I think the Apple service looks pretty good too. I just wish I could get my label's music on it. I mean, I didn't expect Jobs to fly his jet to my house and ask for copies of our cds or anything, but it would be nice if there was an avenue to get music not made by one of the five majors on the service.
Everyone want to do me a favor and request music from "Stop, Pop, and Roll" in the requests section? I'd be a big help!
First, you have to sign the artist to a contract. That's about $1000 in lawyer's fees (and usually well worth it). Then you have to make some demos. Those shouldn't be much more than $100 for tapes and cds. Then you actually have to go into a studio and record the thing. This probably costs $5000 if you're careful and no one working on it makes a decent wage. Then it needs to be mixed and mastered by people that know what they're doing. That's about $2000 for mixing and $1000 for mastering if you shop around. Assuming the artwork and photography is free, pressing the cds comes in at about $1 per cd.
But that's just the beginning. Radio promotion can run from $300-$3000 per month as can Press promotion. We're an independent label so those numbers are closer to the bottom. Then if we want to buy an ad in a magazine that's another $200-1000.
More than likely, at this point we'll need to press more cds before we even have the technical possibility of breaking even.
Don't forget about publishing royalties. These are usually owned by the artists (unless they have a really bad manager). The artist, by owning the publishing, gets a check from radio airplay. The publishing represents the copyright on the song itself, not the recording of the song.
There is no realistic way you could just pay the artists.
Royalties are due to two entities:
the holder of the copyright of the composition (the chords and lyrics)
the holder of the copyright of the actual sound recording itself
Traditionally performance royalties are paid to the holder of the sound copyright only. The only time the recording itself generates royalties is if it's synchronized to film.
So when we talk about paying the "artist" we need to be sure which entity we're trying to compensate.
Also, either one of these copyrights can be jointly owned by the "artist" and the record company or publishing company.
In short, the record industry model is very strange and unusual. If Napster had decided to enable swapping of photographs we'd be having a much simpler discussion.
Howard Jones actually did this on his last tour. After the show you could buy a cd of the show you just heard. That's the kind of innovation you won't see from a major label.
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I think the Apple service looks pretty good too. I just wish I could get my label's music on it. I mean, I didn't expect Jobs to fly his jet to my house and ask for copies of our cds or anything, but it would be nice if there was an avenue to get music not made by one of the five majors on the service. Everyone want to do me a favor and request music from "Stop, Pop, and Roll" in the requests section? I'd be a big help!
First, you have to sign the artist to a contract. That's about $1000 in lawyer's fees (and usually well worth it). Then you have to make some demos. Those shouldn't be much more than $100 for tapes and cds. Then you actually have to go into a studio and record the thing. This probably costs $5000 if you're careful and no one working on it makes a decent wage. Then it needs to be mixed and mastered by people that know what they're doing. That's about $2000 for mixing and $1000 for mastering if you shop around. Assuming the artwork and photography is free, pressing the cds comes in at about $1 per cd. But that's just the beginning. Radio promotion can run from $300-$3000 per month as can Press promotion. We're an independent label so those numbers are closer to the bottom. Then if we want to buy an ad in a magazine that's another $200-1000. More than likely, at this point we'll need to press more cds before we even have the technical possibility of breaking even.
Don't forget about publishing royalties. These are usually owned by the artists (unless they have a really bad manager). The artist, by owning the publishing, gets a check from radio airplay. The publishing represents the copyright on the song itself, not the recording of the song.
Stop, Pop, and Roll is pretty cool about stuff like this. The label has what it calls, "Dark music for bright people."
Royalties are due to two entities:
Traditionally performance royalties are paid to the holder of the sound copyright only. The only time the recording itself generates royalties is if it's synchronized to film.
So when we talk about paying the "artist" we need to be sure which entity we're trying to compensate.
Also, either one of these copyrights can be jointly owned by the "artist" and the record company or publishing company.
In short, the record industry model is very strange and unusual. If Napster had decided to enable swapping of photographs we'd be having a much simpler discussion.
Isn't the whole bundling thing exactly what we're trying to avoid?
Howard Jones actually did this on his last tour. After the show you could buy a cd of the show you just heard. That's the kind of innovation you won't see from a major label.