David, I think that's a very accurate summation of the industry then, and also now. I was surprised to read that most older major league rock bands continue touring not just for the glory of it, but because, for that year, the bulk of their income will come from the tour. The Rollingstones were in this category. With the Stones' recorded output over forty years you would imagine it would outweigh a world tour, but apparently not so. Jagger is known as an astute business man, but like McCartney, that wasn't the case in the 60s. Deals done with copyright companies in the early days when the artists were young still hold sway over subsequent earnings. That Paul McCartney could own Buddy Holly's music, and more offensively, Michael Jackson could buy the Beatles' library shows the dichotomy between the artist's rights and the so-called copyright holder's rights.
On 10/07/2010, at 10:22 PM, dhbailey wrote: > Graeme Gerrard wrote: >> I am from an older generation, but kids these days have the attitude that >> the money goes to multinational companies, with only a trickle to the >> composers and performers, their "heroes". >> My generation bought into the arrangement and that's who passed the laws >> (same with plant/gene/life ownership). Younger people automatically rebel >> against the ludicrous situation which we buy into because we think we might >> actually make a little lucre! >> Graeme > > I have no idea if the situation has improved any these days, but for many > years that was very true, often with performers being on the hook to the > record labels for a lot of money which was never recouped by the record > sales, due in large part to "creative accounting" on the part of the record > labels. The payment to composers, at least in the U.S., has been prescribed > by law for any recordings following the original recording, but even there > quite often through creative accounting, the money which should have been > paid to the composers never made it to them. > > The only way most recording artists ever made money was through attendance at > their live performances, due in large part to the success of the record sales > for which the artists often didn't make any money at all while the record > labels grew fabulously wealthy. > > Of course none of that is the fault of the copyright laws themselves, but > rather to the old truth that those with with the deepest pockets seem to make > the most money. Lawsuits by penniless artists went nowhere when up against > the huge financial and legal resources of the record labels, which are these > days multinational companies and not the original "mom and pop" sort of > labels like Motown was when it started or Sun records or Chess or any number > of local record labels which actually gave young artists a start and paid > them good money, too. > > None of this makes any of the file sharing legal or morally right -- it's > just too bad that the millions of kids who think that file sharing is alright > since it's only taking money away from the bad-guy corporations don't get > organized and become politically active and get the governments to change the > copyright laws more to their liking, and get the multinational recording > coporations to stop defrauding their recording artists. > > Millions of voters might just have more power than Disney, Inc. if only they > could get organized. > > -- > David H. Bailey > dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > Finale@shsu.edu > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
