GregHowley.com

Usually, this would go into the news links sidebar, but I felt that this deserved a bit more attention, firstly because I really like Weird Al, but mostly because of my personal vendetta against the freaking RIAA.

Via DownhillBattle, I happened across this article, which goes into detail on a question asked to Al by a fan: Does Al make more money from the sale of a song in CD form, or via iTunes download? Al's reponse, on his website:

I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKED... I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure.

The article estimates that artists get about 4% of the profits. That is bullshit. They should be getting more like 85%. If artists get smart and start distributing their own content via their personal websites, or via some other distribution method that nets them more money, I'm going to sit up and take notice. Until then, I'll be buying my music from CDBaby.

UPDATE: I just found out about Weird Al's song Don't Download This Song, which you can download for free at Weird Al's MySpace page. It's hilarious - the tune has a very We Are the World sound, and the lyrics are very tongue-in-cheek.

You don't want to mess with the RIAA
They'll sue you if you burn that CDR
It doesn't matter if you're a grandma or a 7 year old girl
They'll treat you like the evil hardbitten criminal scum you are