The producer’s share is sometimes split between other copyright holders (samples), composers and musicians with clout (maybe if you had ?uestlove play drums on your track).

Sounds like an argument for a bigger flat rate? Nope.

It’s also conveniently forgotten or not known that the record label often PAYS THIS UPFRONT. Yes, the evil recording industry not only pays the recording, mixing and mastering costs, they also typically absorb the marketing costs and advance the publisher’s future royalties right out of the gate.

Publishers are also typically paid in advance, based on a percentage of a fixed number of units (let’s say .05 cents per unit on 10,000 units). Anything above that would continue to generate revenue for them at that rate.

This is nothing more than a grab by the publishers for more upfront money.
Not all publishers are the, ‘little guy’ (Warner-Chappell and Radiohead ring a bell to anyone?) and not all record labels are evil.

Eventually Pandora will insert audio ads and charge a monthly fee to escape them. The extra revenue will let them pay the licensing fees to permit creating your own playlists, listening to whole albums, etc. We’ll have what we really want and the old business model can rest in peace.

Sell whatever it is that people will pay for.

It’s nearly impossible to justify investing in the creation and promotion of music if you plan on recovering your investment through the sale or streaming of MP3s, and if multiple hands are dipping into your MP3 pot, forget it.

The companies selling and streaming MP3s are the only ones really making…a truckload of money.

Artists will soon generate much more profit from non-MP3, bundled digital music products.

Artists can’t sell anything, including these new products, unless they obtain exposure.

Getting on the radio is just about the best way to obtain mass exposure.

iPods, mobile phones, and MP3 players in general, ARE THE NEW RADIO that everyone carries in their pockets now.

Every artist has to obtain multiple spins on the NEW RADIO to convert listeners into paying fans.

When most of the artists on earth reach these conclusions/assumptions, what happens next? What happens next is the only logical alternative, and it’s exactly what consumers’ want: FREE MP3s – no ads, no DRM, no strings attached!

Case in point, we loaded the TechCrunch RSS feed to see how widely it is copied over the last month. We found 45 matches across 8,500 sites. Of the 5,000 commercial sites copying TC’s posts, 1,000 of them are copying TC’s entire posts word for word. 2k are copying more than 50% of each post. Why shouldn’t TC share in the ad revenue made off of the content they create?

Sure, some of these are splogs who deserve to be banished from existence, but most are legitimate blogs who create their own original content (which also gets copied) and most fail to give TC a link.

How much does an iTunes, Napster etc. cost to develop, Is it worth doing? Not yet. The new vision of Muxtapes is one way forward. Radiohead, NIN and others exit from the majors is also the way to go. They need to be made insignificant. The problem is they are still too significant for the markets good. They control the value and the copyright holders and customers lose out.

But their base is rapidly melting. Sales continue to go south. We will have the last laugh.