Music industry culture of corruption PING thing.
As Frank Zappa said, no one who ever went into a record company with an auditor ever walked out empty handed.
And yet the industry swears that musicians are hurting because of digital downloads, not creative accounting.
Your label is not your friend. ASCAP and BMI are not your friends. They collect money on your behalf. Paying it TO YOU is another matter entirely. They like to see their bottom line increase too.
Frank Zappa and Robert Fripp are two artists I recognize as having created their own labels (Barking Pumpkin and Discipline, respectively) to publish and distribute their own work (I think that’s right). Who else has done that?