You are putting people off of what could have spawned into some interesting developments as an artist. Your music has ALL been done before by the best why dont you give up?

As for “he valued money more than his work,” I’d like to know exactly what you think he works for. A man’s gotta eat, gotta pay the rent, and it’s easy for some college kid with no bills to sit in his dorm room and say how we ought to put our work before money. But we work *for* money, that we might work more. Making money means producing more music, meaning more work and the ability to make more money, and on and on. There’s nothing immoral about making money–however, money is supposed to be a product of a vocation, not an object of devotion as it has become for so many.

The entire music industry is in upheaval, and it should be, because it’s operated in a completely ridiculous way that puts both the customer and the producer near the bottom of its priority list. I won’t write the twenty page paper on why that I could here, but suffice it to say, it won’t necessarily be piracy that brings down the old-school music industry, but more generally the ability in the modern world for everybody and their brother to produce and distribute their own works without having to go through one of the big or even small labels. Labels offer a lot of advantages, but they’re becoming more dead weight than anything in a world that wants both mass consumption and creativity. In the future I think labels will be more focused around producing live acts than producing recordings.

haha gotta love it……

This is 100% his label’s fault, not iTunes. It’s the label’s JOB to handle this sort of thing. If the artist isn’t happy with how his label handled it, that’s between him and the label.

umm it depends. I know it was different in XP….

Screw ‘em

much love to him

lem09

At least not US store

DON’T LIE.

ITS.

It’s = “It is” or “it has”.

Read “The iTunes Scam” Section.

Rather suggests that BJ’s work didn’t just mysteriously appear on iTunes…

Ben, at least seems to understand the importance of good contracts, but seems to be clueless about the full extent of what goes into a contract. As he cites, that..”with a 50/50 contract, I’d be selling 2,000 albums and would get $250 for it somehow”, it becomes recognizable that while he understood enough to make ‘percentage profit’ as high as possible, that he obviously didn’t pay any attention to the details of what would be considered a profit, or he would know why he was only receiving $250 on 2,000 sold albums (and that’s very important).

He has a contract with Sublight Records, who breaks out a number of Canadian electronic artists. Sublight has a contract with iTunes. I can practically guarantee you that Sublight is getting their scheduled payment distributions from Apple, so the issue becomes “why isn’t Ben getting paid”. I say, go back and read your contract. It doesn’t sound like he gets paid for digital distributions at all. Unfair, “Hell Yes!” why do you think the Television and Movie Writers are striking???

Labels and studios have reclassified so much of the language around distribution of new media that most artist can’t even tell you if the make a penny from it.

To Ben, you got your 50/50 on retail distribution, but with all things considered, that seems to work out to about 12 cents an album for you; but it seems that you have no agreement for digital distribution, and while you may argue that digital retail isn’t dis-similar from physical retail, I’m betting your label has a full loaded legal definition of each that doesn’t meet your approval.

But luckily, you still retain some of the rights to your core work, because if you didn’t uploading them to BitTorrent would be a contract violation that, if you were on a major label, would come back to bite you in the ass.

There you go idiots

“Alphabasic is currently in a legal battle against Apple because NONE of our material (Sublight Records included) receives a dime of royalty from the vast amount of sales iTunes has generated using our material.”

Is iTunes not paying? Or is iTunes paying someone that is not paying you?

get back to ODI with your stepping of manias

It doesn’t explain what the problem is though. It’s just an accusation. It would be helpful if he could explain why, when, what the background is, what the specific beef is, how Apple are in the wrong etc – instead of just levelling an accusation without any supporting facts or information

Here’s my unsupported allegation.

>> BENN IS A GAY SCIENTOLOGIST!! <<

Why do I think that, I hear you ask? Well, like Benn, I can’t be bothered to explain why I think that. Actually I can . It’s because Benn is a sociopathic, greedy, deceitful, environmentally-unfriendly person. He just is, take my word for it! Also he won’t pay me my royalties that he owes me. I’m going to take him to court. Also, when I called him to ask him for the royalties he told me that he was sorry but I had to speak to someone else. That proves it, see? He must be a gay Scientologist!

Alphabasic is currently in a legal battle against Apple because NONE of our material (Sublight Records included) receives a dime of royalty from the vast amount of sales iTunes has generated using our material.

It’s just dated bollox. Sorry, but it is.

Incidentally, Benn feels that the Anonymous/Scientology thing is just Anonymous “exploiting a small religion”. See his blog for his views.