Major labels are like the blob that ate Springfield. Will anything ever stop their insatiable appetite?
Squeezing Money From the Music : Major labels have begun demanding a cut of concert earnings or T-shirt, ring tone and merchandise revenue from new artists seeking record contracts.the big record companies, whose fortunes are still overwhelmingly tied to CD sales, are taking a far more expansive view of how to carve out pieces of the music economy, which by some estimates runs as high as $75 billion, including recording sales, music publishing, concert ticket and merchandise sales and other sources of revenue.
There has also been a scramble to squeeze revenue from other unconventional sources, including amateur videos posted to YouTube that incorporate copyrighted songs. Universal Music threatened to withhold its huge music catalog from Microsoft’s new digital music service unless it received a royalty of more than $1 on each sale of the technology giant’s Zune portable music player.
Lately, the major labels have in effect tried to move into the talent management business by demanding that new artists seeking record contracts give their label a cut of concert earnings or T-shirt and merchandise revenue — areas that had once been outside the labels’ bailiwick.
Greedy MoFos, taking food out of the mouths of their alleged clients.
Technorati Tags: Business, corruption
