I suspect otherwise. We'll never know how much the record company makes (Hollywood accounting), but there's no reason to believe they're giving him half the take. I'd be shocked if he even got 10%, it's probably more like 3%. And they're not just getting 97% of his, but 97% of everyone's.
We'll never know how much the record company makes
But he said that he's the label as well and he included that statement in the post. The total was only a little over twice as much as he was paid as the artist.
I did read the article. In the past few years I've ready many other articles on the subject as well. Do you know anything about how any of this works?
We do not know what the record company makes off of this, their standard accounting practices ensure that most bands never make any money in royalties, period. When they do "earn" these royalties, they are invariably some tiny fraction of the total profits.
How do they do this? They "front" the bands a service, which includes promotion and management and so much... and they get to decide how much this costs. But they don't disclose it to the band then, or afterward. This magic number then becomes how much the band has to earn before they start seeing royalties. And they get to calculate how much that performer has earned. And when various radio stations and MTV and whoever in the hell else pays license fees, they even get to decide how that is apportioned.
It's no surprise that most bands never pay that amount back.
But, if somehow someone does (they're so popular that gigantic lawsuits would ensue if the record company didn't do this), they still get a piddling fraction of the total sales.
Never mind that you get record company and record label mixed up... the latter is just a brand/logo to slap on the music.
And none of this even gets into how ASCAP and the like screw over indies who never sign with a record company.
