Music Industry Threatens to Pull Plug on Apple 733
bacterial_pus writes "First the music industry wanted
more money, by changing Apple's 99 cents per song policy. Now one exec is
threatening to pull the plug on Apple if Steve Jobs doesn't change the iTunes Music Store pricing." From the article: "Nash's comments echoes those made last week by Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman, who called for Apple to adopt variable pricing and share out revenues from iPod sales. The record companies' position is based on the dubious argument that digital downloads sell iPods. In fact all the evidence points to the opposite: that iPod sales have driven demand for downloads. The vast majority of digital music sales are made by iPod owners. Cut off Apple and the labels digital sales will slump." More recently Jobs resisted their pressure, and the execs snarked back. Looks like they're getting more serious.
Quotable quotes (Score:5, Insightful)
*gasp* MORE people might actually BUY your music... NO the humanity, the HUGE MANATEE!
Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Music exces are idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, how many does it get in an hour?
Good luck walking away from that, Mr. Nash...
He sounds scared (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone is threatening their monopoly.
The music industry is stupid enough to do this... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they close iTunes, iPod users will just rip their own music (and share it) leaving 0 revenue.
Finally... (Score:4, Insightful)
Killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg (Score:5, Insightful)
Price fixing? (Score:3, Insightful)
'bout normal (Score:5, Insightful)
But what if... (Score:3, Insightful)
Right?...
Re:The music industry is stupid enough to do this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about a share of iTunes instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple should empower their users politically (Score:2, Insightful)
One first step would be to make it illegal for anyone to receive financial renumeration for lobbying a congress critter. Why should a group or individual with money be able to hire someone to go lobby when we working stiffs have to juggle career, family, and fun with any political activities that can be fit in?
Let's level the playing field and return government back to the citizens instead of the highest bidder.
So what about it Apple?
Re:Deal with the devil..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:He sounds scared (Score:2, Insightful)
Apple can survive for awhile without iTunes profit, and people who presently own iPods can still enjoy the music they've already purchased. I'd say let it go a month or so, and see what happens. People who were used to iTunes pricing will now balk at CD prices, so not only are the online sales down, but the CD sales are down too. It won't be long before the the music industry people to come back begging for Apple to take them back.
Re:Legal action for price fixing? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that other than a couple on-line wanabies and a grey source (allofmp3) the apple store is the only source. The monopoly still exists.
What we really need is another eStore to open, selling comparible (and compatible DRM) music at slightly lower prices (97c anybody). Let the market open and the pricewar evolve. shortly one of the two will pick up the 'variable price per song based on download rate as a measure of popularity' method on their own. At that point the RIAA's attempts to shut down either become clear anti-trust.
What I don't know is why can't this happen? Apple licencing of DRM? or record execs (RIAA) being a PITA?
Why can't I start selling music on my own, just set up shop and go?
-nB
Didn't CD sales increase the sales of CD players? (Score:3, Insightful)
Did the music industry get a cut of Sony's CD player sales? Toshiba's? JVC's?
It's time for the RIAA to have a RICO case brought against it.
good luck (Score:3, Insightful)
What I think we may be looking at is that the labels want their own online music services (and in the case of Sony, also sell their own players) so there is no moody Apple middleman between them and the consumer. Again, Sony is already there, and others may be too. I'm not sure where the trails of Warner's parent and sister companies lead.
How I'd like it to play out (Score:5, Insightful)
You are smoking something (Score:5, Insightful)
By definition every single record that comes out is a crap shoot. So, let's say Apple could sign, let's say Paul McCartney. That won't help them with Beatles music, Wings, or McCartney's solo albums from the 80s. The best you could hope for is signing an established artist who is making hit albums currently.
These people either already have gone independent, or else they are probably already in the pocket of the record companies. I don't see this plan working for any established artists.
For new artists, sure they way to go seems like being independent and marketing yourself via the web and via iTMS. I'm not sure how this gets you any radio play, or on MTV, but it probably beats the extremely bad deal that most people get from record labels. Again, I'm not sure what Apple would have to gain by being "their record company". Why not just let independent labels sell via ITMS? Otherwise, Apple would end up funding marketing efforts for thousands of flop albums.
Again, the problem is the existing back catalog that the labels own.
Why iTunes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are they going after iTunes, which coss 99 cents, while many (most?) other WMA services offer tunes for 89? And why do they care how much the retailer actually changes the consumer for the song? Shouldn't the record company just be concerned about how much money it's getting from each one, regardless of the retailer's price (leave the reatailer to decide how much profit they want after that)?
Re:Quotable quotes (Score:1, Insightful)
Good. I hope he does. Perhaps the public and politicians will then wake up to the greed of the music industry.
Re:Legal action for price fixing? (Score:2, Insightful)
If the RIAA had their way, they'd have a cut of everyone's taxes go towards "artist appreciation" (i.e. their pockets) to offset their estimated losses from pirating. And they'd still charge for CDs, downloaded songs, etc.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
its about profits (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's what Apple needs to do... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say Sony decides to pull out first. Well, then everytime a customer tries to do a search for one of their artists or songs (like Switchfoot for instance), have a big, HUGE message for the customer about how Sony wants to charge more than anyone else does and that Apple isn't playing. Let the iTunes customers know about what Sony is trying to do and to contact them to protest their decision.
Then when Sony finally comes back to the table, Jobs should demand that Sony's songs go 2 for 1 for a time. Jobs has a lot of power here - iTunes is the number one place to get digital music. I hope he realizes it.
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
ITunes provides a viable way to get music quickly the moment you want it and it gives you a way to do it that insures the music industry gets paid. If they cut off the air supply to Itunes, all of that file swapping that happened before is going to go up exponentially. So rather than diverting those users back to physical CD's, they will simply lose them as customers all together.
Frankly if Apple's smart they could probably play such a stand off against the labels quite well. Think about the average person's perception of IPod, ITunes and Apple versus their perception of the average music label. Apple can go direct to artists and bypass labels all together. Sure a lot of artists will have contracts that keep them locked into the existing labels, but with people already hooked into ITunes it will be easier to convert people to newer less well known arists.
So please labels, make a stand so we can finally flush you.
Re:Music exces are idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to see Jobs, who sells one of the most popular audio devices on the market today, stand up to the record industry, but he's not a man of infinite powers, and you can be sure that the executives, and ultimately shareholders, may not be as bold and willing to put it on the line and call the record industry's bluff. The record industry has already demonstrated that it has essentially bought Washington and a number of other governments around the world. Let's face it, these guys are the latest in a long line of crooks who never lost a night's sleep over robbing artists, cutting unfair contracts, stacking prices and pulling payola stunts. These are corporate bad guys who will use every dirty trick in the book. For Christ's sake, they even sue little kids, so I think ultimately Apple will blink first.
Re:He sounds scared (Score:1, Insightful)
There certainly is collusion, and unfortunately the woefully inept FTC has probably been encouraged to look the other way respective to any investigation. However, the previous poster's monopoly reference begs an interesting sort of question: is it really an oligopoly (technically it cannot be a monopoly since there is more than one label comprising the "music industry")?
If you're looking at major pop music labels, there appears to be a tight group of labels. If your music comes from Best Buy and you prefer the latest Michael Jackson, Best of Air Supply, Ace of Base's Greatest Hits and other material of the sort, you very much are purchasing from a tight oligopoly.
But if your tastes are more on the independent side, such as Metropolis Records [metropolis-records.com], which represents a large component of EBM, industrial/gothic, darkwave, (insert your favorite overgeneralized label here), etc., then you're outside the oligopoly. Considering the music the big boys have been responsible for is increasingly tired, I'd suggest Apple has quite a move to cut out the ineffective, monopolistic major label channel. Consider as an artist if you want to reach 50 million (or whatever) IPod listeners on a label that will probably pay you more, or sign with one of the tired old labels who will spend most of their budget trying to put lips on Madonna's latest pig album. When distribution no longer effectively distributes, they die. Someone might want to remind the tired old labels that they're suffering the same death spiral the newspapers and broadcast TV networks are by losing focus of their role as quality content distributor and instead believing they are the medium.
Jobs needs to quietly sign directly with the independent labels and then announce that artists on the old labels simply won't get "airplay" through IPod distribution. Combine that with the seriously confused copy-protection efforts by major distributors that impedes the ability of the music to be listened to on handheld devices and you're relegating many artists to the shelves of Walmart where an occasional senior citizen might accidentally buy their work. For artists, it's time to run, not walk, from the major labels (do you think they'll stand by you when you only sell 3,000 units due to their inferior market channels? Bomb an album due to poor distribution and you're done for).
Re:The original goal of ITMS.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Recording Industry, not "Music Industry" (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why I think it is very important to pay attention to the words used. In this particular case, the "music industry" implies that musicians, composers, authors are all lumped together. We need to distinguish between the greedy b****rds who run the music publishing cartel from the rest of the "music industry".
Similarly, we should expand DRM to "Digital Restrictions Management" because that is what it actually is.
It may not make an immediate impact, but over time more and more people will understand what the opponents of DRM and RIAA have been trying to say for a long time now. Education is the most effective weapon against oppression, and using the right words is one part of educating those who "don't get it".
Re:The music industry is stupid enough to do this. (Score:5, Insightful)
(mods, go away, use your points where they're needed.)
A lawyer working for Warner said this: (Score:5, Insightful)
So, I have to ask...if very few people buy music from digital downloads according to this suit, then what the FUCK do these guys care what price Apple sells their music at? This is greed. Pure greed. The recording industry is so used to making reams of cash without doing any of the actual work that they're lashing out when someone tries to take that away from them.
And then to turn around and say they want a cut of the profits from the physical iPods themselves shows they have HUGE balls too. I mean, do they get a cut from every CD player sold that plays their music?
Yes, I'd rather blatantly steal all the music from here to the end of my life then have to pay anything to the bastards that run these companies. I'm sorry to the artists but lets face it, they only see a 10th of the actual cash these companies are actually raking in.
Or better yet, I won't even listen to music anymore. I'm so pissed off and disenchanted with the whole industry I'll just sit and listen to the birds outside my window...or laugh like a brook as it trips and falls over stones on it's way. Sorry, was channeling "Sound of Music" there....DAMN!
Re:Or like forcing computer makers bundle windows? (Score:2, Insightful)
Its like saying Ford has a monopoly on Ford automobiles when there are plenty of competitors.
There is no monopoly without a relevant product market. There is no "iPod" market. There is only an MP3 player market.
Re:don't blink, Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
I should go find out what happened between Apple Computers and Apple Records. I'm a little surprised Apple is in the music business, given their original agreement with Apple Records was to stay well the hell out of anything that looked like music.
If Apple were smart enough to have just bought AR outright, they might very well already have a mechanism in place to support artists. And that, my friends, would be the start of the entertainment revolution: independents who can make a good solid living from their work.
Re:Biting the hand that feeds it. (Score:5, Insightful)
They bite the vendors, and they screw everyone else, including the artists and the buyers. If this is not monopoly abuse then I don't know what is. I think your average drugs dealers is a bit better than these guys - even they aren't, at least the law knows how deal with drugs dealers.
Re:don't blink, Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Apple will ultimately cave, but they want to make the labels look as bad as possible before that. Apple's actions to date support that theory, because the longer and more public the battle is the worse the labels will look. Apple can make the labels look bad without actually saying anything that can get them sued.
Towards that end they may be putting up a fight over issues they are ultimately prepared to accept, like variable pricing. I don't think Apple's motives are altruistic (I think they mostly want to rip people off on iPods instead of on music), but if this is a battle for public opinion, an already poorly regarded industry is going up against probably one of the best PR companies there is.
Re:Or like forcing computer makers bundle windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's like complaining Gillette has a monopoly on Mach-3 razor blades, except that Apple's razor can also use generic blade cartridges. It just can't be used with the proprietary DRM'd WMA blades of the other razor makers.
And further, I don't need to own an iPod to play DRM'd AAC files. They'll play on the iTunes application on the computer too.
(I'm not analogizing the razor-and-blades marketing strategy to the iPod and AAC.)
Re:Why iTunes? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really hope Apple holds out, because otherwise we are going to be screwed, ceding all market power to the RIAA.
Re:Biting the hand that feeds it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that should be "at least the law WILL deal with drug dealers."
So far, no one really seems to care about what the music industry is doing. Because if someone says something to them, they will just scream "PIRACY! PIRACY!" and the government turns the other way... "oh, carry on then."
Re:A lawyer working for Warner said this: (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing I can think is that these fuckwits heard the fable about the goose with the golden eggs and didn't get the moral of the story.
what the hell for? (Score:3, Insightful)
apple doesn't need any of that. they have an eMarket that is instantly recognized and considered grade-A, they have a track record of paying their artist revenues in full and on time (which the big labels shockingly have never had,) and they have giant media buzz as well as street cred.
no, apple doesn't need any steenkin' labels. the steenkin' labels need apple. the artists can always re-contract with iTunes music service and be done with big label bullshit. ITMS needs to get an office, phone, and a couple more dealmakers, and the "major record labels" are all dead as doorknobs.
the artist as their own label, with a distribution network of millions of hits daily... that's what ITMS could be.
the line forms at One Infinite Loop, please don't block the bus stop as you snake around the block......
Well actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
The more you create on your own, the broader and better your taste in music/art/etc becomes.
Fuck the music industry, humanity has created great music for thousands of years without their nonsense..
Why does the RIAA get to decide what iTMS charges (Score:1, Insightful)
This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Force iTunes out of business and I'll revert to stealing your music.
Downloads on iTunes aren't cheap. On the contrary, at a buck a song, it is only marginally cheaper to buy music on iTunes (though arguably more convenient). So, with no physical product to produce and distribute, we are being charged almost the same amount as if we go into a store and buy a CD? And you want to charge more?
What part of 'greedy fscking assholes' don't you understand?
Count de Monet (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA claims music "piracy" is the great satan costing them billions in profits a year. Enter Steve Jobs, their great savior with a plan to legally distribute their merchandise over the Internet. He has the resources and has seen the light in the attractiveness of the 99c menu. He has software created to work with his company's media player, a good idea for him, the iPod promotes iTunes and supports the legal sale of songs owned by the RIAA. The plan works for years until someone gets greedy and threatens to pull the plug. I'm sure they know an end to iTunes will force people back to "piracy." Since the RIAA knows this, it is safe to conclude that "piracy" really isn't costing them as much as they claim. Now they want some variety in pricing, no not a drop in prices, only price increases. I guess they like suing people because that is soon going to be their main source of income. Remove people's ability to do something legaly and sue them, makes perfect sense.
What's at stake here? (Score:2, Insightful)
The record companies aren't making that much off selling digital tracks either, compared to CD revenues.
So what's going on is not about the current scene but jockeying for the best position in the long run, assuming that downloads will eventually outstrip CD sales.
Re:A lawyer working for Warner said this: (Score:1, Insightful)
Can anyone 'splain dis to me? Thanks.
Re:don't blink, Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
They can't, there's already an Apple record label, and they own the IP that was produced by the Beattles.
Apple (music) sued Apple (computers) when they first attached speakers to their computers, claiming that people could mistake the two companies. The settlement was that Apple (music) would stop being so whiney, and Apple (computers) would not get involved into the actual music industry.
Now, with Apple (computers) running iTMS, and the iPod, you can argue that they've gotten into the music industry. In fact, Apple (music) sued (is suing?) Apple (computers) again over this. Apple (computers) still has a leg to stand on, because they're not producing or owning music, they're just distributing it for the Music Industry.
There is no doubt in my mind that if Apple (computers) started their own label, that they'd have absolutely no legal leg to stand on, and would be either a) screwed, or b) forced to change the name, so it doesn't conflict with Apple (music), in which case they lose the brand name, and lose.
Re:How about a share of iTunes instead? (Score:3, Insightful)
* Haul users into court and get settlements to hope a 'problem' in piracy results in more physical sales.
* Try to get extra revenue (because 80% isn't enough) from individual iTMS music sales, it's not like they actually pass on the 80% to the artist.
* Put up the individual cost of music where ever possible.
Never do they actually bother try to increase the quality of music available to the public or actually give them more of it. They have a culture of pushing celebrity status apon a few single artists and micromanaging their actions into the press hoping for follow on success.(britney/etc) When they know perfectly well that they can make a lot of money out of promoting (but not to gigantic international celebrity level.) smaller local artists who sell in smaller volumes. But this effort requires a lot of work that they aren't interested in, so they think suing you instead will help britney's sales.
Re:How about a share of iTunes instead? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A lawyer working for Warner said this: (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to totally agree with the GP. This will drive me back to p2p and the used record stores. Actually, you know what? Fuck this. I like stealing from corporations. I'm tired of trying to do the right thing when I see the wrong thing being rewarded on a macro level every day. How the hell did we get shamed into being "good citizens" by these bastards? It's like listening to Tony Soprano give a "crime doesn't pay" speech.
iPod is a red herring (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Were I Steve Jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:alternatives (Score:3, Insightful)
If you LIVE in Russia, fine, but I won't be giving my credit card info to companies out of the US, Canada and western Europe.
Re:Biting the hand that feeds it. (Score:3, Insightful)
But they don't have a monopoly over Apple. Apple would still be selling oodles and oodles of iPods if they never had iTunes, iTMS just gives them respectability. If the iPod was MP3-only, it would still rock as a player. After all, you're not going to fill a 40GB player without at least doing some major CD rips.
Jobs could tell the record industry tomorrow to screw, and the dip might not even register in Apple's revenue stream. iTMS is good for Apple's future, but it isn't as important to Apple as creating a legitimate online revenue stream is to the music industry.
Re:How about a share of iTunes instead? (Score:3, Insightful)
Rest in Peace, RIAA.
So they pull out, so what? Let them. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fine
So now what happens?
They have to pull the same stunt on every other joint that is distributing music on-line, Rhapsody, Napster, the Windows Music box or whatever they will call it, Wal-Mart, etc etc
So all of a sudden no more 99 songs at ITMS and the price is $1.99 everywhere else!
And the subscription prices will probably Double! How many people will just CANCEL their subscription services?
Guess who loses? (you already know)
Oh, and if they pull this on Wal-Mart, they'll just pull the plug, Wal-Mart won't play along.
Shoot them in the face. It's more fun that way... (Score:2, Insightful)
The labels believed that once one company forged a path, everyone else would follow leaving them king of their little fiefdom. Unfortunately for them, Apple was more like an ice breaker in the Arctic. They made their own path and the sea froze behind them. I was of the opinion that they were trying to kill iTunes because they see it as a genuine threat. After reading this article, [silicon.com] I am convinced the labels are genuinely too stupid to realize their extremely precarious position. This is, in fact, not a strategy to kill iTunes because of the threat it presents. This is just greed. They really are that stupid. Too bad they don't see the end coming. It'll be like they've been shot in the back of the head. No crys of "Please, please don't kill me! I'll do anything you want! Just don't *BANG*" kind of thing you'd get if you shot them in the face. It's a shame too, because they really deserve to be shot in the face.
There will be no labels for new music soon. Bands will go direct to fans through iTunes, keeping the copyrights to their creations, and making six times the profit margin the old labels would have paid them. They will make the same money going 'gold' as they would have going 'platinum' the old way. You are witnessing a turning point in music history. Music is about to become very diverse and interesting again. Get ready for something besides the same old cookie cutter 'alternative' crap you've been hearing for the last 15 years.
Re:I like STEALING THINGS (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that doesn't sound like the old school term "buy" we use when we go to the candy store.
I don't really care if Apple (and the other music stores) change their ways of doing business but I think it's VERY dishonest to call someting "buy" when in fact it's more like renting. I want to really own stuff I buy, as it is now it's "you own it just as much as you need to listen to the music they way we say you are allowed to".
The subscription models is better in this regard since they don't confuse you to think you own the media when in fact you don't.
Re:I like STEALING THINGS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How about a share of iTunes instead? (Score:3, Insightful)
As others have stated, artists can connect up with iTunes and similar online distributors directly. They can also record their material themselves or use one of the many low cost independent recording studios.
The whole "economy of scale" argument the record companies have been using for years to rip off artists and listeners alike is now obviously absurd. That argument was the last fig leaf they had left to hide their greed and corruption.
Re:How about a share of iTunes instead? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple had to spend a long time courting the music industry even to get the iTMS off the drawing board. They did it by making predictions that turned out to be true, over and over again, until a few people in the labels started paying attention. It was a hard struggle, though, because there were plenty of other people willing to tell the labels what they wanted to hear: namely that access controls would work, and that they could bolt all the restrictions of their circles-of-plastic business model onto the online distribution model.
Well, time and experience showed that the folks at Apple knew what they were talking about. And so people at the labels gradually came to agree that Apple had some idea of what was actually going on.
Now that the iTMS is big news, though, and the latest iPod gets more press coverage than most of the upcoming movies, ALL the players in the music industry feel the need to haul themselves up on their hind legs and be heard, including the ones who wouldn't have enough brains to poke a stick into an anthill after spending three weeks at a Power Simian business seminar.
Yeah, the music industry would love to get more money out of Apple if it was basically a matter of letting the (pardon the pun) apple fall out of the tree. NOBODY in business passes up a chance at easy money if they can get it. The sensible people in the music industry, though.. and let's all do them the favor of believing there are some.. are willing to live with the script that runs:
MUSIC INDUSTRY: Hey Apple, want to give us more money?
APPLE: No.
MUSIC INDUSTRY: Okay. Just asking.
The ones were hearing about now, in this article, are the sub-chimps who just haven't got the clue. They have yet to realize that having one label pull out of the iTMS will hurt that label a whole lot more than it hurts Apple over the long run.
Apparently game theory is another realm of knowledge the RIIA never bothered to acquire, beause they're now in a prisoner's dilemma they can't escape. The only way the RIAA can hurt Apple is for all the labels to pull out at once, and for all of them to stay out until Apple agrees to the terms of the RIAA as a whole. If only one or two pull out, the ones that remain in will weep crocodile tears all the way to the bank. And sales from the existing catalog don't even begin to touch on the contract concessions the non-participating labels will have to make with artists.. "What do you mean signing with you means my music WON'T go into the iTMS? There ARE other labels out there, you know."
What we're hearing now are the rumblings of soon-to-be-extinct morons who aren't ready to lie down and have someone shovel dirt onto their faces yet. But die they will, and sooner rather than later. There's too much money in iTMS sales to ignore, and if the big labels insist on pretending that it doesn't exist, artists will find other ways to get their stuff listed with Apple.
The only two plausible options in this scenario are: A) the labels shut up and let Apple set its price point where it wants, or B) the people who refuse to do business with Apple suffer enough losses that they get fired. Apple has no reason to budge on this issue, every reason to hold its ground, a whole bunch of cash on hand to sit out a potential RIAA embargo, and a much better PR stance vis-a-vis its customers.. Apple: "hey, we just relased the Nano!" RIAA: "hey, we just sued another 750 twelve-year-olds!"
Re:alternatives (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
The greed of the music labels really does know no bounds.
It's just pure greed that they want a slice of iPod sales.
These people are just parasites feeding off the very entity that saved their collective margins from a razor-thin oblivion.
Will they ever learn? Of course not.
I don't see any other alternative than for piracy to rise again and their sales to fall for them to realize the error of their ways. But with their totally blinkered attitude, all that they would do is put on yet more spin on the economics and blame some other nameless / faceless force for their own idiocy...
Re:A lawyer working for Warner said this: (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how much you know about the recording industry, but these people do NOT work incredibly hard. What they did was create the "company store" atmosphere that the mining companies did with the miners. The actual artists are pretty much slaves to these companies after they sign their contracts. Do you know how much the average recording artist makes off of a average CD? It's the ARTISTS that work incredibly hard and face the pressures day, day out and they usually end up owing the company money for their CD.
Case in point, remember a girl group called TLC? They had a number one hit a few years ago with "Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls". The song was everywhere, won awards, millions of CDs were sold. Care to take a guess on how much money they made for those millions of CD's sold? After paying off the company for recording time, the actual printing and distribution of the CD's etc etc(yes, the artists pay for all this) they were left with 50,000 dollars each that year. In TLC's case, nearly a year after the group sold 10 million copies of "CrazySexyCool," they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Their record company didn't lift a finger and they were on to their next conquest.
Also, do I work for free? No. Have I changed jobs to make more money? No, actually the opposite, I moved to a different part of the country and took a substantial cut in pay. I'm actually below the poverty line and yes, I'm barely subsisting...though not in a cave. I still manage to donate my time and what little cash I have left over after bills (bills meaning electricity, heat and food...no car payments, no cable tv, no credit cards) to the community. Yet, I'm very happy.
Also, I said I'd rather steal than line the pockets of these guys...but I never said I'd actually do that. I'd rather make my own music...though some would question if it were indeed music.
And I don't eat Doritos. Any other assumptions you'd like to make about me?
Re:Were I Steve Jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:alternatives (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:alternatives (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you buy Rolex watches from guys hanging out on the street?
Re:I like STEALING THINGS (Score:1, Insightful)