Do artists make any money out of CD sales?

Depends on the artist, contract, etc. All the big-name pop artists going platinum make money from CD sales. For artists on indie labels selling 10,000 copies, they make much more from playing shows, & CDs are a break-even proposition at best. Someone can provide much more detail, I'm sure.

Heh Heh.

1st off, what do you mean by an artist - the eagles, sure, but artist - nup.

I wouldn't even consider myself an artist because I really despise putting a title in front of my name or behind it, to give it wieght...ie...Artist, Musician, But Geoff pretty much hit it right on the nose.

The performer of a record. The question really arose when I got thinking about what the record companies take from Cd sales. The question could be: need we feel sorry for performers whose music is file-shared?

I have discussed it with people who know of the industry and they say CD sales don't make you rich because you get so little of the profits after everyone else has taken their share, and whats left over for you is then dippe dinto for expenses, like if your manager decides to have a massasge

So basically--the record company is like a bank who holds your right to make music as collateral... they lend you money, and you make a record--whatever money they make after recouping extraneous expenditures goes through some magical washer and then they figure out, ok, after we deduct X from how much you owe us and then how much we take via the contract, this is what you get. So in a sense, even if you fileshare an artist who doesn't make any money from CD sales, you still hurt him/her/them because then the record company just takes more out of the touring revenue to recoup their investment. They almost always get the money before you do. Even huge bands only get like a dollar or two from a CD sale, and that's pretty far- fetched. The only real exceptions are labels like Tzadik, where I think the profits are split down the middle, and Fripp's label, where the recording artist owns the rights to the music.

Bluntly put, file-sharing is stealing--as long as you're morally ok with swiping something without paying for it, then you should take to your heart's content. No and's-if's-or-but's, it's just a hell of a lot easier to steal when there's no anti-theft device attached.

But do you draw any moral distinctions between, (a) downloading one song by an artist you've never heard but are told is worth hearing, and on the other hand (b) downloading Amnesiac in its entirety and burning it to disc?

The one reason I've never felt bad about file-sharing is that I only do the first of the above. And the results of that can only benefit the artist: either I don't like it and nothing changes, or I like it and I go buy it.

(That's not a defense of file-sharing as a whole, by the way -- won't get into that thorny issue. Just pointing out that it can theoretically be used in a way that's not a serious moral issue.)

I wasn't trying to make it a moral issue--I download music all the time. My point was rather that one should come to terms with the idea that it is theft, and then decide whether or not you feel comfortable with it. That is asking a lot of people, but I think it's a valid request, ya know? But would you nip a sweater from a department store or a bike or a television?

I think I'm like you--if I like it, then I pay for it. I use it more to get import materials and/or advance copies that haven't come my way yet. But I'm a little sensitive about the whole damn-the-man phenomenon that seems to occur from the non-musician perspective. If anyone's actually had dealings with some of these labels, then you'd pretty soon realise that the person who gets hurt alot of the times is the artist. Courtney Love's rant about major labels should be taken in context of the fact that she owns the whole Nirvana songbook. It's relatively easy to ask your fans to dub to your heart's content when your money isn't directly related.

Home Taping Is Killing Music!

I don't have enough money to buy many records, so file-sharing is bliss for me- also, most of the things I download are old obscure things (Six Cents & Natalie, Desperate Bicycles) that I wouldn't be able to find anywhere anyway... Having said that, obviously (b) is a pretty bad thing to do, and I theoretically do (a), ie if it's good I'll put it on my list. Sadly, my list just gets longer and longer...

I challenge you to hometape 100 perfect copies of the White Album and distribute them to all your friends in one hour without having to anything other than stick your tape in the tape player and pressing dub. I hate HATE HATE that stupid analogy. On the other hand, I know exactly what you mean about the list. ARRRRGH!

A lot of people don't, which is surely some justification for cds in the UK being slightly pricey?
One of the women from S-K once said you could make money if you were clever about it and managed a lot yourself/had a nice publishing deal. The only way to do it if you weren't selling hundreds of thousands. (And those have to be album sales, singles make a huge loss). There was a website explaining all this somewhere, anyone have a link?

People who like stealing, fine. People who say "Well, the record companies rip people off anyway" = dud

In the first place, any money an artist gets from a record company has come from the sale of CDs. If not neccesarily their own. Artists, especially on labels from middlesize on up, get advances. The advances are against royalties on sales of CDs. So it's very possible they won't get any -more- money directly from the sale of CDs for a long time, especially because, yes, lots of other things: video costs, recording costs, some promo costs in N America (but not elsewhere) are treated as advances too. If they wrote the songs they'll get something. But typically artists get a new advance before recouping the first one.. unless they reach multi platinum sales levels most don't receive royalties (as opposed to advances) until they've stopped getting advances (gone to a new label, split up the group - whatever).

all the same, most money they get comes, at least indirectly, from the sale of CDs

I'm not so sure file sharing is always stealing. Public sculptures are seen by everyone with no charge. Yes, some bands dont like it and I guess it is stealing in that case. But many musicians allow it and even encourage it. I have bought CDs based on gettin g a few mp3s of a band. I wonder when Audio Galaxy will suffer Napster's fate? Its sure working well!

That analogy would only work if the artist was paid a flat rate and put his/her work into the public domain. Otherwise, it's more like going to see a movie without paying.

Isn't it more like taking out a book from the library. If you really really like it you'll end up buying a copy for your permanent collection in a nice edition. If you're just curious, you don't mind the hassle of waiting around for a dog-eared, public copy that may have no cover and a few pages missing.

As per the question: Not sure. It's different for different artists -- if you're one of the 50 top bands in the world you'll definitely make many, especially if you've been around for years, cause all of your expenses have been paid off. Anyway, it's a given fact that some artists have sold millions of records and ended up with pennies or less to show for it.

As for the related issue of downloading affecting sales; it's just not so. People downloaded for years in greater and greater numbers, and CD sales remained strong except for singles, which had been on the decline anyway (really, how many people do you know who buy singles?). Now of course, CD sales are definitely dropping, and the industry maggots are pointing fingers and saying "told ya so" -- gee, I don't suppose this would have anything to do with the overall declining economy, would it?