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Bands Cheap Trick and the Allman Brothers are suing Sony Music over a dispute about royalties from internet song downloads from services such as iTunes.
Apparently, Sony was deducting 20% from the artists' royalties for packaging and 15% for breakage- fees that exist for CD sales. Reading more into the article and on /. posts, this 15% fee for breakage is from the old days of shellac records, where a large number of the records would arrive broken after shipment. So apparently it's a long history of screwing over the artist.
In fact with all these fees, the article states that Cheap Trick gets 4.5 cents from every 99-cent iTunes sale.
I have to say that this kind of bullshit is one of the reasons why *cough* some people *cough* feel little guilt downloading music. If one were to download a Cheap Trick album right now, they'd be screwing Cheap Trick out of 45 cents. Sony (and Apple I suppose) are losing $9.50. If they download the album, realize they like the band and then go to a show, the artist probably nets more money in the end than from purchasing the cd on iTunes and not going to a show because you don't like it. Doing things this way also has the nice benefit of ensuring that crappy music doesn't get so much business. Then again, Ticketmaster is just as bastardly as Sony. Either way you go, the artists are getting screwed.
Apparently, Sony was deducting 20% from the artists' royalties for packaging and 15% for breakage- fees that exist for CD sales. Reading more into the article and on /. posts, this 15% fee for breakage is from the old days of shellac records, where a large number of the records would arrive broken after shipment. So apparently it's a long history of screwing over the artist.
In fact with all these fees, the article states that Cheap Trick gets 4.5 cents from every 99-cent iTunes sale.
I have to say that this kind of bullshit is one of the reasons why *cough* some people *cough* feel little guilt downloading music. If one were to download a Cheap Trick album right now, they'd be screwing Cheap Trick out of 45 cents. Sony (and Apple I suppose) are losing $9.50. If they download the album, realize they like the band and then go to a show, the artist probably nets more money in the end than from purchasing the cd on iTunes and not going to a show because you don't like it. Doing things this way also has the nice benefit of ensuring that crappy music doesn't get so much business. Then again, Ticketmaster is just as bastardly as Sony. Either way you go, the artists are getting screwed.
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