On 15 Oct 2002 at 20:44, kakki wrote: > > On the other hand, do record companies fool around with the royalties > owed to artists? A number of artists over the years claim they do. > Is it deliberate, or is is just bad or sloppy (and sometimes arrogant) > accounting practices? Mostly the latter. Some artists also may see > their songs or albums for sale in foreign countries and think to > themselves "the record company never paid me for those!" not realizing > that they are often "pirated" product, over which the record company > has little or no control, especially in those countries where > "pirating" is legal. >
There are things for which I will defend record companies but this is not one of them. Yes, there is some bad and sloppy accounting, however at a lot of companies, there is a systematic and deliberate effort to apply more things to the artist as recoupable than what should be charged to them. The higher that recoupable balance, the more records they have to sell to be paid royalties. Some of the things I've seen artists charged for are nothing short of outrageous. Appliances, spa visits, electronics. NBA center court tickets. There are also lots of records sold which are classified as "free goods," meaning the copy is supposed to be given away to retailers for promotion, however the label gets paid (even though it is supposed to be "free") and hides it from the artist. For accounting purposes, free goods are treated as non-royalty accruing copies even though retailers sell them. This practice is so widespread that there is a boilerplate contract clause to cover it up. In most contracts, artist cannots audit manufacturing. So they cannot find out how many CD's were produced and weigh that against what is reported to have been sold. I saw firsthand the practices which were nothing short of deception. I saw it at major labels, an imprint of a major and at indies. It happens at a lot (if not a majority) of the companies. And the small group of people responsible for the execution of these practices hold the prevailing belief that if the artists can't afford an audit they'll never know what has been improperly charged to them or what their true sales figures are. Brenda n.p.: Air - "All I Need" -------------------------------------------- "Radio has no future" - Lord Kelvin, 1897
