# music type people--riddle me this?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-type-people-riddle-me-this/438063>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 18, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-type-people-riddle-me-this/438063 "2008-02-18T04:25:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hakuna\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hakuna\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hakuna_Matata)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-type-people-riddle-me-this/438063/1 "2008-02-18T04:25:05Z")

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Okay I just bought some CD’s—and the question popped into my head as to when/how the artist got his/her royalties.

Do they get their cut when the store buys the CD from the distributer or when I purchase the CD? I mean some CD’s just stay there and get dust on them, so it seems that the artist wouldn’t get royalties until someone actually purchased the CD, but then it seems that would be a logistic nightmare.

So I figured one of the music type people here on the Dope would have the skinny!

so what’s the story?

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**Author:** ![DfrntBreign](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f6c823/32.png) [@DfrntBreign](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DfrntBreign)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-type-people-riddle-me-this/438063/2 "2008-02-18T14:26:35Z")

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This link is to [copyright collective](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_collective) which explains in general terms how royalties are distributed. For performance royalties in particular, the two biggest organizations are [ASCAP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCAP) and [BMI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_Music_Incorporated). I believe that artists (also?) negotiate their deals with their label/record company who do the accounting and send the artist whatever royalties they [del]feel like parting with[/del] calculate the artist is owed.

Or not. I have never received royalties and may not understand this as well as I think I do.

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**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-type-people-riddle-me-this/438063/3 "2008-02-18T14:57:57Z")

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WAG, if some of what I know about the music and book business applies, it could well be that the artists get royalties on the CDs that ship, (minus whatever they ‘owe the label’, but that’s another rant,) and then must pay back some of that for the ‘unsold merchandise’ after a certain amount of time.