Musicians and artist managers, fill your glasses, raise them high and toast Arnold Schwarzenegger with as much gusto as you can muster this morning, writes Jim Carroll.
The weird Austrian bloke, who will never be president no matter how much US Republicans want to project him as the new Reagan, now runs things in California, and he has just set off a bomb under the music industry.
Last month, Arnie signed a new law into effect which gives artists the right to annually and cost-effectively audit record companies to gain information on royalties and sales. It applies to any record company doing business in California, including what's left of the major record label cartel.
It may not mean much to you and me, but it will mean a great deal to those artists who maintain that The Man has always held an unfair advantage over them. That these artists trousered large quantities of cash from That Man in the first place in exchange for handing over their rights is always quickly glossed over.
Nevertheless, we have heard the likes of Prince, Beck, George Michael, Don Henley, Courtney Love and others bellyache over the years about contracts they once happily signed, usually after receiving expert advice and direction from a well-paid lawyer in a smart suit. These contracts, they claim, have rendered them impoverished, embarrassed, bankrupt, unemployable and probably impotent.
The record industry, naturally, is not happy about this new development.
Speaking to the California Senate Committee about the bill, Steven Marks from the Recording Industry Association of America said it was "a glaring misimpression that record labels are high- profit, low-risk companies uninterested in paying artists their fair share." Marks pointed to recent analysis showing that less than five per cent of signed artists produce a hit, and that the industry loses an average of $6.3 million on every album that doesn't go gold.
Just when the senate was thinking about bringing in the violins, music attorney Don Engel stepped up. He used comparisons like "Enron" to describe how the record industry works, estimating that they underpay 10 to 40 per cent on every single royalty. It's the sort of scam Irish bank directors could only dream about getting away with.
Given all this, Discotheque can't wait for January 1st, 2005, when artists will have the right to send teams of lawyers and bean-counters to California to take a long, hard look at the books and have a good root around. That there may be more than one set of books to root through is something we're quite prepared to believe.
Artists who require a primer in just how efficient the music industry (and not just the record industry) is at ripping you off should have a copy of Donald Passman's All You Need to Know About the Music Industry on hand at all times Sure, any artist signed to a major record label who has a few big hits and has sold a couple of million albums will be making money, but you wouldn't believe how hard the industry works at trying to keep all the loot for itself.
Once all the advances and costs you can think of are recouped, the record labels introduce the other costs. Packaging costs? Check. Retail discounts? Check. Breakages? Check. Lower royalty rates on certain formats? Check. The cost of paying the supermarket bills of certain Irish music executives? Sorry, I made that one up.
Likewise, anyone still adhering to that ridiculous cant of majors-bad-indies-good has never sat down and went through an indie record contract. Independent labels are just as ruthless and twice as nasty at ripping off artists because they do it with a smiling face and an I'm-on-your-side demeanour.
When it comes to record contracts, there's always a schmuck, and chances are it's the artist every single time. Welcome to showbusiness, sonny.
