Reply to post: Re: Google abeds copyright abuse.

Music's value gap? Follow the money trail back to Google

Alan Brown Silver badge

Re: Google abeds copyright abuse.

"they drive up the prices of live concerts which have become the only way for musicians to make money now."

The odd thing about the music industry is that the more record an artist sells, usually the more in debt they become (with a very few high profile exceptions).

Many of my jobbing musical acquaintances and friends have done live shows for years as a way of paying for records to be made - and this goes back 35+ years. The whole "making it big" thing has always been something dangled on a string for the gullible, whilst sensible musicians looked at the numbers and took on day jobs to pay the bills.

All that lovely jublly money the record companies shower on new signups? That's a loan - with interest - that's paid for out of artist royalties. All the advertising, manufacturing and distribution costs? That's lumped into the loan too.

The fact that artists get $2 royalties per record SOLD, whilst the label gets $8 and the record store gets $6 - that's just the cost of doing business, don't you know? The real creativity in the music industry is in the accounting department.

The fact is that 99.9%+ of musicians - even sucessful ones - end their careers in debt to the record companies.

The same applies to the movie industry. Ask Sigourney Weaver how much she got diddled out of in royalties for Alien (or Mark Hammill+CarrieFisher+Harrison Ford for Star Wars - or Peter Jackson for the Lord of the Rings trilogy).

These same accountants (in companies with turnover and network so low that Google could pull a hostile purchase with change found down the back of the sofa) are wielding influence on trade treaties far beyond their actual value.

Ask yourself where the real pirates are - and ponder that it was once said that the perfect crime is one where the victims willingly hand over their money and never realise they've been swindled.

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