The dreaded lurgy has struck - eyes, nose and throat are all suffering. Some brief thoughts before retiring to bed.
The question in the guestbook about "the money flow within the industry", has led to interesting ruminations - mainly about the nature of the publishing industry.
An analysis of most smaller selling albums (less than 200,000), will show little profit for the artist, little for the record label - but mucho dinero for the writers and publishers. Writers get paid from CD one, and pay none of the marketing costs. A single may make no money for the artist, or the record label - but, yes, it makes money for the publishers and writers, who contribute none of the marketing costs.
Recently published from EMI show that recorded music made a loss of £8.1 million on a turnover of £867 million, while publishing made a profit of £51.2 million on turnover of only £200 million. As the industry is currently configured, writing and publishing is where the money is.
Do Writers/publishers actually freeload on the back of artists/record labels, I wonder? Take the example of the great Crim. They have spent much of the last year in rehearsals, which will paid from the recording budget. Yet what is happening is writing, not recording. Did Pink Floyd spend nine months int he studio recording Dark Side of the Moon, or was some/much of that time spent writing? Roger Waters is the sole writer of the Wall, but the whole band will have paid the recording time.
The current publishing arrangements mirror an old world where music was pre written and artists went into the studio to record. "Please Please Me" in a day, "In the Court" allowing itself the luxury of a week.
Yet as the pattern has changed, and the recording studio has become a writing tool, it is the record companies not publishing companies that have funded the increased costs. Is this wrong I wonder through my dribbling haze.
Perhaps the $250,000 recording budget referred to in the article should be a $50,000 recording budget, with a $200,000 publishing advance. That would alter the balance of the figures....
Methinks the current situation is unequitable toward any non writing member of a band, who are paying an equal share of recording bills, while the writers alone will earn the money - George and Ringo ask for your money back....
"The science is in knowing, the art in perceiving."
