Fuck Kim Dotcom. He's a scumbag piece of shit who deserves to rot in prison. He plots and schemes way to put hundreds of millions of dollars into his pocket off of the works of others. Anyone who supports him should be ashamed of themselves.
And the way the recording industry works is any different?
That's akin to saying "well at least he's not killing innocent woman and children".
Self-centered does not imply killing in any way, shape, or form. If you use the word akin, try not to be hyperbolic, it makes any intelligent reader immediately discard any validity you would have summoned.
Yes, of course. It's no different than startups - if you take on $500,000 debt to start your business (a.k.a. make an album, promote the album), you will be in debt until you sell enough product to pay off said debt.
The best venue for artist to earn money are tours and merchandise.
A good new year's resolution for us all is to "Stop talking about stuff you don't know about as though you have experience with it."
I'm not saying they make lots of lots of money of merchandising and tours, but from what I've gathered they make more of money on those, unless the studio contract takes part of that as well. Basically they earn more money on a merchandise they are on, or a product line they sell than on records.
Your metaphor is more like starting a startup to get famous enough to start another startup to pay the debts of the previous one.
For me as a fan of several groups, the key thing, economically speaking, is that the group is able to work on their music full time, thus maximizing their creative output and therefore, as someone who enjoys what they do, the benefits to me.
If he is making a recording label, I'd avoid him more than the plague.
Here you go the numbers. The High point is your average signed artist gets $23 out of $1000 in sales or 2.3%.
Yes, it is true that big-label acts made most of their money from touring and merchandise. My point is that that fact does not translate to smaller-time indie artists.
A lot of people tend to improperly point to the RIAA practices (of capturing most of the licensing/royalty pie), and use it to make the case that indie musicians should also not expect any revenue from their product and instead focus on touring and merchandise. It's a self-serving argument from those that are in favor of "free" streaming music. In other words, there's a difference between claiming that RIAA has historically captured most of that pie, and claiming that the pie doesn't exist.
Fan of irony I see.
"And the way the VC industry works is any different?"
Doubt Kim's service pays anything to the artists at all.
Nowadays a musician is not so different from a software developer. They can work solo or in groups, they can distribute their songs freely or decide to charge for them. But the software developing world and the music world are two completely different worlds when you look at the business model. So yeah, you can voluntarily sell your software to a giant like Google or Microsoft, but I'm not sure that signing for Virgin or Warner is such a voluntary act.
Shady acts on the side of FBI, police and other government agencies are way more dangerous for democracy and rule of law then whatever Kim Dotcom did.
The same goes for criminalization of copyright law, whether by precedent or brought law changes.
Fuck YOU and current copyright. By running megaupload/mega Kim Dotcom did nothing wrong. He created service for sharing information, that is a good thing. The artificial limitations copyright imposes on usage of our technologies is retarded.
Really? Perhaps you work for the corrupt dinosaurs at the MAFIAA or those in the UK/US government? Or perhaps you were easily fooled by the lies fed to you by mainstream media?
Either way, people on HN should remember that Kim Dotcom is one of the few successful .com businessmen to fight against Hollywood & the NSA in the name of internet freedom and privacy rights. Whatever you think of him, remember that the enemy of your enemy is always your friend.
Ok, if you have a problem with share-cropping then you should start with Zuckerburg and all the other social networks, not to mention Ariana Huffington who conned bloggers and writers to work for free...