Weird Al admits that he makes more money from an album sale than he does from a download. Of course, this isn't very clear as to whether he's making less in total, or if he makes less per album sold online, or whatever. It sounds like he has recently adjusted his contract, so perhaps he got screwed. Perhaps he is just suffering the fate of an artist who only has one or two worthwhile songs per album, as well as the fact that such "joke" songs are prime suspects when it comes to BitTorrent or LimeWire. Whatever the reason, I'll flip out if I ever hear Weird Al's name thrown around as proof that music downloads hurt artists because the fact that he made so much money back in the day shows exactly how successful record companies were in abusing their customers into wasting money and why they're upset they can't do the same as well today.
6.15.2006 1:27pm: I guess I have to flip out now. Turns out that when you run the numbers, artists do get screwed on digital downloads. However, they're getting screwed by their labels which makes a huge difference. Is anyone really working to protect these artists?
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