Courtney Love explains record-company math with not-the-slightest-hint-of-venom-in-her-veins-at-all, and how they are the pirates at the end of the day:
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
$45,000 that they have to pay back to the record company eventually. Bummer.
Yah yah, this is old hat. Everybody knows the RIAA is a bullshit organization and should be the first on the chopping block when it comes to breaking down (multi-)national monopolies.. right? But somehow it doesn't happen. The oil companies merge, the telcos merge, and the record labels merge into an amorphous blob known as the RIAA.. and they continue to fuck. us. in. the. ass.
Last November, a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support of the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act.
He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time artists found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its way to the White House for the president's signature.
That subtle change in copyright law will add billions of dollars to record company bank accounts over the next few years -- billions of dollars that rightfully should have been paid to artists. A "work for hire" is now owned in perpetuity by the record company.
This is why I haven't bought a CD since 2001.
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
