In the music industry, for over 90% of the artists:
- the gate-keepers have always made most of the money (publishers, record labels, streaming sites)
- there has always been piracy, from illegal fake books, recording songs from the radio, making cassette copies of LPs, and now digital
- plus pirate radio stations and now pirate streaming and download sites.
The performing artists get the crumbs off the table, unless you were the exception to the rule like Sinatra, Elvis, Beatles, M. Jackson, Ms. Swift.
Even a number of stars got pimped. Labels owned the names of the artists and groups, so they could control everything. When I was gigging for Motown, there were multiple Temptations, Miracles, Marvelettes and others touring the country. Prince and Fogarty had to sue to use their own names.
Fortunately, I've been a live performer all my life. We almost “made it big” once, but the record company wanted all our royalties (for recording, distribution and promotion). Plus they wanted to own our name, have exclusive publishing rights to anything we wrote, and put a fictional writer in to collect half the writing royalties. Our manager wanted a better contract, and the label quit talking to him.
But we do it because we love it.
Janice, Bud, and Floyd Jane, I hope it goes viral, and you make huge royalties from your efforts.
Notes ♫
Norton Music
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