In the US, songwriters are paid according the rates stated by the government and changes according to the economy. Last I saw they were being paid 8 cents for each song below the 5-min mark and about 1.6 cents per min for longer songs. So if a writer has a CD with 10 songs below 5 mins, he gets $0.80 per CD sold. A million copies sold would only net him $800k.
However, it is very common for record companies to negotiate till they pay them only 3/4 of the statutory rates, or in my example, he should most likely get $600k only. That is a mere pittance for a Platinum album!
Singers get slightly more, 8-25% as mentioned above. But a quarter of that will be taken away for packaging costs. So it becomes 6-21%. Record companies also often give away 5-10% of the CDs, which are not counted as "sold". Then about 35% of the total royalties are normally held back by the record companies because record stores have return privileges - no store wants to be stuck with outdated CDs from yesterday's stars.
The music artists also have to pay for many other things including advertisements, recording costs, music video production costs and etc. Even if the songs are only sold online via downloads, packaging costs are still charged.
In the end, singers and songwriters actually earn very little from records sales (singers who write their own songs earn even less - only 75% of what songwriters get, but they get paid whenever a radio/TV station plays their songs).
What is really a good source of income for famous stars is live performances. For example, Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana, another generic teenage Disney product) earned $45.3M from her concert tours in 2007-2008. You don't see her making that sort of money from DVD sales, whether they're movies or songs.
The rates for these actually vary so much that I can't find any solid numbers. Only the veterans get to receive a percentage of ticket sales. Others get a pre-stated sum of money or worse - get paid only for fuel costs or in food and beer. The actual rates depend on the fame of the performer and how well he/she negotiates and doesn't actually have a somewhat regulated the way CD/DVD sales do.
Now comes the original question - if records don't make much money for them, then why bother? Only the lesser-known artists would have reason to want more records sold, as explained above, but established artists don't need the relatively puny bit of cash they get from that. Just a 2-year tour would rake in more cash than they do with 3-4 albums made over a decade (that's what I think anyway). I don't know if most artists produce albums faster than that, but from what I see from Linkin Park and Eminem, each album usually takes years. Unless you count those "Best of the..." collections.
And the lesser-known artists are "lesser-known" for a reason. If their songs are good they would have made it to Top 10 or something. Therefore for the good artists, records are merely another form of advertising, albeit one that doesn't cost money.
If that is so, then Youtube and other forms of piracy would be great media for this purpose - upload your songs to the internet and if you're actually good, you'll be famous in days. But yes there are always exceptions, like Tay Zonday and the revival of Rick Astley, only because of the unpredictable internet phenomenon known as "internet memes" (thanks to 4chan, the birthplace of all memes).
In the end, artists should encourage what is known as "piracy" and what should be called "viral marketing". This is the true test of their abilities - with the world as the judge. Once the good ones are famous, they can make some real money by holding concerts, because no form of recordings can beat a real live performance.
There are two kinds of people who should avoid responsibilities - those who are naturally irresponsible and those who fear responsibilities.
Those who are naturally irresponsible but who do not shirk them off are a danger to society. Those who fear resposibilities avoid them to do the world a favour.
Just found this Youtube video of some guy who said that the melting of polar icecaps is actually a good thing because it cools down the temperature.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*forcing laughter down to catch my breath*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Well I don't know if he's a troll or if he's serious, but if he's serious he's totally missing the point of global warming. First of all, the phenomenon of melting polar ice is, by itself, not a threat to any human. Drowning polar bears and penguins won't destroy any food chains vital to human survival, except for the Inuits. The real problem is, at least, 2 things.
First, ice is highly reflective. Compared to water, ice is like a mirror. This helps to reflect a lot more radiation back into space than if there is only water. Antartica is also really an ice-covered land (there's actually soil underneath, unlike the Arctic which is just a gigantic piece of ice), and as common sense tells you land absorbs more light and heat than water. The melting of the ice will only worsen the problem in the long run.
Second, the rising sea level. Fact: scientists really don't know how much the sea level will rise; they can only make guesses and estimates. But it will rise, if it isn't already. Even a few inches is enough to dramatically change the world as we know it.
Here's an interesting article on China's suggestion on Monday for the creation of a global currency. A common currency is always a good thing, for like Saft said, it encourages stability. Even historically speaking, humans have always tried to create a form of currency that doesn't fluctuate at different rates for everyone. For example, the European ducat was such a currency that a number of kingdoms used for exchanges between each other. It worked better than using their own currencies. Today, they have the Euro.
Right now, the US dollar is the common currency in use, but that is not as good because the US controls of it. With it comes the power to control the world's economy and forces the world to help pay for their problems. It is obvious why China mentioned that on Monday and it is obvious why Obama was so straightforward with his outright rejection.
Just now while I was waiting for my room to be cleaned by the housekeeper I turned on the TV in the living room to watch a random documentary on National Geographic Channel. The show was about these 2 guys, probably marine biologists, tagging and studying sharks.
The shark tag seems consists of a small arrow head, a metal wire thing about a centimeter in diameter and a tubular object about 2cm in diameter and 5cm in length. I wonder why the metal wire is necessary. Won't this tag be caught by some rocks or something and hurt the shark?
Anyway, the more interesting part in my 10mins of viewing was the secret shark pit they discovered. It was in some rather violent region of the waters, with waves crashing hard into some rocks all the time. A shark they tagged had travelled straight for 5km to this area and suddenly stopped moving, so they arrived to search for the reason.
When they found the pit, it was full of small sharks. Great white sharks, I think, but the "great" part can be skipped. They were mostly pups less than 50cm long and are estimated to be 2 months old or less. Babies, basically. Eventually they also spotted an adult pregnant female. It is very interesting to see so many sharks swimming in a small area for no apparent reason. At first they were guessing that this is some sort of shark nursery.
After watching for some time, the sea started to to become more violent. It soon became hard to stay in one spot to observe. The surface of the sea was also becoming foamy, as the waves crash into the rocks and pushed the foam downwards into the pit. Strangely, the sharks seem to like the foam and kept swimming into it.
But even the sharks decided to leave when the churning increased even more. So the 2 guys swam back to their boat too.
One of them theorised that the foam was increasing the oxygen level of the water in the vicinity, thus attracting the sharks. So in their next trip, they brought along a multi-purpose sensor, which also measures the dissolved oxygen level around it.
Sure enough, there was 4-5% more oxygen in the pit. The guy showed the cameraman the graph. At first the level was steady while they were on their way from the boat to the pit. Then the level jumped up when they reached their destination. So the theory was proven and the sharks were there to breathe better.
Sharks swim constantly, 24/7, for 2 reasons. First, they don't have the balloon thing in their bodies that fishes have to keep them floating at the right level. If they stop swimming, they sink. Second, sharks need to keep moving to push water through their gills, ie to breathe. Hence they don't sleep the way we do.
By staying in this pit, the sharks can actually rest better because they can swim more slowly. This explains why the 2 guys weren't attacked despite staying so near 50-70 sharks - the sharks were relaxing there. This also explains why the adults were tolerated, since sharks are known to eat smaller sharks (sharks are cannibals).
You can say that the sharks were high on oxygen, lol!
Japan is being threatened by North Korea. Mad Kim is testing his missile over our beloved Nippon, land of the animes and weird sex toys. Japan is now ready to deploy their Patriot missiles just in case anything "accidentally" falls down into their area.
The last time Kim tested his missile it stopped flying prematurely. Doesn't exactly give the Japanese any sense of confidence in the next test. Below are some reasons why Japan should never be harmed.
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