"It’s a problem for many artists ... who signed away rights to their music early in their careers. Not owning the masters, the right to use an artist’s music how they wish, means they can’t earn money from their recordings."
#ChrisSchulz, 2022
The hypocrisy of the music recording industry is appalling. They accuse music fans of fleecing artists, by freely sharing music we enjoy with each other via dubbed tapes, burned CDs, or mp3s traded over file-sharing networks. All the while record companies are signing naive young people up to exploitative deals, where they give away the rights to collect royalties on any music they create, and pay for the privilege:
In the early years of the net, I wrote about utopian visions of how digital distribution could liberate artists from this rampant exploitation by music corporations, see:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050310191646/http://strypey.orcon.net.nz/indymusic.html
The digital media revolution has changed things, for sure, but not always for the better...
Some of Your Friend are Already This Broke, #TerryMatthew, 2014:
@strypey that's a good article, but to be fair, it shows the case of a complete noob trying it on, one time, with one track. You could do the same write up (or worse) for someone's first web page, artwork, photo shoot... whatever you like. Climb the learning curve, do it again, learn, get better, get faster, make better stuff, get noticed etc etc. That's basically the worst example possible- although they show an actual profit, which is not realistic for a first release of anything.
@downbeatdan
All fair points. But I think the theme there, especially if you read it as a digital update of Albini's classic essay, is that it's still a minefield out there, full of middlemen trying to fleece you. Here be dragons...
Are studios different from VC's funding startups for a stake in them? Paying for infrastructure and sales. Absorbing losses of failed albums. I think most budding musicians are looking to make big money, and could use studio sales machinery.
For artists-at-heart satisfied with word-of-mouth publicity, studios aren't unavoidable in the digital age.
@tetrislife @strypey no, these are the record companies- basically loan sharks on album creation and marketing. They use a great phrase called 'that shit's recoupable', so all the limo rides, studio sessions and dinners are all paid back out of the band's wee share.
@downbeatdan agreed, but budding musicians looking to make big bucks are the enablers for them. And artists-at-heart can ignore them and self-publish online?
@tetrislife Now the specialist areas are really about promotion - getting tunes / artists known to many fans. Just like any marketing, thats a combination of actually having a quality product, (which most beginners really don't), and possibly paying professionals and media to promote it and give it airtime. But the best music promo is your band, playing live. One fan at a time...
@tetrislife exactly, the two things that digital changed were access to shops, which used to be only through record & distribution companies, and also high quality home recording, which used be only available in very expensive big studios, hence the record company loan sharks.