ARTISTE MANAGERS are gearing up for a right old scrap with their tight-fisted music Uberlords, ito discover just when their poor prodigies can expect to get paid their dues after the RIAA got settlement agreements, estimated at about $400 million, with the big P2P companies.

P2P outfits Napster, Kazaa and Bolt.com all had to cough up millions to Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI to compensate artists for the illegal downloading of their music. But now managers claim that they've hardly seen a penny filter down to the artists, who are getting so frustrated that they have considered filing a few lawsuits themselves.

John Branca, who has represented Korn, Don Henley, The Rolling Stones and a plethora of others, commented: "Artist managers and lawyers have been wondering for months when their artists will see money from the copyright settlements and how it will be accounted for,"

Record label sources responded to the accusations by saying that the big corporate bosses were still determining how best to divide the cash. In a process that could take a very long while to settle, the mathematically minded music industry boffins have decided to calculate how much every single specific artist is owed, with regard to the level of copyright infringement suffered by each.

Artist managers claim that this stalling tactic is the result of a music industry in serious decline, wanting to hang on to every dollar they can. But, warns Irving Azoff, manager of superstars Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Van Halen, Seal and more, "They will play hide and seek, but eventually will be forced to pay something,".

Of course, some labels deny the allegations outright. Warner Music's representative reckons the label "is sharing the Napster settlement with its recording artists and songwriters and at this stage nearly all settlement monies have been disbursed."
But according to some theories, there may not be any money to distribute at all. Fighting the digital music revolution may have cost more in legal expenses than the settlements were even worth. µ

L'Inq
New York Post