Quote:
Originally Posted by gideongallery
with what money
they give up 90% right off the top and then have to pay for all the production cost out of their 10%.
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Relax skippy; it was a joke.
Were I to respond seriously, it would look like this:
Artists aren't the only ones who have a right to exploit their skills and efforts for financial gain. Lawyers get paid the way they do because they have highly specialized skills.
When you choose to litigate, typically that's the reality you face: your lawyers are going to charge their hourly rate, and if the lawsuit is successful and damages eventually come along, they are going to take their cut of those.
As to record label executives/companies, they are in business to
make money. As I understand it, that's the primary raison d' etre of damn near every business in existence. By and large, entrepreneurs are not altruists, nor are they philanthropists. I'm sure most record executives don't particularly care about the wellbeing of the artists on their label, and I'm equally sure that the artists don't give too much of a shit about the wellbeing of the "suits" who they sign with.
When you choose to a record contract, typically that's the reality you face: the record company is going to take its cut, and that cut isn't going to be based on what's "fair," it is going to be based on what they can get you to agree to.
Artists aren't forced to sign a contract with a record label. It is a choice they make, a choice largely informed by a desire to make money themselves, and not a function of some fanciful pursuit of artistic greatness. You can pursue artistic greatness on your own, after all, without ever earning a penny.
IMO, it is senseless for artists (or fans) to rail against the greed of record executives. I'm not saying they are wrong to assert that there's greed being exhibited, it's just that complaining about the greed of a businessman and expecting that to shame the businessman in question into being more generous is like complaining about a vulture's taste for carrion and expecting the vulture to stop eating dead things because you've pointed out how distasteful his appetites are. ;-)
Bottom line: for artists that don't like the way it is, there's a simple solution:
don't sign a record contract.
There's also a slightly more complicated solution:
start your own label.
(Hey don't laugh -- it seemed to work out pretty well for Frank Zappa....)