Though the industry has rectified some egregious practices of the past, royalty rates and calculations still stir distrust.
"Just move the decimal point over," says the singer, 68.
"I don't want a handout, I don't want a telethon, I don't want anyone to pass the hat. If they'd just paid into it, I'd be getting a fair pension. I never got a straight accounting on royalties."
The record business abounds with tragic lore of music pioneers cheated out of earnings by predatory managers and labels.
Today's industry is cleaner but still too byzantine to seal any deal with a handshake. And no aspect is thornier than royalties, which lend record contracts a Rube Goldberg complexity and cause for conflicts.
"The issue comes down to one word: transparency," says Fred Wilhelms, a Nashville-based lawyer who represents artists on royalty and benefit matters.
"The royalty accounting system is cloaked in obscurity. The labels pay royalties based on sales but are the only ones with actual sales data. What gets reported is up to them, and there's no way to easily verify the numbers."
Royalties vary according to label custom, the clout of each artist and negotiating skills of lawyers involved. Among murky issues:
• Rates on CDs are usually 85% of cassette/vinyl rates, an outdated practice set when CDs were expensive to produce.
• Sizable deductions from royalties are taken for recording, video and tour costs.
• Reductions for vaguely defined costs of radio promotion can reach $500,000 per track.
Artists receive quarterly statements with computations Da Vinci would have trouble decoding.
"There's an indifference to getting things right, and 95% of the errors I see in royalty statements break in favor of the label," Wilhelms says. "That confounds the laws of probability."
But the overt theft of old is gone, says Don Passman, lawyer and author of All You Need to Know About the Music Business.
"Most of the majors don't do what you'd call stealing anymore," he says "They don't intentionally understate royalties. Mistakes are inadvertent or a result of different interpretations."
"The stealing is pretty aboveboard. They spell out exactly how they're doing it. If there's a gray area, they're not shy about interpreting the contract in their favor."
Article comments
1 - Douglas Mays
Good post! Yes, it is quite a battle therefore some fuckery takes place to balance the books. Wherever a buck can be reappropriated it will, such as the case with Sam Moore.
And now, with music downloading for a cost (iTunes, etc.) that is another spot on the bueracratic learning curve.
True, one hit artist pays for the other 9 that don't make it. Quite a roll of the dice on the record company, but the small change it takes to treat someone like Sam Moore as a human being sure makes the current state of the music industry look like assholes.
It is a very complex issue. The whole system needs a spin dry.
peaceloveguidance
2 - Vern Halen
Ouch! I don't know why anyone would want to be in the music biz if this is how it's run. Now that I think about it, almost every rockstar bio I've read has a section or two or ten containing a financial tale of terror.
Still, I guess it takes a certain kind of person to keep plugging away at it until the brass ring comes within reach. Unfortunately, having that kind of personality and having talent don't necessarily corelate with each other.
3 - brown_boognish
Just don't sign to a major label if you want to avoid this shit. You can live an adquate life on a smaller label, and still get substantial distribution. No long contracts to screw you over.
4 - Vern Halen
Maybe part of the problem is that there are no long term contracts - t least ones that are designed to develop & nurture an artist with an investment over a period of years. Big Biz wants big bucks NOW, and if you don't make it the first time round right out of the starting gate, it's hard to get a second chance.
Think of almost any major artist from the 70's: Springsteen or Aerosmith, for example. Had they been dropped after their first or second albums, which had only moderate sales, they might mot have developed into the megastars they are today.
Simply put, it'd be really nice if music was the most important word in the phrase "music business."
5 - Douglas Mays
hhhmmm... the question of go indy or major. My suggestion is go major, if it fails you always have indy to fall back on.
Utilize a major. Just on advances alone and marketing (however slight it might be) that puts you far ahead of what an indy can do for you.
Then think of this, being a broke starving artist or complaining that you are owed another $50,000 on top of your $million.
A good, creative music attorney is helpful. Take a look at White Stripes for example.
Anyway, big risky business. It is a shame that the trickle-down effect to artists like Sam Moore occur. That is one of the holes that has to be plugged up. The industry must take care of its own till they die. Then in this business, after death also. Funny how death can sell records in this biz. Oh gosh, the next phase of music business scandle. Record companies wacking artists to really cash in...
anyway,
peaceloveguidance
6 - Douglas Mays
A classic phrase in the business: "not happy with your record contract? Be lucky you have one."
peaceloveguidance
7 - Vern Halen
hmmm.......makes you wonder about all those Cobain conspiracy theories out there.....
8 - Douglas Mays
I wonder... it wasn't Courtney. It might of been Tony 'the weasel' Belefukio.
Sorry, Courtney. Didn't mean to remind you of all these hack accusations being thrown at you.
peaceloveguidance
9 - Douglas Mays
Come to think of it, could be the case with Tupac...