Darth Vader Banned From 'Star Wars' Party (inside movies July 12, 2010)
Dave Prowse, who wore the Darth Vader costume in the first three 'Star Wars' films, has been banned from the forthcoming Lucas Film Star Wars Celebration party in Orlando, Florida. Not only that, he's been told his presence won't be welcome at any Lucas Film/Star Wars-related events.There could be a reason, though, seeing as Uncle George is probably fuming at the comments Prowse recently made to SlashFilm about not receiving any residual payment for 'Return of the Jedi' -- because it didn't make a profit
Music PING
My favorite singer, Dwight Yoakam, went with an independent label, New West, reportedly for more artistic freedom but after reading this I suspect some of the reason may have been to keep some of the money he earns. Related to this post, I have heard that recording artists make pretty much all their money on tour, not from record sales.
Artists make their money via publishing, ASCAP/BMI, and touring. If they don’t write their own songs, it is with touring. Some artists make a lot on recording. But the bulk just get their advance per album.
There was a time when I was a college kid with a guitar and keyboard, just wishing I could get hooked up with a deal like this. What a sucker.
Now with the digital revolution anyone can produce an album start to finish in their basement—with absolute control over the project and the same return: zero. :)
I’m sure more and more especially established bands will go the independent route. Radiohead apparently licensed the release of In Rainbows to the labels. After they gave it away for whatever people wanted to pay for the digital download.
Trent Reznor is now unsigned as well I think.
Who pays the song writer (if it is not the musician)?
I actually read Courtney Love’s article when it came out. It was good for the first few pages but then started to meander. Nevertheless, before I read it I was against stuff like Napster. After reading it I was all over downloading music. ;)
Musicians are to record labels what cars are to Hertz.
Bookmarking for later
Sadly, everything here assumes the record label is playing relatively nice with the accounting. Even of the royalties owed, they will often try to hide them under a wall of accounting, then conveniently forget to tell the artitst the royalties exist. Hiring an auditor to exercise your right-to-audit in your contract will cost $10,000 and up.
One of the few good things Eliot Spitzer ever did was go after the record labels on this. He found tens of millions in unpaid royalties that the labels had been sitting on and had not bothered to pass onto the artists. In case you’re wondering, he had the authority to do it under the state’s abandoned property laws, since unpaid royalties where the artist truly could not be contacted would logically belong to the state as abandoned property. It certainly wasn’t the property of the labels, although they of course wanted to keep it.