apple steals music?

In a spoof of the apple website (soon to be cease and desisted, I'm sure) Downhillbattle makes the claim that iTunes is just another fancy packaging on a corrupt music industry.

The site goes on:

If you build a shiny new house on a landfill it still stinks

Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to artists and record companies." That's simply not true. First of all, Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. Many of them will never even see this paltry share because they have to pay for producers and recording costs, both of which can be enormous. Until the musician "recoups" these costs, when you buy an iTunes song, the label gives them nothing.

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tlevitz's picture

oh. And here I was about to get all defensive over iTunes... "it's a step in the right direction, isn't it? Isn't it?"

I know I've seen the numbers somewhere but what is the actual impact of online services and file sharing on the artists? Anybody know anything specific in terms of estimated losses, etc.?

On a side, semi-sarcastic note, it's nice to see the big kids like Madonna and Metallica still keeping up the good fight on behalf of struggling new artists.

The whole record industry needs an overhaul. The problem is way bigger than an mp3... when companies get huge, go public and "shareholder value" becomes a prime concern, well, that's the beginning of artists getting screwed.

Dabitch's picture

Janis Ian a recording artist inside view on music downloading . She's got a different take, free downloads are good for artists like her.