[Info-vax] OT: About Digital and divisions

[Phillip Helbig---undress to reply]

In article
<5183dff0-f4a7-4b57-ae1c-f732db5d31ad at q9g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>, John
Wallace <johnwallace4 at gmail.com> writes: 

> I suspect that as well as an industry standard DRM, the iTunes
> business model also offered the record industry a big enough cut to
> keep them interested. The details used to be on Tom Robinson's web
> site when he offered free download of his back catalogue. He is now on
> iTunes and the details of who gets what have gone, but this is what
> they used to be:
> 
>     iTunes downloads cost 79p per track. Writer/publisher get 6p,
> Performer 6-8p, Visa/Mastercard 7p, Apple 12p, and Record Company
> almost 50p. Sod that. Help yourself to my songs & share them with your
> friends (continues)
> 
> (originally copied from http://tomrobinson.com/records/music/index.htm
> )

> So the record company get roughly two thirds of the revenue and the
> artist and the writer each get about a tenth of that. The Church of
> Jobs gets as much as the artist and writer together.

I remember reading this stuff from Tom Robinson.  Considering that he is 
now on iTunes, it doesn't look like his idealism was worth the electrons 
used to display it.

AFAIK, at least in most countries there is nothing to stop someone from 
giving away the music they create; no-one is forced at gunpoint to sign 
with a record company.  Apparently a business model in which the record 
company takes a smaller cut is not viable, otherwise someone would have 
become successful with such a company (there is certainly no shortage of 
musicians complaining that their record company takes too large a cut).

This is not to say that all record-company contracts are morally 
correct; certainly in the past the musicians did get too little payment, 
but those days are gone.

Some people who support illegal downloading (or think it should be legal 
to download music without paying for it in any case) often use "I'm 
hurting the evil record companies, not the artist, who doesn't get much 
anyway" argument.  However, if that were really true, I suspect that we 
would have many more musicians not signing with record companies at all; 
the fact that there are very few suggests that their cut is worth it.

It is easy for someone like Tom Robinson to give his catalogue away when 
hardly anyone is buying it anyway.