who saw this on CNN

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by krwheeler85
i read somewhere that on average .001% of cd goes directly to the band/artist, if my math is correct it would take 10,000 cds to make up 1 percent, so lets say they sell a cd for $15, thats .15 thats goes directly to the artist after 10,000 cd's sold!

It's actually based on a points system which is written into your contract and can be negotiated by your agent/lawyer. Every album has 100 points and every point represents $.01 of every dollar. So say you're a big solo artist with no back up band or the like. You might get as high as 8 points (which would be a very high number but if you're someone like Britney Spears you could probably pull that off) so you'd make...say....$1.60 for a $20.00 CD. Then everyone else has points to pay for things like production, recording, distribution, engineering, guest appearences, etc (although some of this may be covered by your label or you may have to pay out of your own pocket depending on your contract). If they only got $0.01 per 10,000 CDs they'd have $10,000 for a platinum album (1 million copies sold). If you went diamond (10 million copies...very rare) you'd have $100K. So the fact that these shitty low selling artists riding around in Bentleys and living in mansions tells you they make much more than that. And honestly, I don't have any problem taking money out of Lars Ulrich's pocket (if I listened to any of the newer Metallica stuff, anyway). That little ***** has an elevator in his house...he doesn't need my money.