It should be noted that music label contracts are notoriously one-sided, and artists often make their labels millions without seeing a dime themselves.
Do record labels make crazy profit for the capital costs? Or are they one of those businesses where for every Taylor Swift getting screwed by not getting a fair percentage of the value of her earnings, are there 50 other artists who got a good size advance and never made any money?
I honestly don't know. I just think we have a tendency to only think about the successful artists when we evaluate the fairness of a contract.
Hallelujah. I'm honestly kind of dismayed at how many people are saying "tough shit Taylor Swift", when I hear people bitch on this site all the time about the unfairness of things like non-competes, lopsided preference rights, etc. that end up in the contracts of engineers and the startup founders.
While I don't know if it's the same people bitching about these contract provision who are also saying Taylor Swift should cry me a river, the overall tone strikes me as completely hypocritical. Just search for any post on this site about non-competes and tell me how many upvoted comments you see saying "Tough shit, why did you sign the contract then?"
I honestly don't know. I just think we have a tendency to only think about the successful artists when we evaluate the fairness of a contract.