ABSTRACT
In the current American pop/rock field, artists usually receive about 7 percent of the list price of each record sold, though the percentage may reach twice that amount for star performers. Customarily the artist’s income is reduced at the source by company deductions for promotion fees, costs of album graphics, and tour costs not made up by admission intake. The system makes it difficult for the pop performer to cull huge profits, even from a record on the charts. Many pioneering stars of the rock and R&B era of the 1950s were paid “in kind” with cars, loans, and other items, rather than receiving cash payments; in the 1990s, organizations like the R&B Foundation arose to put pressure on the recording industry to make up for these earlier practices by finally agreeing to pay royalties, at least on new issues of this classic material.
