Day and Night Digital | Irish Independent

For those of us who prefer to avoid the rain-soaked muddy fields of music festivals and would rather experience live music from the comfort of the couch, iTunes Festival (itunesfestival.com) may just be your hot ticket. For the 31 days of July, Apple have curated a lineup of gigs in The Roundhouse venue in London which are given out free in a ticket lottery but being a technology company, Apple are also offering a free app for iPhone, iTouch and iPad which enables you to watch whole concerts for up to 30 days after each event.
It’s a pretty serious lineup too, with artists like Paul Simon, Linkin Park, Adele, Foo Fighters, Bruno Mars, Friendly Fires, Coldplay, Mogwai, Magnetic Man and Moby all performing over the course of the month.

So far the video highlights are many. For an artist who doesn’t do festivals or stadiums, the opportunity to watch a full 90 minute concert from Adele is reason alone for installing the app. No gimmicks on stage, just a relatable human singer and her band. Adele’s support, Michael Kiwanuka, the soulful London singer who sounds like Bill Withers also impresses. Elsewhere, Linkin Park do a bizarre cover of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep, Seasick Steve captivates an audience with his blues style, Arctic Monkeys played songs from their new album Suck It And See, My Chemical Romance brought the American teenage angst, Foo Fighters bring the American rock classics and Ed Sheeran commanded a big stage all on his own with his signature looped R&B version of old British folk song Wayfaring Stranger.

If you have your own aspirations about one day joining such a calibre of musicians on stage, then it is strongly recommended that you spend 15 minutes of your day getting an education in modern day record contracts thanks to a video entitled How To Sell One Million Albums and Owe $500,000.

In the video, lawyer Martin Frascogna breaks down the calculations of earnings of a band who have signed a standard record contract. In the example, the musicians sell one million albums and gross $20 million total. Frascogna then applies the standard record label fees to come up with the final figure for what the band will make.

Firstly, the artists’ royalty fee is drawn from the wholesale price not the retail price, dwindling that gross figure to half - $10 million. A ‘breakage fee’ of 10% then applies. This archaic fee used to cover the number of shipped vinyl records that were damaged in transit on the way but insanely, still applies to digital transactions (so MP3s can break now?) . Then, there’s uncollected account fees, a free goods fee for promotional material, delivery and physical container charges, the artist advance, recording costs and producer fees. These all add up. The final figure the band is left with? Minus $508,500. Ouch. Watch the fee dwindle for yourself…