kinda neat to see the slashdot effect in action with that little web counter at the bottom of the live bait page: http://www.agthompson.com/livebait.htm
This is an older article from May 16th when Courtney Love gave a speech on Napster and Recording Labels and such. Good speech too bad she killed Kurt Cobain
=] anyway here's the first page:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/lov e/
Courtney Love does the math
The controversial singer takes on record label profits, Napster and "sucka VCs."
Editor's note: This is an unedited transcript of Courtney Love's speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference, given in New York on May 16.
By Courtney Love
June 14, 2000 | Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software.
I'm talking about major label recording contracts.
I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do some recording-contract math:
This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.
What happens to that million dollars?
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals... zero!
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.
The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.
They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
After beating halo on easy and a roommate beating the game on normal, I have to say In my opinion i'm pretty dissapointed with HALO. Yes it's very pretty and i like that there are checkpoints frequently, and it can be very difficult at times. It was missing gameplay though. I was dissapointed by the lack of weapons, mobs, unique level design and the ending was very lackluster.
SPOILER
No big final bosses, just a 4 minute crazy ride on the warthog through mobs of chittering Covenant and Flood. Surviving this gives you a short cinematic in which you fly off into the universe in search of a sequel.
so all in all, probably the smoothest and prettiest Console first person shooter i've played, but the hype and potential far succeded the end product.
Although i disagree with a judge being able to condem something as illegal without guidlines, like most things that are new to the judicial system it's going to take some time to properly define what is legal and what isnt. For example using credit card laws as a basis for e-mail virus cases. i.e. the I love you virus.
This whole ordeal is nothing new to the internet community. Once a situation that an organization for one reason or another decides it's a "problem", becomes widespread enough to get the attention of Recording industries, politicians and local news channels, people that dont really understand the situation or it's consequences demand answers and solutions to the problem. This same thing has been happening over and over since the BBS days. Anyone remember all the commotion companies were making over IRC and the trading of warez?
Slashdot Mirror
kinda neat to see the slashdot effect in action with that little web counter at the bottom of the live bait page: http://www.agthompson.com/livebait.htm
This is an older article from May 16th when Courtney Love gave a speech on Napster and Recording Labels and such. Good speech too bad she killed Kurt Cobain
v e/
... zero!
=] anyway here's the first page:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/lo
Courtney Love does the math
The controversial singer takes on record label profits, Napster and "sucka VCs."
Editor's note: This is an unedited transcript of Courtney Love's speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference, given in New York on May 16.
By Courtney Love
June 14, 2000 | Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software.
I'm talking about major label recording contracts.
I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do some recording-contract math:
This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.
What happens to that million dollars?
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.
The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.
They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
www.xbox.com/support/default.htm
it's about halfway down the page
The service is planned to go live in the summer of 2002
After beating halo on easy and a roommate beating the game on normal, I have to say In my opinion i'm pretty dissapointed with HALO. Yes it's very pretty and i like that there are checkpoints frequently, and it can be very difficult at times. It was missing gameplay though. I was dissapointed by the lack of weapons, mobs, unique level design and the ending was very lackluster.
SPOILER
No big final bosses, just a 4 minute crazy ride on the warthog through mobs of chittering Covenant and Flood. Surviving this gives you a short cinematic in which you fly off into the universe in search of a sequel.
so all in all, probably the smoothest and prettiest Console first person shooter i've played, but the hype and potential far succeded the end product.
Not just a blue full moon either
This is a Blue Harvest Moon, the next one wont be until *scratches head* 2022 (i think that's what i heard on NPR)
well what about role playing games? we could hook it up to vampires the masquerade IV when it comes out =] -jhestyr
Although i disagree with a judge being able to condem something as illegal without guidlines, like most things that are new to the judicial system it's going to take some time to properly define what is legal and what isnt. For example using credit card laws as a basis for e-mail virus cases. i.e. the I love you virus.
This whole ordeal is nothing new to the internet community. Once a situation that an organization for one reason or another decides it's a "problem", becomes widespread enough to get the attention of Recording industries, politicians and local news channels, people that dont really understand the situation or it's consequences demand answers and solutions to the problem. This same thing has been happening over and over since the BBS days. Anyone remember all the commotion companies were making over IRC and the trading of warez?