Author.create.art

I'm pleased to see some real numbers emerging on the practices the RIAA and MPAA use in dealing with artists. If they will treat heavy-hitters like Henley this way, imagine how they shaft lesser known and less powerful artists. If we could get as much media coverage on this as they want to put on P2P software I suspect the public outcry against these folks would get even louder.

Record industry defends practices to Senate. The Joint Hearing of the Senate Committee and Senate Select Committee on the Entertainment Industry is underway in LA, investigating artists' claims that the labels engage in unfair and corrupt business-practices. The first day's findings at the hearings are really quite remarkable:

By contract, artists are prohibited from showing royalty statements to third parties. Normally this would not include their mangers, lawyers, consultants, or others who could aid them in getting paid, but apparently this is not necessarily the case. Senator Kevin Murray, leading the initiative for artists' rights, claimed the that Cary Sherman, Chief Counsel for the RIAA himself, said to him in an interview, that RIAA members (the major labels) would sue any artist that broke ranks and shared information with the Committee. This claim was rejected by Sherman but supported by others in the room. Don Henley, among them, outwardly dared his record company to sue him for bringing royalty statements to the hearing. He presented his most recent royalty statement for "Hell Freezes Over," which showed the panel that even though his contract called for a no more than a 10% "reserve" on sales of records shipped, Universal Music had held back more than that for eleven pay periods (roughly under three years) and that, even though his contract calls for no free goods in Europe, they had deducted $87,000 in free goods charges to Europe.
(Thanks, Paul!) [ Source: Boing Boing Blog]