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Good read on the RIAA, 'piracy', and musicians.
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: Null Actor
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
It's long, but well worth the read.
Posted by: rockjock
Good read.
Posted by: Chako
Yes..that hits it right on the nail head.
Posted by: Null Actor
This part is crazy. If I hadn't heard stuff like it from multiple independant places, I'd be inclined to disbelieve it.
- The normal industry contract is for seven albums, with no end date, which would be considered at best indentured servitude (and at worst slavery) in any other business. In fact, it would be illegal.
- A label can shelve your project, then extend your contract by one more album because what you turned in was "commercially or artistically unacceptable". They alone determine that criteria.
- Songwriters have to accept that they'll be paid only 75% of the rates set by Congress for their work on their own albums, or lose the contract.
- Congressionally set writer/publisher royalties have risen from their 1960's high (2 cents per side) to a munificent 8 cents.
- Many of us began in the 50's and 60's; our records are still in release, and we're still being paid royalty rates of 2% (if anything) on them.
- If we're not songwriters, and not hugely successful commercially (as in platinum-plus), we don't make a dime off our recordings. Recording industry accounting procedures are right up there with films.
- Worse yet, when records go out-of-print, we don't get them back! We can't even take them to another company. Careers have been deliberately killed in this manner, with the record company refusing to release product or allow the artist to take it somewhere else.
- And because a record label "owns" your voice for the duration of the contract, you can't go somewhere else and re-record those same songs they turned down.
- And because of the re-record provision, even after your contract is over, you can't record those songs for someone else for years, and sometimes decades.
Posted by: Chako
Well, I could never understand why artist want a major record label contract. It is indentured slavery. The industry needs a major restructuring. Either that, or have artist boy cot them.
Posted by: Null Actor
Well, it's because at one time, the recording industry was needed in order to get your music out to the masses.
All people need nowadays is a webpage.
Posted by: Ghetto Blasta
Very good read indeed! If only more important/listened to people thought that way
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