Record Royalties: Backwards Traction

 

In May of 2007, I wrote a post about the wacky world of record company royalty recoupment.

This week (Nov.-2009) - I received another royalty statement.

Wow!...we've gone backwards!

In May 2007, we were unrecouped to Warner Brothers to the tune of $174,073.84

Now...our balance is up to $174,717.56!

Talk about "pushing forward back!".

How is this possible?

Good question!

Even as a veteran record company exec...I thought I'd seen it all!

This is a phenomenon that is both sad and laughable.

Warner Bros. still makes money off our back catalog...but yet finds ways to implement "creative accounting" to send us backwards.

Haha!

...And people wonder why the record business is in the swirling vortex of despair.

The accountants are desperately trying to administer CPR to an industry that has breathed it's last...(insert Dixieland funeral dirge here)

Am I bitter?

Am I mad?

Heck, no! These are unsecured loans!

While the record company may be re-collecting their money at usurious rates...

...it's like squeezing blood from a stone!

Record companies recoup their money off album sales...not us personally.

There was lot that I didn't like about the record business of old...may she rest in peace.

But there was a lot I did...and this is one of them.

I could say that we were were overbilled and ripped off!

But I prefer another word for us...

Fortunate!

(...to be continued)

Comments

[Byrd56]

Having read this post, I am reminded of TLC's "Crazysexycool" album from 1996, which sold 10 million copies.

And yet the three girls who made up TLC still declared bankruptcy after recoupable expenses, along with taxes and other commissions, ate up much of their royalties.

Do you suppose Tionne, [the late] Lisa and Chilli were that "fortunate" back then?

[db]

Touche, Byrd. From what I know of the TLC deal, it started out as a production deal with Pebbles, who was the one who originally got the deal and then paid the girls (or not!) out of her cut. So that deal was watered down to begin with. My point is that monies invested by record companies are not the same as borrowing money from a bank. Even though record deals are actually usurious interest rates, you can walk away at the end...without losing your house. Try that with a bank.