The Best Actor in the Vase of Meiyu

Chapter 450: Falling into a trap
In the music industry, newcomers who are helpless often hope to go to big companies, so they can enjoy the shade under the big trees. When they see a contract with a top company, they can’t wait to sign it. The bigger the contract and the longer the term, the more excited they are because they don’t To determine your future, large companies are the best to rely on.

As everyone knows, in the eyes of big companies, these newcomers are just objects that can be discarded at any time without any burden. Big contracts only facilitate big companies to exploit them, and they will never suffer when facing newcomers.

From this perspective, Warner Records' three-album contract can show their hesitation and lack of confidence; but it can also show Mike's sincerity. They should sincerely want to cooperate with Anson.

As soon as he opened his mouth, Anson joked, and the atmosphere surged briskly, but without waiting for Mike to respond, he continued to ask, "What about the royalties?"

Now, Mike was no longer surprised: numb.

Obviously, Anson has done his research. He knows where the band is and what the record company's mentality is. From all indications, it seems that Dustin is right. This is a tough nut to crack, and being honest is the best choice.

Mike, "Warner Records was able to offer the band an 11% royalty-sharing contract."

This time, Mike did not exaggerate, because he believed Anson knew what it meant, and 11% was an important number.

The so-called royalties are actually the share of recordings.

Record companies record albums and sell them online through record stores, supermarkets, shopping malls, etc. For every album sold, the singer gets a certain percentage.

At 11%, that is, for a ten-dollar album, the singer can get a dividend of one dollar and ten cents. Of course, tax must be deducted in the end.

This part of the income is called royalties.

Different from the movie box office dividends that need to be fought for, every singer in the music industry has royalties. The difference lies in the size of the royalties.

Of course, musicians have other ways to earn money through records and music, including the inclusion of film and television works, covers by other singers, and use in other people's concerts, etc. However, royalties from album sales are still the main source of income from record contracts.

Here, royalties and copyrights are not the same.

The income that musicians receive from the sale of records is called royalties; the ownership rights that songwriters have over the songs they create is called copyright.

As long as someone uses the song, regardless of any purpose, the copyright owner needs to be paid, and the copyright income far exceeds the royalty income.

For a simple example, the song "Wake Me Up" was composed by Anson, who owned the copyright to the song; subsequently, the band recorded and released "Wake Me Up" through Warner Records.

Then, Anson can first obtain royalties from album sales as a band member; secondly, he can also obtain another income as a copyright owner——

The band members would have no royalties.

Copyright income is not within the control of record companies. Unless Anson sells the copyright to Warner Records, Warner Records will not be able to get involved.

Royalty income is the income divided by musicians from record companies. Naturally, record companies tend to lower royalties and dividends for singers.

Generally speaking, musicians' royalties are between 10% and 20%; and new singers are often at the lower end of this range, which is 10%.

It can be seen from these data that musicians really do not make money. Without copyright, it is often difficult to make money just relying on royalties. Even if the album sales exceed one million, the income figures will still be mediocre.

For singers, the real money is in concerts. This is why those legendary top singers have to go on long tours every now and then.

At the same time, for this reason, in the pyramid of the entertainment industry, the status of singers has always been inferior to actors; and at the peak of their careers, countless singers tried to go to Hollywood to expand their territory.

Pull your eyes back again.

Warner Records is willing to cut its share price to rise by 1%, which is really rare.

As Mike said, they are sincere. With scale, belief, and sincerity, Warner Records was indeed the best choice for the band. Anson also admitted that he was shaken.

But, stay calm.

Anson thought for a while, "Is it possible to discuss the numbers in detail?"

Nodding and agreeing to whatever the other party says without bargaining is not the correct way to start a negotiation. You should at least give it a try.

Mike, "Like?"

Anson, "Royalty dividends are 20%, and the price is $ per album."

Mike:? ? ?
Mike immediately realized that Anson was reviewing the record contract in the same way as movie remuneration negotiations, but obviously, records and movies are two different things.

Generally speaking, musicians should strive to increase their fixed-price figures. The reason is very simple. The record market is sluggish, and it is difficult to sell albums now——

Based on the calculation of ten dollars per album and a 20% royalty, it would take albums to be sold to earn an income of dollars.

Of course, what they are now discussing is increasing the royalties from 11% to 20% in exchange for US$ in cash. This also means that the band needs to sell at least more albums to make up for the gap.

In 2002, album sales in the market were often cut off by three million, and only a few top stars could cross this line; for newcomers, album sales were often less than one million, or even less than half a million. .

This is completely different from the movie.

Looking at Anson's request at this time, Mike couldn't help but smile:

The internal disagreement at Warner Records was that they were worried that the band would not be accepted by the market and that the album sales might not exceed 500,000 copies.

Once they offer a contract price of one million US dollars per album, after deducting production expenses, promotion expenses, channel dividends and other costs, the stop loss point should be around 300,000 to 400,000 sales.

This is the source of internal disagreements.

But now, if the band is willing to lower the contract price of each album and replace it with royalties, it is equivalent to helping Warner Records share the risk, and the burden will all fall on the band——

They were even worried that the band might not be able to sell 300,000 copies, but now Anson just said that the band must sell an additional 220,000 copies to make up for the loss. It looked like he was digging a hole to bury himself.

Warner Records naturally welcomes it.

Rarely, for the first time since meeting Anson today, Mike laughed sincerely.

"Anson, the correct way to negotiate is that one million U.S. dollars is still one million U.S. dollars, but the royalty rate will increase." Mike reminded kindly.

Anson shrugged slightly, "But obviously, Warner Records will not agree to such a deal."

Mike, "Yeah, we won't."

Anson, "So, I'm proposing a fair deal, an offer you can't refuse."

Mike, "But you know that means you might have to sell two hundred thousand more albums to make up for that gap."

Anson pursed his lips, "Why, you don't have such confidence in us?"

(End of this chapter)