In a world where a song can be downloaded in seconds, people who are used to this technology want the media, now, fast and today. If your an established artist and you don't come to the "internet gold mine" you will lose much needed revenue to prolong your life as a musician, and more importantly your place as an artist.

So how does one explain the arrogance of an artist not willing to sell single tracks? And you made an album and your story will not be complete if you don't sell the whole listing of tracks? What a but-kiss you are if you can't send you message in one song, your wasting our time if you can't get to the point. I have downloaded songs before and all I needed ever was one song to tell me that album was worth buying as a whole cd. I think most people will agree that this is the popular stance on this subject today.

"Despite the whopping success of Apple's iTunes online music store, some popular artists have refused to sell their music in single track format.

Artists claim that the "get only what you want" model undermines their art, in this case, the concept of a full album (order of the songs and the "full picture" all the tracks on the album together create) and are also worried about the fact that selling all the material in single track format might have a negative effect on their album sales."
I remember Courtney Love saying "Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software. I'm talking about major label recording contracts."

"This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.

What happens to that million dollars? They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager. That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person. That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released. The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)"

"So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties. The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable. The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records. All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band. Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company. If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record. Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals ... zero! How much does the record company make? They grossed $11 million. It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support. The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.

They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry. Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.

So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.

Of course, they had fun. Hearing yourself on the radio, selling records, getting new fans and being on TV is great, but now the band doesn't have enough money to pay the rent and nobody has any credit. Worst of all, after all this, the band owns none of its work ... they can pay the mortgage forever but they'll never own the house. Like I said: Sharecropping. Our media says, "Boo hoo, poor pop stars, they had a nice ride. Fuck them for speaking up"; but I say this dialogue is imperative. And cynical media people, who are more fascinated with celebrity than most celebrities, need to reacquaint themselves with their value systems."

So here we have it straight from one of the many horses of the "artist Machine" she is saying, hey I know you think I'm a sucka, but I'm not" Agreeing with her, I would say you know what, I rather make my money selling it online per each download, why?, lets do the math.

Say a Fabian song is online available at Joe Shmo Online Futurama retailer in the next five years at a cost of 75 cents per download. And say I sold 50.000 mp3's of this song in a 2 week period. After splitting the cost with the retailer I made 18,000 bucks in 2 week period. Hum, I like that so in a 3 month time frame, I made, if sales continued to be awesome, about 112,500 dollars. You can laugh, but It might happen. The sick thing about being a solo unsigned artist is you have to be your own manager at times, and your own marketer and spingalli. No wonder everyone all of a sudden suck as the Major Label's want to jump on the mp3 band wagon. There about to lose alot of Artist Personal Monies that belong to the artist. Will someone stop the insanity?

Q: What's the difference between a record exec and a mobster?

A: The record exec doesn't have to launder his money.

here here!

Oh good point about that laundering..

Signing with a label is insanity. Major label artists who have somehow gained notoriety (as opposed to those in the majority who are signed, then shelved in order to keep from competing) should ditch the labels and go indie. It would be insane NOT to.
Those who have signed a contract have a crutch that is defective. Throw it away and be HHHHHEAAAALLLLLED! (Halleluja!)

It's a wonderful world we live in, isn't it, guys?

The Internet is a tool, not a goldmine.