Comments on: Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal

By: music - Weird Al Yankovic getting screwed?

music - Weird Al Yankovic getting screwed? — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 05:45:50 +0000

[...] Weird Al and a Messed Up iTunes Deal » Another Blogger and the digital music [...]

By: BC Law IPTF Blog » Blog Archive » Weird Al’s “You’re Pitiful” Blocked by Atlantic Records; Plus How Little He Gets from iTunes

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 16:23:23 +0000

[...] http://www.anotherblogger.com/2006/06/13/weird-al-and-a-messed-up-itunes-deal/ [...]

By: Constellation / Weird Al Yankovic Says Digital Is a Raw Deal For Some Artists

Constellation / Weird Al Yankovic Says Digital Is a Raw Deal For Some Artists — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 20:34:22 +0000

[...] King of comic rock, Weird Al Yankovic says digital is a raw deal for artists like himself. When asked by a fan whether purchasing a conventional CD or buying a digital file via iTunes would net Yankovic more pocket money the artist answered on his website.“I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKED… I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure.“ [...]

By: bummertough

bummertough — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 13:56:29 +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.

By: Dave Bell

Dave Bell — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 20:11:31 +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?

By: hawkeye

hawkeye — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:43:45 +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.

By: Randolph Fritz

Randolph Fritz — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 00:35:15 +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.

By: Super Dave Osbourne

Super Dave Osbourne — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 02:35:14 +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.

By: (((withoutsound))) » Blog Archive » Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah Right

(((withoutsound))) » Blog Archive » Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah Right — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 02:31:08 +0000

[...] [peeled by] [...]

By: billy

billy — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:34:45 +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?