{"id":232,"date":"2009-12-08T12:24:56","date_gmt":"2009-12-08T20:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/?p=232"},"modified":"2012-11-09T15:17:42","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T23:17:42","slug":"signing-to-a-major-label-aint-what-its-cracked-up-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/signing-to-a-major-label-aint-what-its-cracked-up-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Signing To a Major Label Ain&#8217;t What It&#8217;s Cracked Up To Be"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-9055632105156461\";\n\/* Half Banner for Blogs *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8550216682\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><\/center><br \/>\nFor many years now, the deepest desire of many bands and artists has been to find themselves signing a contract with, say, <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Warner Music Group\" rel=\"homepage\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wmg.com\/\">Warner Music<\/a> or one of the other &#8220;big five&#8221; <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Record label\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Record_label\">record labels<\/a> in the US, and walking home with a pocket full of dough and a bright future ahead.<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-img\" style=\"margin: 1em; display: block;\">\n<div class=\"mceIEcenter\">\n<dl class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 212px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:EmersonRecords1919.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Label of an Emerson Record from 1919. This 10-...\" src=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/c\/cb\/EmersonRecords1919.jpg\" alt=\"Label of an Emerson Record from 1919. This 10-...\" width=\"202\" height=\"204\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd zemanta-img-attribution\" style=\"font-size: 0.8em;\">Image via <a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:EmersonRecords1919.jpg\">Wikipedia<\/a><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>On every music site on the web, independent bands and artists are asked if they want to be signed to a label and you can bet your bippy that most of them click off the &#8220;yes&#8221; box.\u00a0 Signing a major label contract is the holy grail of many an artists&#8217; life.\u00a0 And most of them have no idea what it means.<\/p>\n<p>I speak, of course, from the outside because I have never signed a contract myself.\u00a0 However, I personally know people who have, and from the artists&#8217; perspective, I can tell you that it ain&#8217;t always a sweet deal.<br \/>\n<center><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-9055632105156461\";\n\/* Half Banner for Blogs *\/\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8550216682\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 234;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/-->\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p><\/center><br \/>\nIt is a well-known fact now that record labels made a whole lotta cash from old blues artists and their music years ago, hardly sharing a penny with those who actually wrote the songs or performed on the recordings. A lot of these blues men ended up poor and on the streets because they were only given a very small lump sum to sign away the rights to their music.\u00a0 Many of them couldn&#8217;t even read or write, let alone understand that they were being taken advantage of.\u00a0 In the meantime, these record labels made millions from them.\u00a0 And as labels themselves over the years have swallowed up smaller labels and have turned into big, belching conglomerates making millions and millions from their artists and bands year after year, it appears that they&#8217;ve gotten greedier.<\/p>\n<p>First, let me explain to a degree how an artist or band contract works.\u00a0 This would not necessarily apply to older contracts with well-established artists, as contracts get re-negotiated over time.\u00a0 But for newer bands and artists, it works something like this:\u00a0 you sign over the rights or part of the rights to your songs and they give you a few million dollars.\u00a0 Sounds good, eh?<\/p>\n<p>Actually, they don&#8217;t give you a few million dollars in the end, because every time you record or do a tour or need promotion, etc., they take that out of your few million.\u00a0 And then they expect you to pay it all back.\u00a0 So you really don&#8217;t have much control over the money they &#8220;give&#8221; you, and in fact, it&#8217;s more like a loan.\u00a0 In the end, what they are really doing is putting some money towards your career and then expect you to pay it all off.\u00a0 In the meantime, you have to live off that money.\u00a0 If there are, for instance, five of you in the band, that&#8217;s five people who need food, clothes, a place to live, and every other ordinary expense you can imagine, all coming out of that one lump sum of money.\u00a0 That&#8217;s besides the cost of recording, touring, promotion, etc.\u00a0 That few million runs down pretty quickly.\u00a0 And you OWE it back to them.<\/p>\n<p>So not such a hot deal, eh?<\/p>\n<p>But wait a minute.\u00a0 You&#8217;re making money off the tour and the record sales, right?\u00a0 But the label decides how much of it goes towards your &#8220;loan&#8221; and how much they stuff their coffers with.\u00a0 And now, as it turns out, there are even cases where if you make money from downloads, they take almost all of it.\u00a0 An example is in a story on <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Wired (magazine)\" rel=\"geolocation\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=37.7808,-122.3957&amp;spn=0.01,0.01&amp;q=37.7808,-122.3957%20%28Wired%20%28magazine%29%29&amp;t=h\">Wired Magazine<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/epicenter\/2009\/12\/major-label-messes-with-wrong-guy\/\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a> where Tim Quirk, who knew a little bit more about <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Digital audio\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Digital_audio\">digital music<\/a> services than the average joe, found out that his band&#8217;s label, Warner Music, was doing just that.\u00a0 While he figured out that his band made some $12,000 from albums distributed digitally, Warner Music only paid them $62.47.\u00a0 That&#8217;s right, sixty-two dollars and forty-seven cents.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s no wonder that record labels have built themselves such a crappy reputation with the general public.\u00a0 They are seen as bloated and greedy.\u00a0 And they are.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the bands and artists signed to them are stuck with a contract and a big loan to pay off.\u00a0 So if you are not signed to a big label, count yourself as lucky.<\/p>\n<p>Just my humble opinion, of course \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><em>IJ<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Reblog this post [with Zemanta]\" href=\"http:\/\/reblog.zemanta.com\/zemified\/e066f6d1-da17-44aa-ba25-cfdd8f74c4e1\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/reblog_e.png?x-id=e066f6d1-da17-44aa-ba25-cfdd8f74c4e1\" alt=\"Reblog this post [with Zemanta]\" \/><\/a><span class=\"zem-script more-related pretty-attribution\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For many years now, the deepest desire of many bands and artists has been to find themselves signing a contract with, say, Warner Music or one of the other &#8220;big five&#8221; record labels in the US, and walking home with a pocket full of dough and a bright future ahead. Image via Wikipedia On every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,6,3],"tags":[169,170,320,109,168,167],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-opinion","category-welcome","tag-album","tag-contract","tag-music","tag-record-label","tag-warner-music","tag-warner-music-group"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prwoq-3K","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}