Courtney Says Work for 7-11 Instead Of Signing with Label

So now as I get back to writing in this blog for you my readers and subscribers. I want to start off with a few posts about Courtney Loves' rant against the record industry in 2000. I was not a fan of Courtney then and still am not but this was one thing I love and respect that she did. So lets see if we can learn anything from this aspect of the past.

Now back in 2000 Napster was being burned at the stake for allowing music piracy on its P2P network. It was also the time when Metallica Drummer Lars Ulrich brought copyright infringement case against Napster. I remember hearing how some of their fans were downright pissed. Yes the times have changed now we have so many P2P networks out there the record industry can't shut them all down.

Now today we will share with you her "funny math" as she calls it. Its conclusion was that a band was better off working at a 7-11 then sign with a label. Now for a more accurate set of math from that time era check out "The Problem With Music". So our basis on the funny math then is a band who gets a 20% royalty and million dollar advance. This I think is all a dream that has never really happened. Though I would love to learn of a band that got a deal like that so I could study up on them.

Even though the advance is recoupable the bands manager, lawyer, and business manager all get a cut totaling $150,000. The album (remember this is both funny math and era 2000) cost $500,000 to record and get mastered. This then leaves about $180,000 for the band after taxes of course. Here is where I always think it is funny that advance is considered earnings even though it really is a debt. So you go into debt and everyone gets a piece because it is earnings sounds backwards to me. The band doesn't get another advance until the record is released and sales data starts to come in. How many members are in your band? Hmmm with a 4 man band that comes to $45,000 each for the whole year.

Of course we get a couple of singles and make videos for MTV. Well that has all changed in todays world but we are learning something here. Maybe not quite yet. Those videos then being all snazzy uped cost $500,000 each 50% recoupable. Next is of course that grand tour of the Arenas coming with $200,000 reoupable tour support 100% recoupable. $300,000 gets spent to place the music on the radio. This is one of the strongest reasons for making some of your music podsafe you then don't pay to get it listened to. At this time the band has racked up a debt of $2 million dollars owed to the label.

So going on with her math the album sells a million copies. Not something happening in todays world is it? I don't think it really happened all that often back then either though. Of course the band earned $2 per album (a bit more then that even in 2000) equaling $2 million dollars. Here looks like the band payed taxes on a total earnings of $0.00. While the label earned $6.6 million dollars net profit. I don't think labels are seeing anywhere near that kind of return anymore but the share ratio is still the same. They earn all the money and the artist lives a life of continuous debt, doesn't own the copyrights to their own music and it can be worse.

With that I am glad I write even if I decide to group some of these articles into a book. Hit up a publisher who might like it enough to give me an advance. I will always own the copyright because the publisher is only licensing the works for distribution. I think what we learned today is that the music industry needs to look into the book industry. This way artists can be treated as equal partners instead of slave labor. However lets not push that slavery off the artist and place it on the music fan. There is a better way it is called cooperation but how to do it?