Another Blogger - Latest Comments in Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

bummertough — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 09:56:29 -0000

Your all missing the point here. The major labels are stealin....um er....making rediculous sums of money to pad their pent houses with. I have no problem with people making some cash but when is enough going to be enough. I'm tired of paying for rediculous costs of things today. 20 bucks for a CD? Artists might as well just start their own site and do their own advertising. Join other like minded musicians and then get a "new school" label going. It can't be that hard. Neil Young has all of his new songs available for free on his site. It would be a quick change for him to sell his music there instead. No more of this "well were gonna have to charge you for random crao you don't care about or need" BS from major labels. Cut out the middle man with the big grin on his face from all the money your music is making him.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Dave Bell — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 16:11:31 -0000

Amortisation is always a bit of a guess. It's a way of spreading fixed costs, such as the studio time, over an unknown quantity of product. You make 100k copies, and you amortise over maybe only 50k, maybe with no profit showing on them.

So you sell 60k, and make a nice big profit on the last 10k copies. Nopw, what's the profit you talk about?

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

hawkeye — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 13:43:45 -0000

I thought the basic iTunes deal was straightforward. Apple hosts the downloadable song (plus artwork, lyrics, whatever) on it's servers and pays for all the related costs (servers, maintenance, electricity bills, rents for the building the servers are kept in etc) itself. For that Apple takes its cut - 35 cents out of the 99 cents per song fee.

The record company takes the remaining 64 cents. How much of that 64 cents goes into the artists' pockets depends on the terms of their recording contracts. If the artists are getting reamed on on-line sales they are, as usual, getting reamed by the record companies. Same as it ever was...

The only way an artist will ever make big money through on-line sales is to cut out the record company and either host the songs themsleves (and pay for the infrastructure) or deal directly with Apple/Napster/eMusic etc.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Randolph Fritz — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:35:15 -0000

Sigh...repeat after me, "Prices have nothing to do with costs. Prices have nothing to do with costs. Prices..." Apple has near-exclusive access to their network of iPods, and they can charge what they want, just like the record and broadcast companies before them. Over time, the distributor's cut has been steadily rising; it may be that it is now a better deal for all but the most popular artists to distribute their music without copy protection (via mperia, for instance) than via any of the mass channels, especially considering the draconian terms of deals the mass distribution oligopolies are willing to offer.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Super Dave Osbourne — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 22:35:14 -0000

Simply, you make more if you are good at retaining the cash flow from the consumer. There are too many people in the middle between weird al and me. That is true in hard and software music distribution. If weird al wants more money, he needs to buy his rights back, don't share/sell them in the first place, and do what MC Hammer did by selling volumes of his 'music' (which is systematically a rippoff in the firstplace) out of the back of his ride traveling on tour instead of bellyaching about how he is being screwed.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

billy — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:34:45 -0000

"will wrote:

Yes. We’re all winners with iTunes. Consumers have less control over their music (in fact, I just had to deauthorize and reauthorize my computer just to be able to play songs I had already bought on iTunes - and the nice software bot happily told me I had 1 of my allotted 5 computers authorized - they wanted to let me know I hadn’t tried to step out of the box I was in).

Go buy a cd and quit whining? Was there a gun to your head?

"And…the artists are not making as much money. In the business world this is called win-win. Apple wins twice. Consumers and artists lose. "

What world are you from?

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

cramon — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:59:04 -0000

This seems pretty clear cut... the market is changing and the label, recognizing that... gave Al a contract that would give them a larger % of the pie for this growing distribution method.
#4 - the costs you refer to are production costs.. artist is usually fronted this money by label... and money is taken from their profits... what is at question, is why artists get lower rate when there is virtually no "distribution costs" i.e. packaging, shipping, warehousing....
#41 - think you missed the point... he is not comparing an album sale to a single song sale... its a question of rate. how much per song or per album... he is saying that he earns a lower per song/album rate via the web download vs. retail store sales of physical album/single.

to me this is just more record industry rule #4080 for those that know the language.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Infinitas — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:34:49 -0000

Let me get this straight. He is complaining that he makes more money by selling an album, probably 12 songs, than he does when sombody downloads 1 song? How is that a surprise? Besides, it doesn't cost "nothing" for the download service. You have to buy internet bandwidth, servers to host the download, IT staff to maintain the servers, buildings to put the servers in, electricity for the building and servers, etc. All of that stuff adds up pretty quickly and it is hardly "nothing".

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Matt — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:10:13 -0000

"he’s more involved with his music than some bubblegum-pop BS artist…"

So true.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Nyle — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:52:27 -0000

Give Weird Al his money or I'm coming down there and Polka-ing all over your heinie!!!!!!!

You don't think that the RIAA wants to encrouage it's artists to like digital distribution do you? If they did, they'd all come out and say in the press that they loved MP3s and digital distribution. They'd also encourage their fans to buy nothing but downloads. Then where would the RIAA be when they don't have control of the the distribution channel any more.

You see without the distribution channel they loose a lot of their relevence. You might find an innovative online music distribution company all of a sudden actually becomes the recod company and signs the artists themselves. ;^)

Just an idea but I think in the future if the RIAA doesn't embrace digtial distribution fully they might find themselves completely irrelevant.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

dorkboy — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:05:28 -0000

You know, because he does parodies, everybody considers the guy an idiot. If you've ever watched the video of Amish Paradise (Good lord, what am I saying?!), you'll realize that the guy has actual talent. It's not that he has a hoard of writers doing his songs for him, he does most of it himself, and they're over a wide variety of music... He's not just some idiot doing comedy, he's actually well educated and intelligent, he's got a bigger hand in the production of his albums than most artists would have, he's more involved with his music than some bubblegum-pop BS artist...

Sure, it's a parody, and that means it's not 100% original material (Not original music), but he sticks with good parodies and belts 'em out at a pretty good clip. He's been doing this for quite a while (23 years of albums), so if you can find another artist which is able to do, essentially, 23 years of comedy and STILL be a hit, good on 'ya!

Regardless, the artist typically gets the sh** end of the stick when it comes to how much they see from a track / album sale, they make up for it by concerts, swag (Shirts / mugs / whatever), endorsements, whatever... He's doing good for himself, and good for him. Intelligent artists (as opposed to the "just a pretty face with some talent") just deserve more.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

ShadoeKnight — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:03:34 -0000

Everything in production is equal. The stores pay electricity and other utilities. They also pay an inflated rent to the mall they're in or some large sum of money on their books for the building they built for the store. The real difference is in the fact that publishing a song to a CD is cheap as dirt these days. The equipment is proven and the workers are not that expensive. I am a computer programmer and I get paid pretty well. Napster, iTunes, and the others probably do too. That and the infamous greed of the executives is the real difference.

By the way, Weird Al not only graduated first in his class he also was going to school for architecture when he happened on his music career. He is also a director and producer in the industry. Kurt Cobain received a phone call from Weird Al while he was doing a late night talk show and said yes to Weird Al's question of doing a parody. He later said that he knew Nirvana had finally "made it" because Weird Al did a parody. Yep, nobody likes Weird Al at all and nobody, but Nirvana, listens to his music. He also asks each artist personally before doing a parody. Have you ever had a personal talk with Michael Jackson? Coolio is the only one he didn't ask directly and the producers told him yes even though Coolio was opposed. Oh, and Prince is the only artist who has ever, ever, said "no" to Weird Al.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Gobo — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 09:00:01 -0000

That's the irony of being a recording artist and dealing with digital distribution: the record companies are still going to take their cut, while the distributors take theirs, and soon there's not much left.

I think more and more artists are going to be turning to sites like http://www.tunecore.com (TuneCore) to handle their digital distribution -- sites that don't take a penny of the artists' profit, so folks like Weird Al can actually make *more* money digitally than they would on physical CDs.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Sysop — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 07:39:28 -0000

The major labels and iTunes also have to factor in the cost of research and development of the DRM that goes into all iTunes music. Al should consider releasing future albums under and independent non-RIAA affiliated label if he wants greater profit and his fans to be able to actually *buy* his music and not just lease it for awhile. eMusic, Al, eMusic! ;-)

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

will — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 06:31:45 -0000

Yes. We're all winners with iTunes. Consumers have less control over their music (in fact, I just had to deauthorize and reauthorize my computer just to be able to play songs I had already bought on iTunes - and the nice software bot happily told me I had 1 of my allotted 5 computers authorized - they wanted to let me know I hadn't tried to step out of the box I was in).

And...the artists are not making as much money. In the business world this is called win-win. Apple wins twice. Consumers and artists lose.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Thomas Worthington — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 04:28:25 -0000

The amortising argument is wrong. Amortisation is not a per-sale cost, it is in fact the opposite. It takes advantage of the lack of per-sale costs (ie gross profit on a sale) to pay for the massive one-off costs at the start. Logically, if amortisation were real per-sale costs then the artist would be better off (in terms of the up-front costs) selling just one item.

Amortisation is a bookkeeping mechanism for calculating the real nett profit of a sale based on expected sales, it is not a cost. Plus, it is not fixed. If the sales figures flop then the calculation has to be redone, which obviously can't happen in the case of a true per-sale cost.

The only per-sale costs are: bandwidth and storage (too small to measure expect in bulk) and royalties.

When the Net removed the distribution costs the RIAA stepped in and blasted lawsuits around in order to prevent anyone else taking those segments of the retail price for themselves. Being an organisation for record companies rather than artists, they made sure they wound up with the money in their pockets, not Apple, not the artists. That was the WHOLE idea of the RIAA's massive move against Napster. It had to be stopped before it (or someone similar) started to make deals with artists directly.

The world has moved on and record companies are now largely pointless, their business model is being supported entirely by the law because they know that a free market would annihilate them.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

IAmAI — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 04:21:10 -0000

It's no 'oddity'. It's greedy record and retail companies' scheme to make more profit at the expense of everyone else.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Chris Samuel — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 04:02:48 -0000

The comment on CD Baby is not false, it's just telling you what you get paid when you sell your own music through CD Baby (and hence onto iTunes, etc) rather than through a record company.

How do I know ? My wife has two CD's on CD Baby..

Chris

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

wickedsteve — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:45:58 -0000

I guess Tool is thinking of more than just awesome packaging and art while they can not be found on the iTMS.
And don't knock Al if you have not listened to him. Some of his original songs would surprise you and still provoke smiles or laughter. It sounds like some of the other commentors could use some.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

AstroBoy — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:05:05 -0000

The statement on CD-Baby's website is true, but its giving the price services like iTMS pay to distributors, not the rates artists get. CD-Baby in fact only keeps 9% of download sales (meaning the artist gets about $5.90 per album sale). However, CD-Baby is only a distributor; they don't do music production. An artist wanting to use CD-Baby has to have a CD in hand to sell (they do encode the albums for download services, but the artist still has to provide the album to encode from).

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

KnightMB — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:08:42 -0000

The comment on CD Baby is false, no artist, there or anywhere else makes that much money on a song sale. After splits, deals, and such, they come out between 1 and 4 cents per song. Credit card companies and paypal make their profit upfront before things are even split down to the artist. The only artist that make money on digital downloads are independent bands and artist because they don't have a middle man/company to sap all the profits. The website http://ind-music.com/ is a good example of where music artist actually do make money on digital downloads. No one else can claim that without having the numbers to back it up like those guys.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

adrian — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:04:34 -0000

NO, NOT WEIRD AL!

IMO, if you're a real fan of his music, then you should have all of his albums sitting on your cabinet or shelf, as I do. Even though I can easily access his songs on iTunes, they don't have some of his older songs and that's when I go to used CD stores and get it.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

mike — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:25:31 -0000

Just to clarify, a per-sale cost and development costs are two entirely different things. Above, 'fred' mentions that the effective development (recording, producing, etc) are essentially per-sale costs. That is complete babble.

A per-sale cost is not development. If say I'm going to sell 100K widgets, and it costs me $50K to develop the widgets, I don't have a per-sale cost of $.50 per widget to cover development. A per-sale cost is based on the production or sale, not the development of a product. Because if I need 100K boxes for widgets, at $1 each, then the total per-sale cost for packaging is $100K. But if I sell 150K instead, my per-sale packaing costs increase to $150K. But no matter how many of the widget I sell, my development only cost $50K.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

Rondizzio — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:22:35 -0000

Maybe he should do one of two things.
1. Go on tour, and make money like the rest of the bands on the planet.

or...

2. Quit, and disappear ... like the rest of the bands on the planet.

Re: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

WinBreak — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:03:26 -0000

Weird Al did graduate as the valedictorian of his high school. He's a smart man, if you just get past the zanyness... he's just out to have some fun.

Also note: you've been slashdotted.