More Music Thoughts...What Else?

So, its been awhile since I blogged, mostly because we had a major office move AND I'm going to be starting a new position shortly, so I've actually had to WORK instead of play online. So sad. Anyway, Hopefully I'll do better...so here is another installment of my thoughts on music.

The Tennessean had a big front-page article in the Sunday paper this week about the Changing Face of the Music Industry-or something like that. Links below to the particular article and the special section on the paper's website.

Anyway, the article bugged me quite a bit, as a lot of it centered on digital music sales, and who makes money off of what. The songwriters, etc. claim to not be complaining about digital sales as it has positives and negatives for them, but in essence they are complaining. Really, what they should be complaining about, is the way the industry works, not digital sales. They cite this example:
It goes like this: By law, a songwriter is entitled to 9.1 cents for every song sold, giving him a starting point of $91,000 if an album sells a million copies. A publishing contract eats up half of that, reducing the figure to $45,500. That sum is typically split in half again because many artists won't cut a track on their album unless they receive a co-writing credit. That money is often used to pay back the initial investment made by a record company. That now leaves the songwriter with $22,750. But included in most standard record deals is a clause that pays co-writers only 75 percent of their congressionally mandated royalties, leaving a grand total of about $17,000 in a songwriter's pocket.

So basically to me, I think that the songwriter should be complaining (if they must complain....more on that in a minute) about their publishing contracts, the artist who is ALREADY MAKING ENOUGH MONEY to sing and perform and record insisting on eating up half their profit, the record company-geez, there are a hundred "middle men" in this process getting paid for the work that the writer did. Why can't songwriters just sell their songs straight to an artist? And what the heck is that 75% clause about? I mean, all this makes no sense to me. I mean, no hate to the songwriters, but even with all that, 17,000 for one song is not chump change-that's half of what I make in a year for sitting down and writing ONE SONG. If you write ten songs that get recorded in one year (selling a million copies each of course), you've made 170,000, and you're not curing cancer or solving the energy crisis, so I think that is MORE than fair. I go to work every day and I will never make that much. Plus, if your song sells as an individual download, that's more money in your pocket all the time.

A couple weeks ago Kid Rock made a You Tube video encouraging us folks to steal everything-and while I can't condone that, he makes the point that he'd rather have his fans burn his CDs and share them but pay to see him in concert, because he loves to perform and he's rich enough already. (which begs the question-why not have free shows too? But drugs are not so cheap I guess. Or perhaps he gives all that money to the band and the road crew.)

So I know, if we do that then we are cheating all of his writers out of their 9.1 cents. I mean, there is always going to be controversy-but I think the music insustry should just be glad that we are still dowloading, still going to see live music, when milk and gas are nearing $5 a gallon. Cause eventually, music might be a luxury, and that is quite a sad thought indeed.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/BUSINESS11/806290410/-1/TUNEIN0701
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=TUNEIN0701