Very nice job by a swarm of geeks and Janis:

1) How much?
by evilviper
What percentage do you make of the sticker-price of your CDs?

Janis:
As the artist/singer, that's a tough one, because it depends on the contract, and also the sticker price. For instance, contractually I make a smaller amount on records that are priced "mid-line", cut-outs, singles, cassettes, compilations? well, you get the idea! It also depends on the era; my first contract, with Verve (now Polygram) had a royalty rate of 2%. Current royalty rates are 12-20%. Generally, figure that if I was completely paid back, there were no new charges for shipping/ distribution/ advertising/ travel/ phones/ faxes/ artwork/ publicity/ promotion/ manufacturing etc etc, I would make around $1-$2 on a list price of $17.98. Alas, that never happens, because records get high list price only when there's a lot of promotion behind them. On mid-line (you buy it for $12.98), my take drops to around 85 cents, and on down the line.

As the songwriter, I make less if I write the songs - then the record company invokes a 75% clause, where they only pay the songwriter/recording artist 75% of the Congressionally set statutory rate for writing/publishing the song. Their original argument, around 10 years ago, was that artists who insisted on recording their own songs cut the chances of a hit record, because the record company couldn't recommend potential hit songs for them to record.

Also, if you know, how much of that price is going to pay for advertising, studio time, et al., and how much is pure profit for the record companies?

Janis:
Almost impossible to determine; you'd have to know the advertising budget, studio budget etc. On my CD Breaking Silence, which is owned by Morgan Creek throughout most of the world, I paid for the entire record myself, so there were no recording costs. We've sold about 100,000 of them worldwide. I haven't seen royalties.

Do you not find it strange that a 2-hour DVD, with commentary, subtitles, and extra scenes, can be sold for less than $10, while few audio CDs are that low priced?

Janis:
I don't find it strange, I find it reprehensible.

2) Radio Station consolidation
by gorilla
When you entered the music business, radio stations were diverse. In the last few years, this diversity has disappeared. Do you have any comments on this?

Janis:
Maybe it's all part of a great international conspiracy to deprive us of choice while driving us crazy with limited playlists of bad music? Maybe the conspiracy includes not just record companies (who benefit because it's much cheaper to sell a million copies of 1 CD by 1 artist than to sell a million CD's by a million artists to a million different people), but also radio stations (who may need that new refrigerator/trip to Cancun to meet a new artist/free lunch/widescreen TV for the office much more than you or I need good, varied music), and drug companies who are using the incredible psychoses derived from hearing a Backstreet Boys single three thousand times to push their drugs on us?

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