I wish the record labels worried as much about sharing the profits with the artists (and for dead artists, their estates & families) FAIRLY themselves and in proportion to the artists’ actual contributions versus the record label’s, to the same extent as we are worrying about what are essentially and primarily the record label’s and retailers profit-making rights on this thread.
Bear in mind, I am not intending to start a flame war.....
*****I just wonder if anyone has stopped to think whether or not some dead (or still living) jazz artist/group and their families are seeing extensive and meaningful multiples of real royalty percentages proportional to the talent required to make the music as label after label comes out with the latest LP pressings in various weights and packaging, various CD, XRCD, SACD, DVD-A, BluRay DVD, etc...and so on and so forth. For example, I have multiple different releases of Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard and other dead jazz artists in various formats and releases. I have paid new for every one of them from 1st-run retailers/labels so I’ve done my part and ’obeyed the law’.
*****Do Miles’ or Freddie’s families (or foundations) really see the amount of money they should based upon Miles’ and Freddie’s actual creation of the music from the record label and retailer or is the bulk of the money from the ’latest and greatest pressing or remaster’ really nothing more but a great annuity business and profit opportunity for those record labels and retailers time and time again based upon a one-time licensing of the ’use of the master tape’?????
Don’t get me wrong,..I’m grateful for every ’better’ edition of albums I love, hitting the streets and if I buy them, my shelves. I’m grateful for the continuous innovation and improvement however, I see this "mill mentality" where everybody and their mother is putting out copies of ’the great albums’ at no small price (that only seem to be going up...); I’d be willing to better that Miles’ and Freddie’s families (and everyone alive or dead like them) only see a pittance by comparison to what they, the reasons the music exists in the first place, deserve.
If we want to worry about something meaningful, let’s worry about that first, and less about what is really record company/retailer profit opportunity protection veiled by some legal issue.
More calmly,...if I buy an CD, LP, SACD, Movies on DVD or BluRay, etc.. pay full price and thus abide by the law, play it, enjoy it, and decide to make a copy of it to retain (on hard-drive, etc.. which I very rarely if ever do in the first place) then sell it or give it away, what’s truly wrong with that?
