Examples Of Greed In The Music Industry

Corporate greed is nothing new to the music industry, as its long history of artist exploitation continues today. While greed in business may not be seen as a bad thing, when it comes to the creative industries it is the fundamental evil between creativity and commerce. If the artist doesn’t make you money, you send them on their way, and if they do, you try to give as little as contractually possible to the artist themselves. Some labels will claim they are there for the music, and that they are a label that is loyal to its artists and are focused on the quality and integrity of the music and artist alike, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Corporate greed cuts into the innocent ideal that labels are genuine music lovers who want

The music industry is undoubtedly greedy, proof lying in the long list of lawsuits between record labels and their artists. Michael Jackson, Dr. Dre, Prince, N’Sync, Johnny Cash, Pink Floyd, and LL Cool J are all artists who have sued their labels for being greedy, but it is arguable that the artist suing their labels for money is greedy in itself. Whether it’s the label suing the artist or the artist suing the label, both are greedy, for in either situation neither can claim their authenticity in their ‘pure’ passion for music. For putting a lawsuit in motion puts commerce in the forefront of both parties public image, shamelessly showing them battling for money. To what degree does someone take greed before morally deciding they have enough? It was said that “greed was widely and unambiguously identified by many experts as one of the chief culprits behind the catastrophic financial crisis of 2008” (Slatter 481) showing that human greed can reach such a height that “top financial executives…multiplied their salaries and bonuses…while employees in the same firms los[t] their jobs and, in some cases, all their retirement savings.” (Slatter 481). If a crisis that affected the whole world was incoherently caused by greed, then there is no stopping people’s need for greed in a 15 billion dollar recording