As a companion piece to Steve Albini’s famous rant about how the pop music industry systematically screws its artist, theToo Much Joy blog provides a look at their royalty statement:
I got something in the mail last week I’d been wanting for years: a Too Much Joy royalty statement from Warner Brothers that finally included our digital earnings. Though our catalog has been out of print physically since the late-1990s, the three albums we released on Giant/WB have been available digitally for about five years. Yet the royalty statements I received every six months kept insisting we had zero income, and our unrecouped balance ($395,277.18!)* stubbornly remained the same.
Now, I don’t ever expect that unrecouped balance to turn into a positive number, but since the band had been seeing thousands of dollars in digital royalties each year from IODA for the four indie albums we control ourselves, I figured five years’ worth of digital income from our far more popular major label albums would at least make a small dent in the figure. Our IODA royalties during that time had totaled about $12,000 – not a princely sum, but enough to suggest that the total haul over the same period from our major label material should be at least that much, if not two to five times more. Even with the band receiving only a percentage of the major label take, getting our unrecouped balance below $375,000 seemed reasonable, and knocking it closer to -$350,000 wasn’t out of the question.
You can follow the link to learn what the actual total was, according to Warner Brothers. And that they just can’t really be bothered to follow through on their contractual obligations to people who worked for them.
These two pieces are worth keeping in mind the next time you hear a music industry figure piously whining about how the Internet is taking money away from struggling musicians. They’re not concerned about the plight of the artists, they’re trying to protect their monopoly on screwing musicians over.
I have a little more sympathy for people fretting about possible damage to the book publishing industry. Not just because it’s been good to me– I have a tenured faculty job, remember, so I’ll still be able to put food on the table even if the book industry goes blooey– but because they’re about a billion times more ethical than the music industry. I’m sure there are some dubious aspects to the typical publishing contract, but at least nobody who publishes a book with a major publisher ends up owing them money, even on paper.
“they’re trying to protect their monopoly on screwing musicians over”
Exactly! Musicians should have the opportunity to be screwed over by *everybody*, not just by a few corporate fat-cats!
you should have seen what they did to Red Foxx
On a recent This Week in Tech (Leo Laporte’s podcast) they talked with Jerry Pournelle, who compared the ebook/digital publishing going on now to what the music industry did with mp3s. One of Jerry’s comments was that people seem to be less likely to pirate books because they feel more of the money goes to the author they want to support, unlike music where they know the artist doesn’t get any of the money anyway.
There are certainly artists and groups that are going to go the independent route and do it themselves. Jonathan Coulton (geeky, in a fun way) is one who comes to mind.
I’m not sure that exactly no one ends up owing money on a published book (leaving aside disputes on deals that go sour), but it is true that commercial trade publishers normally assume costs of production and marketing that a record company would charge against royalties. I can imagine situations where it could happen, but it would be unusual. Whereas in the record business, it is par for the course. Also, publishers tend to be (emphasis on the “tend”) more ethical about actually paying out royalties owed and accurately accounting for sales and royalties earned, though this is largely the result of years of lawsuits. And there are still ways for the publisher to nickel and dime an author to death.
Academic publishing is a little different, though, since the author might have to pay up for more production costs.
They’re not concerned about the plight of the artists, they’re trying to protect their monopoly on screwing musicians over.
If you think health insurance is a criminal act of extortion now, just wait until it is free. Mandated Federal health insurance (juryless trial IRS-enforced) cannot cost less than $1000/person-month. We’re winning the war in Afghanistan, too, and the War on Drugs starting with Afghani poppy fields.
Call that business model “trickle-up poverty,” music to jackbooted State compassion.
They screwed Redd?
How ironic considering he paid The Ink Spots royalties out of his own pocket for the use of their songs in Sanford & Son when NBC wouldn’t pony up due to costs.
Majors were able to steal from their artists for so long because they controlled the means of production and distribution. Now with the advent of digital music in conjunction with the Internet, these controls disappeared. And music couldn’t be more vibrant because of it. You can now buy your music directly from the artist. This is a huge change in the way people consume; its like a farmers market: you can sample anything but you’ll support one farmer over others because he grows the best produce. Now when I buy music (on-line mostly), I savor in the fact my money will go (less the cost of production) right into the pocket of my favorite independent artist. After all, they are the ones who did the work.
The lousy terms that record companies offer aren’t news; they’ve been well known among musicians for decades. The real question is why anyone accepts them.
If the options are a) a day-job and amateur musicianship, and b) a financial gang-bang with a small chance of big fame, the choice should be easy.
“I’m sure there are some dubious aspects to the typical publishing contract, but at least nobody who publishes a book with a major publisher ends up owing them money, even on paper.”
It’s called vanity publishing and it is a scam that many industry pros dedicate time to exposing and doing education work on for ignorant potential victims. Go ahead and google up the latest scandal with Harlequin Romance.