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Posted by sondance on 07-03-2017 at19:44:

  Royalty Loyalty

DA albums apparently sell on a variety of outlets.
Do the guys still get royalties these days?

being nosy

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Posted by Audiori J on 07-03-2017 at20:27:

 

Depends on who is selling them and who owns the rights.

When it comes to the Horrendous Disc kickstarter we intend on all the band members to get something even if it's divided up so much after the expenses that they don't get much. We have to pay for all the printing, then the money gets split between the two labels involved, then the Stunt part will get divied up by the band.

We were asked once about some reissue CDs we were selling, if the old band members got royalties.... this is a situation where the label that printed them should pay royalties, the outlets that buy the CDs wholesale from the label can sell them for a proffit (and not need to pay royalties). But even in that case we would put the money the site made back into producing new albums or reissues or whatever. Those reissues get sold on things like the DA tour where the band splits the money as they choose.

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Posted by sondance on 07-04-2017 at15:28:

 

ok, wouldn't the seller of the wholesale purchases pay royalties?

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Posted by Audiori J on 07-04-2017 at16:46:

 

No. If Word records put your album out (owned the license) and printed a million copies... for every copy sold to resellers (or anywhere else) they (Word) would have to pay royalties. The resellers are just buying the product and reselling for a proffit, the resellers don't pay royalties. Just as if you resell your CD collection on ebay, you don't pay royalties. The reslleers can't print the album themselves unless they pay a license fee to the owner (Word) in which case the artist would get royalties from that.

In the case of DA, almost every album came out on a different label. In some cases Terry/the band owns the album and the publishing, sometiems they own the publishing and in some cases they own nothing. Terry has been working out getting some of the ownership back the last few years.

It gets a little complicated because if someone owns the recorded album... then the band can't rerelease the album as it was releleased before without paying a license. On the other hand if they own the publishing they could rerecord the album and release that. At the same time if a label owns the album but not the publishing, technically they can't put the album out again without paying royalties for the publishing...

This all gets messy as none of this gets enforced very well. At least not without the RIAA or someone getting involved.

But really royalties which are typically like 9 cents per copy are not as big of a deal as it would seem when the volume of product is printed in such low quantities. If 1000 CDs are pressed....were talking like $90. Which is why in our case we don't take a cut and just give the money to the parties involved.

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Posted by sondance on 07-05-2017 at12:16:

 

wow that is complicated, thanks Jason

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Posted by WoaaahJelly! on 07-05-2017 at14:15:

 

Sounds like there's a complex system of layers of nonsense between the musicians (the proper owners of the music) and the music they made, and the profits. Maybe this goes back to the era when an artists needed the production apparatus for physical media. Seems to me these days artists can record and cut and produce distribute their own media (downloads too).

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Posted by Audiori J on 07-06-2017 at06:18:

 

Yeah... but I think it was set up in such a way that for example in the 60s the bands didn't have the money to press a million copies of their album... the labels did. So if the label pays for most of it and pays for advertising and all that, they get most of the money. The royalty thing was to make sure the artist got something.

Now days it's quite different... there still is the above for big name artists... but things like kickstarter and patreon allow the artist to be essentially their own label. Of course typically millions of copies don't get sold and the advertising is not like Pepsi commercials and Rolling Stone.

One other thing.... when a song is played publically to an audience the radio station or whoever should be paying royalties. Which again gets messy because as everyone knows with the internet.. and online radio stations and youtube people put artist's music up to stream and nothing gets paid to the artist at all.

It's why there is a debate about how to police the internet. People's intellectual property gets used without royalties being paid.