), unless otherwise stated. Privacy Policy Terms of ServiceMusic artists frequently complain about their work being stolen by their record label, how they're never reimbursed for their intellectual property and some artists even have to file for bankruptcy to get out of hideous record deals. I'd like to take this moment to make an analogy between music artists and fashion models.
The fashion model's job is limited to a photo shoot. When the shoot is finished, he/she receives payment for it, and signs a Model Release contract. The contract specifies that the model waivers all rights to how, when and why the photos are published. In effect, having paid the model and received this waiver, the photographer now owns 1) the copyright on the images and 2) all rights to publish them commercially.
The model receives no more payment ever, even if the photo goes on to make a zillion bucks.
Now imagine this applied to the music industry. It would go something like this: The 'record company' hires an 'artist' to do a recording. He/she receives payment for the job, and signs a deal to waiver all rights to said recording. The 'record company' now owns 1) the copyright on it and 2) the right to publish it.
If they make zero or a zillion bucks from it, the 'artist' is never affected or further reimbursed.
Now, you'll say that's not how the music industry works. Well, that's how I believe the music industry wants it to work. They take all risk and get all benefits. The artist becomes merely a 'model'. Of course, the industry keeps inflating the expectations of newly signed bands, saying they stand to make a fortune (which some actually do).
If you take a look at the music trends over the last decade or so, you would come to a set of conclusions:
This is sad for all real (non-created) artists, who thought their painstaking creations would surely last centuries. The truth is that record companies are just adapting to the way people buy (and, in no small respect, shaping the way people buy). It's called 'maximizing profit' and is one of the pillars of market economy. The record companies are sometimes referred to as 'evil', although they're actually just Enhancing Shareholder Value™. That's the other pillar, by the way.
Right now, there is considerable strain between music artists and record companies. Artists say the music industry is only offering slave contracts, while the music industry is saying 'shut up already and get with the program'. This conflict is escalating by the day. What to do then?
Internet might come as the savior here. Using internet, the real creative artists can publish themselves. These 'records' would be much cheaper, and the fans can be reassured that 100% of the fee will end up with the artist. Indeed, that's the route many artists hope to go, craving for a larger share than $0.50 they're getting of the twenty-ish bucks their CD is retailing for.
This means the split would be final, the divorce complete. All creative artists would publish themselves, retaining full ownership of their work and benefit 100% from it's sale (if any). They'd be happy to give the record companies the almighty finger, (cue finger), and tell them collectively to go stuff themselves. The record companies would say 'pfft, good riddance, don't come crawling back later' and go back to their cute redhead 'artists'. It would be nasty, but maybe best for both in the end.
However, our story doesn't end there.
While I believe the record companies will see a diminishing market, at least for a few years to come, I think they'll be quite well off. There's always another redhead.
More interesting is the question if internet is really a viable place for creative artists to publish themselves. Historically, a record deal has always been a ticket to big-business, and was what separated happy amateurs from professionals. A record deal was like a quality seal: it can't have been that crappy if it got published. But on the internet you don't need a record deal. Anyone can, and will, be publishing their bathroom recordings on the internet (me too!). Quality assessment will not be hard, it will be impossible. The consumers will have to wade through vast oceans of pus to find little nuggets of good stuff.
This 'everyone can publish' has its drawbacks. The consumers cannot rely on the publishing mechanism to be a quality filter. Any technology that will lower the entrance barriers to production and publication will be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it will be very fair; everyone who has the gift can walk the walk. On the other hand, competition will be fierce. The publishing mechanism, besides filtering out the worst junk, was also a mean to make sure that the ones who passed the filter also could make a decent living out of it. If you made it, you could live off of it. If you didn't, you'd go and do something else. Having a system with no entrance barrier will allow close to perfect competition and will also be very tough on everybody. It would be like the extreme populousness of New York cabs, with fierce competition and where noone is making any money.
After an initial flurry of commerce, the zillions of newly established artists on the internet will start aggregating into clusters, trying to get more attention from the consumers and separating themselves from the worst junk out there. These clusters will promote their artists to the end consumers, and will act as a quality seal. Since this process costs money, artists will have to give up a little of their revenue to pay for this promotion, staff, ads, etc.
Even so, they would still earn more money this way than going on their own. Consumers would realise that buying from promoted artists was a sure way of getting high quality stuff (even though it might be a little more expensive). Artists would see that being promoted was a way of actually making decent money, perhaps even a living from their work.
As a side effect, they might be forced to sign over the ownership of their work to the promoting agency, so that their work could be better managed and marketed. Surely a small price to pay. The agency could also offer financial support for the creations, to make sure they were recorded in a good studio with great musicians. They might even be able to pay the artist before his work was published. And as an additional benefit, they would also help the artist making their work 'more in line with consumer expectations'.
We could call them Recording Industry for the Advancement of Artists. Or plain RIAA for short.