Quote:
Originally posted by REIKI
If your (plural/general) livlihood was based on the sale of your goods, and every good that was pirated cut into your ability to make a living, the answer would be most obvious. Just because a very small percentage of music artists are in a higher income bracket than the average person, does not mean that a bootlegged cd here or there and a illegal download here and there doesn't directly impact their ability to earn the money they deserve for the work they put into creating that music product. If say for instance you were a car salesman, and every time someone wanted to purchase a car from you, I came along and handed them a business card for my dealership where I have program (slightly used) cars that look just as new for a better price, and caused you to loose customers, eventually you would feel the pinch in your pocket. It is the same logic with bootlegging, and sadly it is the newer artists who don't have money to begin with that feel it the most. Just because you see an artist in a video, getting pumped by P.R. people, and performing, doesn't mean they have made much if any money yet. I believe Mary J. was still living in the "ghetto" when her first single was getting major rotation on the radio and doing well on the charts. It really hurts the artist more than the record companies even because they take in a larger share of record profits than than the artist. Then you have to consider publisher, writer, producer, arranger shares. By the time you get down to the artist, you are really lucky if you are taking in .50-75 cents on the dollar per album.
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REKI is right... you will be surprised how much an artist REALLY gets per CD sale. I wish I had a transcript of the recording that Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes made for VH-1's "Behind the Music" because she accurately breaks down how this industry works. I myself being in the publishing industry, I can testify that there are stiking similarities in the operations of the companies in these two industries.
I can go on and on and on about how downloading is wrong and it hurts the artist but I would be waisting my time. Downloading doesn't just hurt the artist that sings the song, but the songwriters as well. They get the smallest piece of the pie and they have to write for "several" artists in order to claim to make a decent living from it. To put another spin on it, all contributors to an album share 3% of the retail price of an album... can you imagine spliting 54 cents with as many as twenty people. Then is the song(s) contain a sample, then a select few (we'll say seven) get 40 cents while the majority (thirteen people) are stuck sharing 10 cents.
Something to think about.