OT: Recording Industry Ripoff

[Fyron]

"For all his complaints about iTunes and Steve Jobs, Clark's problem really lies with the labels. iTunes, Napster, Virgin Digital, Wippit and co. are all retailers - performance royalties are negotiated by the labels and artists' managers, not by the retailers."

The pricing Apple dictated was 79 cents to the label and 20 cents to Apple, where the label gives out the standard royalty rate to the artists... The proportions really aren't that much different from CDs sold in physical retailers.

[El_Phil]

I think the whole point is that the artists only get 1/2 the rate (percentage wise) for downloads as CDs.

Given Apples power they could pretty much dictate the pricing, as the labels were panicing mildly at the time they got badly screwed by Apple on that deal. Of course they kept a good cut for themselves (they weren't panicing that much) so it was bad for the performers and writers. They are getting much less than standard %s on iTunes sales, of course this is nothing to do with Apple that isn't my complaint about Apple.

My problem is that Apple got a very good deal to start with and fleeced alot of people. Lets be honest they don't do much, certainly not enough to justify a 20% cut. So with their cut now under threat as the record labels start wondering why Apple gets so much money for so little, they accuse everyone else of greed, when they themselves have spent the last few years being epically greedy.