The LA Times is reporting on the on ongoing battle between Incubus and their record label, SONY. The article points out just how badly major label artists get screwed.

For Sony Music, the profit on Incubus' roughly $76 million in sales in the last seven years has been $35 million, or 46% of the total, industry sources estimate.

Incubus has yet to "recoup" the 4.25 million advance they received after the second album, they are still about a quarter million short. In other words they owe the record label money.

The article goes on to explain just how these numbers are arrived at. through chagres like 15% for free goods, even if 15% was not distributed free. After that is deducted then the labels take a "New technology fee" which was introduced 20 years ago to help fund the CD Pressing plants. After that another 25% for packaging which was introuced when the labels starting using full color sleeves on 45 rpm records. Subtract another 2 million in producers fees and you have a band in the whole after generating sales of $76 million since 1996, and profits to the label of approx $35 million during the same time frame.

If you are considering or ever hope to consider signing with a major label, you had best read the entire article. It is available onthe LA times website here.

Reading this article is well worth the extra couple pieces of junk e-mail you'll get from the L.A. Times for registering.

If you're thinking about signing a contract, it could save you millions.

Incubus isn't even getting 5% of the profit from its own creation.

I have a great deal of sympathy for Incubus in this situation. But if I had been given a $4.25 million advance by a major label to record an album, I'd have put $3.25 million in the bank to collect interest and made the album for $1 million. If that much.

Brandon Boyd, I'd like to introduce you to Natalie Merchant.

Make it for $1 and the label would complain it wasn't up to professional standards and demand you continue until your out of money, or just give you a much smaller advance for the next album.

Heh, just make one bad album, keep as much of the money as you can, and if it gets too bad you can always sabotage your own career so they dump you .

Goldenpi -- wasn't that the plot behind "The Producers"?

Last year I spoke with John Evans (no kin) of the original Boxtops (the Letter) His advice was "Tell every artist you can to get as much money up front as they can, because they will never see another penny."

Ever heard the O'Jay's song "For the Love of Money"?

They were talking about everyday life in the record business.

I'llbe sure to do things myself

The musicians shouldn't have a beef with p2p, they really should be going after their labels who rip them off blind. Record industry contracts have done more to cost musicians money than the pirates & filetraders combined.

Britney Spears isnt smart enough to see the light of day, so she will continue to slam p2p.

What I find really interesting (oh I'm gonna get razzed over this) is that I went to Britney's website. An in the downloads section they have a Britney Winamp skin.
DOn't beleive it? http://britneyspears.com/downloads/index.php

Just another recording industry puppet. Maybe she gets paid extra just to act dumb and make ads to slam p2p. Perhaps she knows the real truth and is just too scared to break out and tell everyone the real truth. If she did, im sure it would cost her everything, perhaps a boot from the industry. Most likely thats the reason why few people just arent speaking up.

In other things, the retailers are just as bad for overpricing CD's as well. An average CD here costs about 24.98 plus 15% tax. So a cheap CD comes along, say Shania Twain's smile album, 10 bucks US, translate that to Canadian and you get about 15 bucks currency conversion. But nope, we have to pay the full 24.98, nearly double that for many double cd releases. I dont know about you, but paying 49 bucks including taxes for a double cd sucks. No wonder i always download. 50 bucks can buy me a nice bit of food and other things. DVD's here arent much better, your lucky if you get 10 bucks back from a 50 when you buy a new release, old DVD transfers are about 20 bucks. I tell ya, this town really sucks for prices, im sure its the same in many places. Not only are the RIAA/MPAA crooks, many retailers are the same way. I just cant stomache it.

I didnt buy star wars episode 2 because I didnt have the extra 60 bucks to pay for it. Thats how much that was with taxes, about 49.98 without taxes. Gah.

Oh, for the old metallica albums, ones that came out over 20 years ago, 24.98+tax. Get about a dollar change out of 30 bucks.

There needs to be contract reform badly. It seems that the labels get too much of the pie. Using P2P, dropping Radio Payola, and alternative licensing, and a good percentage to the artists and the songwriter, would help. Also, reducing the marketing costs would help too.

I think Incubus should get more of the pie.

Yeah, the artists *should* get more of the pie... Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most musicians/artists in some sort of unions? If they're not (which they may not be), that might be something to organize... The problem is that it has to be an all-or-nothing deal; if enough artists don't demand to have things changed, record companies will simply dump them and focus on finding fresh blood to suck off of as long as possible

Poor starving artists. And I use that term "very" loosely with Clitney Spears, she barely rates as a performer. She is so brainwashed by the label that she spouts whatever they tell her to.SHe wouldn't be anywhere today if she had to rely solely on her voice and talent alone. All the idiotic dancing, cavorting and crotch grabbing is designed to keep fans from realizing just how bad she really is. Christina Aguilera is follwing suit. Which one will be the first to masturbate onstage?
Bring back the 80's music. Oy!

Clitney... rofl

i bought "Metallica - Ride The Lightning" back in... eek, 1988, for £7.49 - on cassette - and that was £1-£1.50 more expensive than most of the other albums... and a few other artists were higher priced too. I thought it was a scam back then, and thats nothing to how they compare now.

Now, if I was a signed artist (clone, sheep, fool, money grabber, poor destitute junkie) and my label says "we gotta do a campaign, YOU are losing profits because of nasty pirates" and you had one of those "do as we say, not as we do" contracts, hell you'd be first in line to sign up lol... but for a label to make $35 million off a band and still be charging them... *unsuitable for public audience*

You might want to check out the posting right above this one. We're not getting much attention from the press though. Not that we haven't been trying. I'm very pleased with DMusic.com for having the guts to print it. I would think challenging the "Big Boys" way of doing business would be worth at least a little press coverage. Makes you wonder whose side the press is really on...

The press, for the most part, is only on the "side" of wherever the celebrities are. That's what attracts eyeballs. If the Dixie Chicks had followed through on their threat to sue over royalty issues, there'd be a much larger microscope on these matters. Maybe Brandon Boyd'll wear one of those half-unbuttoned shirts into the courtroom so that the TRL crowd will actually develop some interest in these issues ...

I posted a similar article on my website a few weeks ago http://clearstatic.org:2396/node.php?id=17

The way I see the problem is yes, Incubus is in the hole but would anyone every hear Incubus without a record company. They control the distribution. He who controls the distribution controls the music.

I remember the first California Senate hearing on contracts where Don Engle almost begged to be able to follow one of these lawsuits through to the end. Check out http://news.dmusic.com/article/5111

Most of the time when a label starts turning a profit, that means the artist should get their hands on some cash too. In any case, I'm not gonna pretend I know anything about Incubus' expenses or contract. From looking at this article, either they signed the world's shittiest contract or they just can't manage their expenses.

A 33 percent cut of a $12 wholesale price is $1.82? Seven million times $1.82 adds up to less than $4.25 million?

It's far beyond a shitty contract. It's pure theft. Even suggesting that the problem is Incubus' inability to manage their expenses is an insult to the intelligence of everyone that reads this page.

At some point, it's up to Incubus to fix their own problem.

All these artists are crying about how badly they got screwed, it's high time they did something about it. I'm not blaming Incubus, they just wanted to be famous, and make money while recording music. They didn't know better. It sucks to be them.

As for Britney, Christina, etc.? Of course they're gonna stick up for the industry. Without the RIAA and its labels, those 2 and their ilk wouldn't even exist, because they have absolutely no talent. What else can they do?

To most people, Britney and Christina's support for the RIAA doesn't mean jack.

Acts like Britney, et al are EXACTLY what's wrong with popular music, and I use the term music loosely.

The artists getting sued should just walk away and take their chances. Then the RIAA would have to fight all of us AND their artists at the same time.