by Helen Kelly

Created on: May 02, 2008   Last Updated: November 29, 2010

Back in the day, if you owned an album, and you wanted to share that album with your friend. They had to borrow your album. If they then wanted a copy of that album, they had to go to the music store and buy it. The artist who created that album was guaranteed to make some money on the sale. Notice I said....some money.

Since the major record companies had the artist tied up with contracts, and made sure they made their money back first, by the time the money filtered down to the artist, it was not nearly as much as the public thinks. Did you know that the record companies charge big dollars to the artist to produce, promote, and distribute their music? Are you aware that there are "writer's rights" and "publishing rights" to a song? The composer will get money from the radio play, because that falls under "writer's rights". If you purchase a music book with your favorite artist's songs in it, the artist may not make any money on that at all, because that falls under "publishing rights". The artist may not even own the publishing rights to their own material! The record company may have required them to sign their publishing rights over to the record label, so they could get a record deal!

Where the artist makes their money is in touring, and volume of sales. If you get $. 10 (that's right....10 cents) for every record someone buys, and you sell millions of records...well, you do the math.

Our new technologies make it possible to by-pass the record companies. In the past, if you couldn't get a record deal, you couldn't have a record released. Now anyone can express their musical talent. You can compose, record, copy, and distribute your own music. That's a good thing. It is now possible for anyone to steal music that has ever been created. That's a bad thing.

Every artist is entitled to make money on what they create. If what they create is something you want...then pay for it. How can they make a living as an artist if they cannot get paid for what they do? Just because an artist makes a lot of money at this point in their career, doesn't mean they don't deserve it. Do you know what they went through to get to that point? How about the individual who puts in the time, and effort, and expense to do their own thing? Don't they deserve to be paid? Do you, as a consumer, appreciate what the artist has created?

Then pay for it.

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