Artist Short Changed By Cartel

[GhostShip]

The "Music Mafia" is nicely shown in their true colours here, as regards artists royalties.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050602/music_nm/waits_dc

Third Story Music, a Los Angeles-based music publishing firm and the successor to the production company that managed singer-songwriter  Tom Waits early in his career, has filed a federal suit against Warner Music Group, alleging that Waits has been shortchanged on the sale of digital downloads.

In 2003-04 royalty statements to Third Story, WMG computed royalties from Waits' digital download sales at the same (and much lower) rate as royalties from the sale of physical product. Under the terms of the '70s Asylum contracts regarding album sales, Waits would be entitled to either 9% or 13% of the 67 cents received by WMG from each 99-cent download.

Hmm I like looking at the figures here, as we all know how expensive it is to put music online dont we  :roll:

So whatever the figure presented here the Cartel members gets 50 cents at the bare minimum for allowing others to market their music for them very nice.

My complaint ?  Well I have 2 really

1) Why do the Cartel members never add this new download market into their figures when talking about there supposed losses, they deliberately refer to CD sales to distort a simple profit and loss statement to suit their selves, If they had there way I expect they would say that they never got a dime profit on any Itunes sales  :roll:

2) Why do they sell the music at this price but demand thousands from file sharers, and tell courts they have lost  hundreds of thousands ?

I really feel this false accounting should be looked into as I,m sure many countries tax dept,s are being short changed too.

[GhostShip]

This article has another outlook on this subject and once again has some usable statistics for us to view.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-p2p3jun03,0,2052110.story?coll=la-home-business

We really want to sell our material through this new sales channel," said Lahr, whose Santa Monica-based label specializes in concert CDs. "It really gives new artists or breaking artists an opportunity to expose themselves to a new audience."
To many independent labels, the main goal is simply to introduce music fans around the globe to little-known artists who have no chance of being played on commercial radio stations. The payoff they hope for in the long term is greater CD sales; any downloads they sell on the networks are icing on the cake.
"It is small, but everything starts small," Chief Executive Daniel Glass of Artemis Records said of his company's revenue from Kazaa and other popular file-sharing networks. "To not be part of it is insane."

Well thankfully these independants are as forward thinking as they seem to be, I hope their enterprise pays off, it will no doubt be a while yet until the days of self marketing artists are realised and to make use of the online fraternity rather than to try to obliterate it is very sensible.

 

[GhostShip]

This story is a bit tongue in cheek i think but worth a small read

http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/2005/06/05/warner_music_implies_itunes_and_listencom_guilty_of_massive_ongoing_criminal_copyright_violations.php

The author picks up on a poorly worded announcement and comes to his conclusion, nice to laugh at but not accurate I feel