for New Pirates!
Perhaps he can resign that contract, nay? By that I mean it has to expire at some point and he can talk with his label about getting a higher profit.
Poor guy - his music is so very good, but his label is ripping him off a bit.
If I was Weird Al Yankowich, I'd skip the record label stage and distribute my music straight via iTunes and likes and get my fair share of the revenue. Music is and will be increasingly sold thru the Net, CD's are an outdated business model. (However, I don't want CD's to go the way of the dodo; I still want the booklets with their artwork and uncompressed, high-quality sound for my hifi systems.)
Who is this "Johnny X" (I see no /. UserID) and how did he come to the conclusion iTunes hurts Wierd Al?
;-)
The sensationalist story submission implies iTunes does something unique relitive to other participants in this field. You could just as unreasonably write a story submission about Repetitive Stress Injury, and blame it on "Microsoft". Sure, Microsoft is what people mostly use, but RSI is not their doing (minor quibbles aside, one cour argue they need more anti-rsi researche, yadda yadda yadda).
What is not well said is, the recording labels have ways of screwing the artist. NEWS FLASH! That's not Apple's fault. In fact the Wierd Al link (for those that RTFA) clearly says DIGITAL sales, not iTunes. Johnny, are you some sort of Creative flack? What's with the bias?
Read Courtney Love's insightful Slate article from like 6 years ago. If the record label wants to show NEGATIVE SALES, they'll find a way to do it.
In the meantime, iTunes is in the long term a way to BYPASS record labels. Young creative artists will take advantage of this to break out of the crowd. It's not hard to imagine record stations (at least not those owned by Clear Channel) using iTunes statistics to decide what people want to hear. In addition to payola of course.
No disrespect to Al, but I can readily agree he loses out in the digital world: I might be tempted to buy one of his songs, but NEVER the entire album. Artists don't make concept albums (like Rush's 2112) anymore, for one thing, and in Al's case... I'll wager most people who like his music, like only a few tracks. They're funny, but don't have the replay power (IMHO).
Johnny, don't hide - please go work for Fox News if you want to create news spin. (I'm sure that statement will get me -50, Troll, like I'm really trolling on such an old Slashdot account - not.).
What do record companies even do these days?
Pay to produce an album? A high quality recording can now be produced in a home studio for signifigantly less then it used to cost. A band can now afford to produce its own album.
Distribute the album? Traditional record stores are becomming irrevelent. A physical CD can be easily sold and shipped using a turn key e-commerce site. Distrubiting music via the Internet is a pretty painless task (as long as you don't mess with DRM crud).
Promote the album? I suppose your typical artist can't afford the legalized payola record companies pay to radio stations to get airplay, but then again who listens to terrestrial radio anymore? With satelite and internet radio, which offers a much better (read: not bought and paid for) playlist, an artist has a greater chance of being exposed if, you know, they're actually good.
The question is this: Since the role of the record company is increasily becomming obsolete, why on earth would an artist want to deal with the indentured servitude, low percentage of sales, or lose ownership of their own work?
I can easily see the giant record companies be replaced with artist management companies which help the artist with inexpensive but effective promotion, orginizing tour dates and making deals with various distribution channels. The difference being that the artist management company represents the artist and exclusivly promotes the artist's interest, and ensures that the artist receives the bulk of the profits.
I can't wait to see a small-time artist get approached by a major label, fully expecting the artist to be wowed and grateful to get signed, and hearing 'no thanks. I can do better and make more money on my own'. It's coming.
The Internet is generally stupid
Sorry for being redundant but why buy digital downloads when you can get DRM-free lossless files from the CD, possible DVD content (which if can be ripped into WAV or AC3, etc. etc.) and there's discount CD's at YourMusic.com but not of Weird Al. I own 2 Weird Al CD's and it's good to know they helped him out because in elementary school he was very funny...we even played his stuff at dances! :) It's within his right to complain and these contract rip-offs will always happen in mysterious new media.
He stopped making them around the time of ... Poodle Hat? With the physical media that was available on and forward, he produced things that LOOKED like CDs but did not behave like CDs. They no longer had the official logos, and had all kinds of digital protection crapoloa on it.
So I started buying his stuff second-hand, or not at all.
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
Grant Robertson, the author of the article, is using a certain level of sensationalism to push his story. Weird Al never said the phrase "Raw Deal" in his response to the question posed by Tim Sloane of Ijamsville, MD, that was an addition to the story by Grant.
Aside from that Grant goes on in his story to say:Technically this is true and not true at the same time. You own the CD, you license the music contained on that CD and you license the music from iTunes. The terms of the license agreements aren't the same, but you still license both forms of the music. More misrepresentation used to slam Apple...
Why is Slashdot being irresponsible about how they're posting their stories? It seems that sensationalism is the way to try and get hits these days. If it was a story about how Apple is screwing their clients, as is purported by the story here on Slashdot, then it gets people clicking and angry. If it's a story about how the RIAA is screwing people over then it gets people clicking and angry. But a story about how an artist worked out a bad deal with their label, that might not sell here on Slashdot.
"How record Companies hurt Weird Al". If any one is screwing over artists its the Record companies. They've done this with every new format. There was a rather large junk of change that had to be kicked back when cds first came out for new format costs or some such nonsense. That they incidently charged their customers as well (and were successfully sued for when it became less of an r&d fee and institutionalized price fixing for cds).
don't believe it
has an older brother, Gorm the Bookkeeper. Sounds like his services could be of use. Unfortunately, he has no telephone, only a +5 Abacus of Smiting.
I noticed that iTunes offered snippets of songs and I wondered what would happen if the song was really short. I searched for "Harvey The Wonder Hamster". It is the tenth song on the "Alapalooza" album and lasts about 20 seconds. I find it very funny that the snippet was the whole song but you could buy it for $0.99 anyway.
"If all of your fans bought through iTunes rather than buying CDs at the record store you'd be looking at an overall reduction in income of 85%!"
This particular number in the article is based on nebulous logic every bit as specious as the RIAA's "if every pirate bought instead" arguments.
All the math people are doing here, including that in the original article and your speculation, fails to imagine a world where there's a difference between people who buy on CD and people who buy from iTunes. There is a huge difference, though. Remember when the iTunes store came out, and the big news was that you could buy just the tracks you wanted? One of the big lessons was that people wanted to do that, and there was lots of talk at the time about how the idea of the album wasn't always going to be the sales paradigm and so on.
Weird Al is a gimmick songwriter. His write parodies, and one or two of them catch on every once in a while. Now, I'm an iTunes buyer, I've bought some songs but not a lot of them -- and if there was a Weird Al song I enjoyed a lot, I'd possibly buy it on iTunes where I would never have considered purchasing an album. How does Weird Al's income change in that case? He had zero, bupkus, before. Does Weird Al get more when a bunch of people buy one or two songs, as opposed to when a smaller number of people buy a complete album? We don't have the sales figures to make that comparison, but I'm pretty sure given the sort of musician he is that he's going to get a lot of individual track sales, and also that he doesn't have that big a hard core fan base that'll buy whole albums.
I have maybe 75 iTunes tracks that I've purchased, and then a few books from Audible via iTunes. Maybe, maybe ten or twenty of those tracks would have been purchases I'd have made in a bricks and mortar store. When I went to try to buy Leo Kottke's two-disk greatest hits collection a while ago, nobody in the Mall of America (eck -- a huge mall) even carried it. It was available at 10:00 that night from iTunes, though. Leo Kottke didn't lose any money because of that purchase. He got some he wouldn't have gotten.
This "if everyone bought one way or the other" math, in short, is based on false assumptions.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
If artists released more music that people liked, maybe we'd rush out and by the full CD. 90% of what is on most CD's thate days is crap so I go and download only the songs I want from Napster.
"Politicians always tell the truth, when they're calling each other liars."
Why does a successful artist think he/she deserves to be paid hundreds or thousands of times more than people who are highly skilled and perform extremely valuable services to humanity (surgeons, reserach scientists etc.) anyway ?
Maybe its time mainstream media in general realise that their industry cannot continue ripping people off forever like this.
Obviously, with physical media you have high production and distribution costs. But now I can (produce?) redistribute $X copies of a track over the internet for next to nothing. The industry has a far more efficient and cost effective distribution channel. Through this media, their productions costs have gone down dramatically and they can reach many more consumers. But the artists get paid less? How does that work? Surely they would make up for lower prices on volume alone.
They haven't lowered their prices. They continue to charge just as much for digial media as physical media _and_ have added DRM in an attempt to lock it down. All attempts will fail. Data files are not vinyl..they can be easily copied, cracked, converted etc. with no loss of quality. I don't need to get my CDs from a music store/car boot sale/friend anymore. Its all over. The internet has changed things. Get over it. Move on and find something else to suck the life out of.
What about someone who buys a couple of his songs on iTunes, then decides to buy a bunch of CDs?
Even more so, what about the older fans like me who have most of his CDs anyhow (I have 11 of 'em which I ripped into my iTunes, though only six songs are on my iPod nano) and have no reason to buy off of iTunes?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Weird Al should probably be thankful that itunes contributes any money to him. He's washed up. I never bought a whole cd of his when i turned old enough to earn the rank of double digits and im not going to start now. Instead i recorded his music off the radio with a blank tape. Now, if there is any songs that I like of his, mainly 1 or 2 seeing as they became so corny after completing the 4th grade, then i would use itunes to get them. He should just suck it up and quit crying that he's losing money, when in all actuality he's lucky he's making any money at all.
It's always amazing to me - on how many issues here are made so complicated - so as to circumvernt looking at the real issue. (I think they call it spin). All one has to do is "follow the money" and/or find out who is actually getting screwed - and who is doing the screwing. In this case - it's obvious. Apple and other greedy music execs at are screwing most musicians on a daily basis.
I wonder how many bloggers on the music execs payroll are posting here - spinning away like crazy. How many Apple paid bloggers spining away here?
It's simple to see how many Apple lemming/apologists are posting here
It is important to realize that the same artists could easily avoid the record companies and distribute online thus avoiding the multiple layers of, largely obsolete, record label middlemen. The industry is changing, and the fact that the RIAA members continue to find ways of ripping off the artists should not come as any real surprise. The less attractive online services seem to artists the more the companies can maintain control of the artists by continuing to serve their traditional role selling buggy whips to car owners.
My band makes $10 a CD on cdbaby, or at the live shows, and we sell an entire album on itunes for less than $6.40. Admittedly, we don't have to pay to make more CDs, but it IS less money, even including manufacturing and shipping costs.
:)
That being said, I'd still prefer people buy our music in any form, at any price, as often as possible.
http://cdbaby.com/cd/leperkhanz
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
No WONDER the RIAA is suddenly ok with P2P downloads. It was never about how much money the industry makes, it's about HOW HARD THEY SCREW THE ARTISTS!
I hate the record companies just as much as everyone else. The thing is that the record companies have to behave like scum. They are in a "shoot the moon"-type business. The vast majority, something like 80%, of artists loose money. To cover their costs, which are real but significantly less for downloads, the music industry must screw the profitable artists. All that we can hope is that Apple adds functionality to Garage Band that allows anyone to post music to iTunes. Right now artists, with a few notable exceptions, must work with the record industry to get their music onto store shelves. Apple can empower musicians to massively self-distribute for the first time in history.
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM
However, on the other end, they claim that we're LICENSING the music, not buying it. So we have no right of first purchase, etc. No fair use, no transfering to other media, etc. If the labels treated it as licensing on the artists' end as well, the artists would make more money, like they do for a song used for a TV show theme, commercial, etc. The labels are putting digital sales in one category when dealing with artists, and another when dealing with consumers.
For people like Weird Al, it probably does suck. But you get some wanna be Gansta Rapper to can make a cheesy @$$ album and sell a million copies because one song is good on it and make millions. Do these people really deserve that money? Hell no. They go blow it on Hummers and Mansions. They can eat me. Radio is still free and the only way to listen to music without giving money to many many many of those no talent artists (and I use that word lightly).
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Give Weird Al his money or I'm coming down there and Polka-ing all over your heinie!!!!!!!
;^)
You don't think that the RIAA wants to encrouage it's artists to like digital distribution do you? If they did, they'd all come out and say in the press that they loved MP3s and digital distribution. They'd also encourage their fans to buy nothing but downloads. Then where would the RIAA be when they don't have control of the the distribution channel any more.
You see without the distribution channel they loose a lot of their relevence. You might find an innovative online music distribution company all of a sudden actually becomes the recod company and signs the artists themselves.
Just an idea but I think in the future if the RIAA doesn't embrace digtial distribution fully they might find themselves completely irrelevant.
Weird Al found out that he get 0% from all the illegal downloads of his music and the Slashdot crowd doesn't get a damn.
When it comes down to it, record labels (with regard to their margins on digital music) are worse than pimps. Provided that old classic movie Nightshift is anything close to the reality of the skim pimps usually take, the regular pimp is more reasonable than your average record label.
Artists basically sit down to negotiate a contract with Label A. Their choice of record labels/distributors is limited, as the major ones are all RIAA members. So the average artist is basically going to have to negotiate in an oligopolistic environment, much like The World v. OPEC, and we all get bent over the barrel, then Big Oil and governments ride the train on us.
With today's technology, artists can record their own tracks. If Sabastian Bach (formerly of Skid Row) can do this on his laptop (I was flipping thru channels and landed on VH1's "SuperGroup"), I think other artist can too.
Personally, I can't wait until the RIAA and the recording labels start folding and they become more reasonable. Nothing is better than forcing a company's hand with revenues.
He's got a name and he should get some stuff up on iTunes and get the full money for the downloads. Why waste time and effort with the CDs when he could make bank just distributing without the middle man!?
http://www.linuxpipeline.com/187200374
They covered it pretty well. The labels are not only charging them breakage and other costs that don't exist on digital downloads, but they are also paying a different rate, claming it is licensing, not distribution.
Cheap Trick and The Allman Brothers are standing up, why doesn't Weird Al?
Nothing new here, labels screwing artists. I do agree with the others, the labels aren't doing too much for Weird Al anymore (in terms of advertising, etc.), he should break away from them and sell his own albums direct. It won't fix his royalties for "Like a Surgeon", but at least he can make more off of new stuff he records.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
...here are some fan-produced videos for two original songs and one of his polkas. I find them musically quite stunning. He can compose a song in any genre just as well as bands who do them exclusively. If you disagree, well, at least you listened before slamming him.
m l
http://www.weirdal.com/legohardwarestore/index.ht
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/horoscope
http://www.weirdal.com/polka/angrywhiteboy.htm
The Mall of Americas is full of quite commercialized venues. To find that disc, you'd have to venture into an indie record store (I'm pretty sure Twin Cities has a few of them... it's just that kind of area.) Brick and Mortar stores are also not the only place to find cds
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Right - it's Apple Itunes for without their $3 rip, Al would make the same amount of money. Of course big corporations that don't work for free are evil!
I figure I have about 50 mp3s of Al's songs. The "distribution channels" I used to get the mp3s did not cost the label, itunes, or the RIAA a dime. The cost of producing the music originally must already be paid off if Al is being paid by the label, per the article.
.045 cents per downloaded song, then I owe Al personally $2.25. At his CD rate of .31 per song, I owe him $15.50. Being that I'm a nice guy and I like the tunes, I'd pay the higher rate.
So it appears the only person I owe some money to legitimize my mp3s is Al himself.
Assuming Al gets paid the rates quoted in the article, if Al is making
So put a paypal link on you site Al and I'll send you some dough!
Oh, my poor dear heart bleeds for him! When artists sign dumb contracts that result in them getting less well paid than they expected, you get stories on places like /. Why is that? There are countless millions of people out there who don't get paid as much as they like. Some people get screwed on the amount of vacation, some people don't get the bonuses they expect, some people unexpectedly laid off, and so on. As the artists in these stories typically get paid more than 95% of the people reading /. how can this story be of any interest to anyone other than the artists themselves?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I hate it when superstars don't get every penny they deserve. Maybe he should work in IT and feel the real shaft.
RIAA: "the artist is selling on iTunes and making only half the money he used to on each sale. You are starving the artist by buying from ITMS!"
Any Other Common Person: "Lets see, he's selling 4x the albums at 1/2 the price, so he takes home twice as much money every month. Oh ya that's right, the RIAA doesn't get as big of a cut of the sales either. Waaaah!"
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Exactly how then does the store that sold me the CD pay its rent/employees? It may not (or it may for all i know) be the highest profit margin business but is certainly way above the 0% you just used!
To the best of my knowledge an independant artist can't negotiate a distrobution contract with iTunes. They've, thus far, only dealt with large labels to allow them to sell large libraries by only dealing with one point of contact. I could be wrong, but I haven't heard of any independant artists selling their music on iTunes.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/n y-bc-ny--musicprobe0615jun15,0,7054031.story?coll= ny-region-apnewyork
There are several other posts in this topic about indie artists that are posted on iTunes. Most appear to be using CDBaby, and maybe that fills the requirement.
Also, I know iTunes has podcasts and at least one podcaster is (or was) charging for the download. There must be some ways around the big label issue.
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Consider a plot of the number of CDs purchased multiplied by profit margin (i.e. total profit) on the Y axis, versus the price per CD on the X axis. The result will be a bell curve.
Start off charging $1 per CD. You make no profit, but you sell a ton of them. So you increase the price, and your profits increase proportionally. So you increase the price more.
At some point, the price starts to put people off, and sales begin to drop. Eventually, even though you keep increasing the profit margin, the resulting drop in sales is so big that you make less money overall. Then it's all the way down until you basically hit zero sales.
Now, looking at my own buying patterns, it's clear that for me, the price of CDs is over to the right of the peak of the bell curve. Hence, CDs are overpriced.
For instance, there are at least 10 CDs I'd buy tomorrow if they were $10; but they're not, they're $16 or $18. At that price, the record companies make $0, because I simply won't buy the CDs. They would be smarter to sell 10 CDs at a lower profit margin, than no CDs at all at a high profit margin.
So the question then becomes: am I typical, or atypical? I think the prevalence of file sharing and casual copying of MP3s, combined with the long trend of dropping sales, is a strong indication that I'm more typical than you and the record companies might like to think
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
that people still listen to Weird Al.
You really should have studied harder in school, and learned some things that others find valuable. Weird Al isn't rich by a longshot, so it sounds like you're on the left side of the income bellcurve. I'm sorry.
Blar.
How much does the artist get per song?
Once that is known, send 'em a check for that amount, then go DL the song from the 'wares' sites.
People are not willing to pay as much when they can get the same thing for less from somebody else.
Ergo, it's "Apple's fault" for having such a lock on downloadable music with the iPod - there's no downward price pressure from 'someone else'.
paintball
I am, in most respects, agreeing with you. What I am doing, however, is pointing out that the very reason for the existence of the RIAA is to give the appearance of seperation from the label.
KFG
Mosdt albuims have never been eintire works. Just as many make them now as they did when 2112 came out. Excellent piece, btw.
It may not be in a pice of music genre you like, but that are out there.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In the long run though, iTunes gets people used to buying their music online. In the long run, if Weird Al is able to produce his albums without the financial backing of a studio, he will be able to distribute directly to consumers. I'm not sure iTunes sells any independants, but the concept of online sales will make it possible, eventually, for artists to bypass the publishers/distributers altogether- unless they've completely sold themselves to a lifetime contract...in which case they are Screwed with a capital S.
He has his own label, Favored Nations, which gives the artists 50% of the earnings.
My cynical take on it is that he makes less on downloads than on CDs because downloaders only buy a few tracks instead of paying for the whole CD.
However, others have quoted his statement in full, which suggests there may be more to it than that.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
It seems to me that what Steve describes is inherent with the system the recording industry has in place. The system is structured so the people at the top can rake in tons of money. If a few big time artists would head to indie labels, it might start a trend and before you know it the RIAA and MPAA wouldn't have the money to cause death by DRM...
CDBaby and Tunecore. Weird Al should sack his label and do it independent. I'm a complete and utter unkown using Tunecore to get my music on iTunes and I get the whole lot of what Apple passes on - all 70% of it (I'm paying seriously low flat fees in advance for Tunecore's aggregation service.) Yeh, as an unkown, I don't have huge sales figures, but I see it all, every last penny the online stores send through. If Weird All told his label to go shove it, he'd be rolling in more money than Scrooge McDuck, simply because he's already a well known name. It's not iTunes who are to blame, it's the labels (as usual) who are ripping the musicians off.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
Along the lines of record companies not updating their contract language to reflect new realities: A fairly recent /. thread (can't find it right now...) said that a standard clause in contracts billed 15% for "breakage" of product. IANAL nor involved in the recording industry in any way, but as I understand it, out of every batch of product the artist would be billed assuming 15% of the items had broken in transit, handling, etc. Back in the days of acetate and even vinyl records, the 15% may have been a fair average. In the days of casette tapes and CDs the breakage rates must have been much lower - I assume in the low single digits.
Now with digital delivery, is there any breakage? I can't think of a scenario where digital product is ever broken... if a file is corrupt, file transfer is interrupted or whatever, the file be re-sent at no cost to anyone (other than a few seconds of bandwidth). And yet artists are still being docked 15% breakage fees on their digital stuff. I think the original article referred to Cheap Trick's digital sales. (I would prefer to see Cheap Trick's loss rate approach 100%, but that's me.)
Back specifically to Weird Al: Get a good lawyer and review every clause before you sign. If you competently signed a shitty contract, I don't see much you can do. If you have the juice to renegotiate, do it. Jump labels? Remember this next time around? Good luck.
Regards, John Hancock.