{"id":5053,"date":"2010-07-16T18:06:17","date_gmt":"2010-07-17T01:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=5053"},"modified":"2013-02-07T20:23:31","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T04:23:31","slug":"recording-dollars-and-cents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/07\/16\/recording-dollars-and-cents\/","title":{"rendered":"recording $$$"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a great article on the blog TechDirt<\/a> that discusses why musicians (in this case, non-classical musicians) rarely make very much money from even astronomical album sales.\u00a0 Here’s a great graphic from the post:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The essential scenario is this: the band gets signed by a label, and is given an advance (against their future royalties, NOT their actual album sales – this is important to keep in mind), usually quite a large sum of money, let’s say a million dollars.\u00a0 The band makes the recording, which is paid for out of the advance, as well as the fees to their agent(s), lawyer(s) and others.\u00a0 Whatever is left over is what the band splits amongst themselves and lives on while making the album.\u00a0 The album drops.\u00a0 Basically, the band owes the label a million dollars.\u00a0 The label is taking 63 cents out of every dollar the album makes.\u00a0 That does not apply towards the advance, because that money is album sales money.\u00a0 The left over 13 percent that the band gets (after the distributor takes their cut) is what the band essentially uses to pay back the record company, who is making all of the money from the album in the first place.\u00a0 Kind of screwed up, isn’t it?\u00a0 Now we know why artists are building their own private labels, and the recording industry is rapidly digging a hole for itself.<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a great article on the blog TechDirt that discusses why musicians (in this case, non-classical musicians) rarely make very much money from even astronomical album sales.\u00a0 Here’s a great graphic from the post:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[137,168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-music-music","category-recordings-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-1jv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12475,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/16\/autonomy-money-then-what\/","url_meta":{"origin":5053,"position":0},"title":"autonomy, money, then what?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"[Warning: this is a rambling post, but not a rant. Do not read expecting logical cohesion. That is all.] I have been puzzling over this question for the past few days. What\u00a0do we musicians want? I suppose I should clarify by what I mean by the musician label. We are,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":254,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/26\/theyre-out-there\/","url_meta":{"origin":5053,"position":1},"title":"they’re out there","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It will feature a loch, a castle, the Beastie Boys and, its organisers hope, 20,000 \"discerning music fans\" who like their festivals with \"a little more comfort\" and can overlook the risk of drizzle. The promoters behind the Glasgow music festival T in the Park last week announced they were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":550,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/26\/musicians-convenience-over-fidelity\/","url_meta":{"origin":5053,"position":2},"title":"musicians: convenience over fidelity?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting article by Anthony Tommasini from this Sunday's New York Times, which talks about the relatively inferior sound quality of the typical mp3 player (i.e., iPod) compared to a top-end audiophile quality hi-fi stereo system. It would seem to be the triumph of wi-fi over hi-fi. It's true. When\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1514,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/10\/new-classical-recording-business-model\/","url_meta":{"origin":5053,"position":3},"title":"new classical recording business model?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Bill Stensrud, who writes the blog \"Business of Classical Music\", has written a very cogent and convincing argument for the abandonment of the way that classical music has been recorded and marketed since the beginning of the recording age. I would highly recommend it to any and all of my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "music"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":815,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/27\/columbus-recording-its-own-memorial\/","url_meta":{"origin":5053,"position":4},"title":"columbus recording its own memorial","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sad, but true: Douglas Fisher Member, Columbus Symphony Orchestra President, Local 103, AFM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 26, 2008 Columbus Symphony Musicians Vote To Allow Live Recording Next week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Columbus Symphony Orchestra program will be recorded live for the international recording company Denon, which will release it on compact disc.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2069,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/05\/help-me-understand\/","url_meta":{"origin":5053,"position":5},"title":"help me understand","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a post that was put up by David Stabler on his blog today: I understand why the musicians' union exists, and I respect it. I really do. Over the years, I've had many dealings with it and while the general public has no idea what it does or why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bloggers"","block_context":{"text":"bloggers","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/bloggers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}