On 15 Oct 2002 at 22:50, kakki wrote: > Glad you stepped in, Brenda. I believe you and agree with you and > don't want to defend such practices. But haven't a a lot of these > practices were being weeded out in the past 10-15 years due to > litigation and investigations and crackdowns by law enforcement and > regulatory agencies? Or maybe I am being too naive or hopeful and > some companies are perhaps putting up a front that they are going to > "reform" and then go right back to their old ways again? Also, often > the bottom line is that it is almost impossible to dredge up all the > old records (which are often long destroyed) or prohibitvely expensive > to find and review them all, so a true accounting is in many cases not > possible, especially for artists who want to review their accounts > from 3o-40 years ago. > > Kakki
None of the practices I'm referring to have been weeded out. Not even close. I've been in the business for just about 15 years and I have seen no change whatsoever in these types of things or the attitude toward doing it. Again it's not most of the people who work at labels - it's the few who have access to what hits the books and how. It's disgusting and it detracts from the hard work that many company employees give passionately and genuinely in support of music. As far as financial records go, if the companies opened the books on manufacturing, all kind of snakes would crawl out. And those records have been digitally recorded for some time now. And those that aren't digital are in warehouse files. Witch cases from 30-40 years ago, I would say the best those artists could hope for is to show proof that records were sold where it was claimed they weren't. (For instance, they could check for royalities paid to producers or publishers.) A number of companies have in the past released records in territories where they either did not have rights or where they told the artists there would be no release. Proving that there was a release of some kind could lead to a financial settlement. It is very expensive and if there is a discrepency found above a certain percentage, the label has to bear that cost. So they fight tooth and nail (or settle) to avoid audits because they know in most cases, they're going to surpass that percentage. Brenda n.p.: -------------------------------------------- "Radio has no future" - Lord Kelvin, 1897
