First Blood is Spilled at Record Industry Hearings - The War is On!!!
The recording industry are cooking the books when they calculate the royalties the artists are to be paid.
"But surely the artists have a right to audit them and see that things check out?"
Nope, not really.
By contract, artists are prohibited from showing royalty statements to third parties. Normally this would not include their managers, lawyers, consultants, or others who could aid them in getting paid, but apparently this is not necessarily the case.
The artists must use an auditor from a short list the industry kindly provides them. Oh, and the auditor can only work for one artists at the time. And they can't audit the manufacturing records. And ... their auditors are required to meet with label executives BEFORE they can release findings to their clients.. Grok that!
Read the article in MusicDish for tales about Back Street Boys never getting A CENT from royalties. Read about recording companies claiming no overseas sales when they had made 22 pressings on foreign subsidiaries. What a buch of crooks.
Being a computer programmer sounds like a pretty good deal.
(via Aaron Swartz)
