Meanwhile in the music industry, the company tries to collect production costs for the studio recording, promotion costs, distribution costs, a lions share of the publishing revenue...
Basically run up a tab that the artist(s) will spend a decade paying off. Best to hand over the tapes in the can and just work out a distribution deal.
that’s exactly what people I talk to at Musicians Inst. tell me. They’re close to our production studio in L.A. and the students tell me the same thing as well. They pretty much get close to nothing and going on the road, doing live shows is the only way to recoup the costs and make money.