RE: You Need to Join the New Blockchain Music Economy Before It’s Too Late
I’m all for steemit and musicoin. I think they provide a huge opportunity, but not in the sense you describe. It provides a new income stream for independent musicians.
The problem isn’t necessarily the labels payment plan. An advance is only a loan against possible earnings so if you don’t earn anything else you get to walk away with your advance not owing anything. The biggest issue with mainstream music is who gets signed and who gets the record deals. It has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with vitality. For instance the catch me outside girl got a record deal. Not because she was talented but because it would sell records or at least top charts.
Most smaller labels don’t even do advances and artist signed to these labels tend not to make enough to live off of.
Also record labels are still useful for financing and facilitated the pressing of an actually record. Despite being on the blockchain I wouldn’t mind a record label deal as well, it would be nice to have my music on vinyl. That said I can make enough music to go around and I’d never sign off exclusive rights to my name it’s anything like that.
Anyways just my two cents.
Good point here I am glad you talked about it so I don't have to type, I am also believer in doing both things most of the time and its just the case here, old system suck but hey we still drive on fuel :P
In theory yea if you can take an advance, default on the loan, and walk away unscathed that would be fine. Many artists end up trapped in these deals for years though, often losing the most promising years of their career (i.e. their mid 20s to mid 30s) trying to get free of contractual clauses that block them from releasing new music and stuff.
You can get your music on vinyl without signing a label deal btw! It's "save up for a while" expensive, but not "I need a cash advance of tens of thousands of dollars" expensive.
Yea it’s definitely possible to end up in a bad contract if your not careful. But the advance is a royalties advance, so it’s not a loan. You can’t default on it you just don’t see any additional royalties until it’s paid off. Your under no obligation to ever pay out of pocket to repay an advance for a recording contract. If your album doesn’t sell your financially better off for having received an advance. That said again it’s possible to get stuck with a bad contract, one you shouldn’t have signed. This article does a good job of explaining the ins and outs of a record deal. https://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/recording-contracts-explained