Quote:
Originally posted by Chewbacca:
I'll take the bait:
From the one of the links I provided earlier:
"They're protecting an archaic industry," said the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir. "They should turn their attention to new models."
"This is not rocket science," said David Draiman of Disturbed, a hard-rock band with a platinum debut album on the charts. "Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they're trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet."
"File sharing is a reality, and it would seem that the labels would do well to learn how to incorporate it into their business models somehow," said genre- busting DJ Moby in a post on his Web site. "Record companies suing 12-year-old girls for file sharing is kind of like horse-and-buggy operators suing Henry Ford."
Recording artists have watched their record royalties erode over the past few years ("My Van Halen royalties are history," said vocalist Sammy Hagar), but, in fact, few musicians earn the bulk of their income from record sales.
"Bruce Springsteen probably earned more in 10 nights at Meadowlands last month than in his entire recording career," said rocker Huey Lewis.
"They have all these abnormal practices that keep driving the price up," said Gregg Rollie, founding member of Santana and Journey. "People think musicians make all that money, but it's not true. We make the smallest amount."
"The focus of the industry needs to shift from Soundscan numbers to downloads," said Draiman. "It's the way of the future. You can smell it coming. Stop fighting it, because you can't."
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There are a number of untruths about elements of this. Namely this one:
but, in fact, few musicians earn the bulk of their income from record sales.
Which is plainly incorrect. I was friends with Gary Beers from INXS for a time. Gary was in the position of being a bassplayer, but not a writer in a hugely sucessful band. The Tours were to promote the record. The tours could lose money Consider that management takes 20% gross (before expenses) and someone like Gary is going to see comparitively little from that. However, it's all to "promote the record". For the WRITERS of INXS, that would be a true statement. The writers would see enormous amounts from radio play, TV play, licensing and the rest. For a writer that's a true statement. For a musician it's untrue.
Just a further example of needing to LIVE in the problem before posting biassed accounts from musical dinosaurs like Grateful Dead, Journey and Van Halen.