Who the HECK is IMRE noW?

"The record company controls the budget and exploits the artist’s own money even when independent promotion is unaffordable, which avoids the company’s risk of being seen as advancing its own funds. The new solution is to hire the manager to run the radio promotion campaign and have the manager hire the independent promoter designated by the record company, which will have the manager at the interest of any investigation (Thall, 2002, p. 135)." Payola is still dominant in the present music business and takes place in the U.S. and other countries in different forms. Russell (2002) stated that "Korea is finally cracking down on payola scams, bribes to newspapers for positive critiques, embezzlement, buying videoclip packages, and record companies offering stock options in exchange for artist play, inaccurate music charts on album sales and votes, and connections to organized crime, all being committed by top managing and record companies in Korea (p. 71)." Tsui (2003) wrote that "23 leading executives of the Universal Music branch in Hong Kong were arrested for alleged bribes of advantages, including money, to Hong Kong’s largest TV station in order for their artists to receive awards run by the TV station’s award show (p 71)." The U.S. has yet to see any scandals this big in recent years, but it is not difficult to imagine that if these crimes can be committed in other countries, what is to stop the corruption here? A recent article by Smith (2006) notes that "Universal is accused of giving travel packages, computers, and concerts in exchange for airplay. Universal agreed to pay $12 million in fines, Sony paid $10 million, Warner paid $5 million, and a settlement with EMI is underway (pg. A. 17)." After 40 years of payola being illegalized, it is still a predominant practice by major record companies. Payola is just one of many forms of corruption practiced by record companies, while many other forms of corruption for profit can directly affect the artist at hand. Record companies have been renowned for "screwing over" their artists in order to advance their own funds. Some of this deception can be seen as a pure scandal for the artist, or it is seen as complete naivety on the artist’s part during the contract signing. Record companies have been able to hold the artist obligated to pay for certain aspects of their record deal, and also distort certain numbers to withhold some of the artist’s royalty money. Other ways of "screwing over" the artist include kickbacks, cleans and clears, scams, and fraud. There are many ways in which the artist’s royalties can be distorted, held from the artist, or used to payoff a debt to the record company. Some would view these ways in which the artist’s royalties are going towards the record company are unethical, but most of these terms are laid out in the contract. For example, there is a process between distribution companies and record companies for artists to receive their royalties for albums sold in retail stores. The distribution companies send the master recordings to duplication warehouses, which are then shipped to each record store at request. The catch is that record stores can return their shipments of the recordings for a refund from the distributor, which is from the record label. The record label keeps a reserve against the artist royalties and does not pay the full amount until the distributor pays the record company from the refunds. This means that the distribution company withholds the money before sending the money to the record company before the money goes to the artist (Avalon, 2006, p. 46). Unethically, the record company could distort the number of records returned or kept by the distribution company to withhold more portions of money. Record companies can change the figures for how many records are sold from an artist for certain unethical purposes. This is where the terms, clears and cleans, come into play. A clear is a record that does not show up on an artist’s audit record due to bootleg international shipping. Some labels will state a number less than the actual amount sold; the labels bootleg a master copy without a barcode and send the copies to countries that do not use a barcode system or track any sales equipment. Record sales then fall through, and do not show up on the artist’s audit (Avalon, 2006, 199). A clean is made when a company produces excess records that are able to be returned to the record company for cash with no questions asked. The record will be given to private vendors that do not pass the records to the retail store but are returned to the record label for a refund. This could be a form of embellishment by whoever in the record company is having these private vendors buy and take back the money for the records (Avalon, 2006, 200). Every artist should know that a company may become antagonistic towards any artist that exposes some kind of wrongful accounting; the artist should begin to wonder why this correlation arises from the record company at this point. The schedule of artist’s royalties also plays a large factor in how the record company interacts with the artist. Artists’ royalties are paid on pay periods, which depend on when the albums must be delivered to the record company. According to Avalon (2006), "record companies can hold artist royalties for four pay periods to make return and shipping deductions from the artist’s account, which is twenty to forty percent of gross sales on reserve clauses (p. 73). On the twenty percent reserve, the record company takes twenty percent of the royalties and places them in a bank to collect interest for two years, perhaps, never pay the artist while the artist waits for his or her last pay period royalties to come in, but the record company makes money on the royalties which never goes to the artist (p. 74)." The artist can also be "screwed over" on the timing of the artist’s album delivery to the record company and the budget of each album. Avalon (2006) talks about "cross-collateralization," which means "the debts the artist collects over the course of the record deal are to be repaid out of royalties from future records or publishing. This notion implies that future albums will always earn less and less royalty money to pay for the last over-budgets on previous albums (p. 75)." On the delivery of albums, artist have to record albums usually within 8 months of one another, even while touring, with the record company agreeing to pay more royalties for each new record, but if the artist does not deliver on time (which will most likely happen), then the record company will only pay the last royalty rate (Avalon, 2006, p. 76). Meeting this deadline is nearly impossible (Avalon, 2006, p. 232). There are a number of factors that the record company can manipulate to delay the arrival of the album: the record company can disapprove of certain songs (Avalon, 2006, p. 234), the record company can reject the album within five months of its creation, which would require the artist to remake the album in sixty days (Avalon, 2006, p. 237), the record company can demand the delivery of the album any time before the end of an option period, and ask for two records in less than one year (Avalon, 2006, p. 235), and the record label can postpone the deadline of the album while offering little to no money between the time of one album and the next for the grace period to record the album (Avalon, 2006, 237). Kickbacks are an important concept to understand in the music business. Kickbacks are ways for music industry people to get extra money that is not under their payroll. The most important thing to remember when it comes to money is that everything in any budget is supposed to go through the business affairs office of any major label (Avalon, 2006, p. 96). Not everything goes through that office, but everything should. For example, the artist’s manager may want a piece of the recording fund from the producer. The manager may say the money is for their client, but if the money were to reach the artist, the manager would commission the money. The manager can then convince the artist to let the manager keep some money to recover costs incurred from managing the artist for the past year or two before the record company signed them (a good indicator for why artists should not keep the same manager after three albums). The artist can agree to the payment out of guilt or loyalty, while the producer pays the manager out of recoupment of the artist’s royalties, so the manager is ultimately recouped twice (Avalon, 2006, p. 95).

A&R people, those who scout for new talent to record labels, can execute kickbacks. An A&R person can have a secret deal in which the producer can agree to give a kickback if the A&R had to convince the Vice President of the label to get the recording budget past a certain amount, say $300,000. The artist is ultimately paying for this kickback, which the record company will avert their attention if the record is a hit, but if the record flops, the producer may find him or herself in a lawsuit and not the A&R person(Avalon, 2006, p. 96). Producers may take falls for kickbacks, but producers are one of the most dominant people in the field of kickbacks. Every artist should be careful with how his or her producer acts. For example, Avalon (2006) tells a story how one producer had a $300,000 budget for recording with a certain artist. The producer would always show up late to the recording sessions, which the artist would be paying $300 per hour. The producer would agree

to pay the recording engineer about $60 per hour, but the engineer would have to pay $15 per hour in commission, but every vendor including the record studio was paying the commission, so the record company was charging more fees to the artist. The producer would secretly be making $100 an hour in addition to the fee. While the artist sued the producer for these kickbacks, the record company held the artist’s royalties, collecting interest, of course, and eventually the artist and the producer went separate ways. The album was a hit, but the artist’s next self-produced album flopped and the artist was dropped from the label. The producer continues to produce for that record label (Avalon, 2006, 97).…. The song "wanting more" let me wanting ….well, more! More of what? Oh, I don’t know what, maybe a better song. It’s okay but it left me wanting more, I agree with who ever is singing, I WANT MORE TOO !!! Then download the Ever Pack from Headspun, it’s free when you visit their home page at www.headspun.com. Full songs and video and a really underestimated band by eddie kramer to not take on this band, what a loss for him, must have been stressed that day….. But now we here from a great source that clown nose is mad at david letterman …. Imre had went to the waves plugin seminar in massachusetts that featured eddie kramer as guest speaker for the product, and imre had a moment to ask eddie if he would take on a project on royalty bases and he said no, that no one would ever do that, then imre said you’re wrong, resta is doing it - the end ….. goes to show you what a big head can do to your career in music …. Imre rules !!! I love imre so much I marry my imre - free music at headspun. …. …. "wanting more" anyone hear that song ? danny . …. Youtube or myspace , yahoo or facebook , tv television show program with letterman and headspun band rock roll n pop around the corner spun out by none other than THE GLOWING HEAD . .. that download ever pack was realy juisy , I want the ever pack2, when’s that comin out? ….totally into whitesnake, nirvana, led zeppelin, all those bands, headspun’s one of my favorties too for one albums worth of songs and cool video production on the resta vid…. Isn’t that crazy what tim tim did in the rock band ever pak one , with timtim recording the…. Loud and crazy stuff going with motley crue posters and makeup that would make kiss look like toys …… … sooner or later everyone is going to download it, so do it now and this ATTENTION goes to record companies, even if you don’t on plan on signing on any new bands, acts, or artists. Also musicians in the boston area interested and feel something to offer … established band wanted to have headspun on the bill opening act managers, agents, booking, live nation, ticketmaster, bmg, sony, universal music …. What’s the most download music on the internet? Offically I can say that it is the, let me say this right, FREE DOWNLOAD of original songs from an unknown supergroup, rock, pop, and some heavier tunes, all really good and the Best part about it is it’s FREE DOWNLOAD Music Video Interviews In-Studio Footage (in the recording studio guitar and vocals) DOWNLOAD THE BEST ROCK BAND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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