Music Blog

Good points on copyright law and business models.

I remember seeing the Backstreet Boys or one of those other boy bands on the Today show one morning, and the host said something along the lines of you must be rich. To which they replied that they’d just broken even because they owed so much to the writers, promoters, record company, etc. The artists receive pennies per CD. So let’s say I want to buy a song directly from an artist for $0.25. A lot of artists would make out on the deal, because if I buy their CD they earn $0.20. (Is it any wonder that bands with big contracts- like Metallica- are out there screaming the loudest about piracy?) The record companies stand in the way of this transaction. They are the middlemen who try to tell the consumers who is popular and what is cool.

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