Artist exploitation refers to the phenomenon of artists being exploited by the commercial interests involved in publishing their work and denied their appropriate financial share of the profits engendered via their work.

This is a common phenomenon among naive young rock and roll musicians, where the record labels will have the artist sign deceptive and complex contracts and then 'creatively' adjust their financial accounting to justify minimal royalty payments to the artist. It is also the reason many rock musicians make most of their money via touring, where they are more directly in control of the profits. Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... A record label is a brand created by companies that specialize in manufacturing, distributing and promoting audio and video recordings, on various formats including compact discs, LPs, DVD-Audio, SACDs, and cassettes. ... A contract is any legally-enforceable promise or set of promises made by one party to another and, as such, reflects the policies represented by freedom of contract. ... Royalty may refer to either: the royal family of a country with a monarchy royalties the payment made to the owner of a copyright, patent, or trademark, for the use thereof This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Examples of Artist Exploitation

Winston Groom, the author of the novel Forrest Gump, claimed the movie studio Paramount denied him his fair share of the profits by using accounting tricks to claim the film was a failure. Winston Groom (born 1944) is an American novelist and non-fiction writer, best known for his book Forrest Gump which was adapted into a film in 1994. ... Forrest Gump is the lead character of the eponymous 1985 novel by Winston Groom, and of the 1994 Paramount Pictures film based on the novel. ... The Paramount Pictures logo used from 1987 to 1995. ...

Aston Familyman Barrett of the group Bob Marley and the Wailers sued Island Records for royalty payments. Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (February 6, 1945 - May 11, 1981), better known as Bob Marley, was a singer, guitarist, songwriter and Rastafarian from the ghettos of Jamaica. ... Island Records is a record label that was founded in Jamaica in 1959 by Chris Blackwell. ...

Related Topics

Artist exploitation is a special case of exploitation in general. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Marxism theorizes that exploitation is not an accidental phenomenon in capitalism, but rather a necessary corollary, where capitalist owners are 'forced' by the structure of the capitalist system to exploit all forms of labor upon which they depend, in order to maximize profit. Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century German philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Capitalism has been defined in various ways. ... Profit is defined as the residual value gained from business operations. ...

The owner class typically form support organizations, such as the RIAA, in order to better coordinate their exploitive practices. The labor class, or artists in this case, generally are not as effective in forming their own counter-organizations, due to lack of leisure time and resources. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a special interest group representing the U.S. recording industry, and the body responsible for certifying gold and platinum albums and singles in the USA. For more information about sales data see list of best selling albums and list of best selling... For the album by Blur, see Leisure (album). ...

Related Links

• Boycott Riaa
• File Sharing as a tactic to combat exploitation
• How to prevent exploitation
• Musicians led by Don Henley charged record labels with making deceptive contracts. [1]