If Chinese sweatshops or locking yourself into an anti-competitive DRM format aren’t enough reasons to stop you from buying songs from iTunes, at least take pity on polka’s favorite rockin’ freak: Weird Al Yankovic says he makes a lot less money if you buy a song from iTunes than if you buy one of his CDs.

I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKED… I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure.

The Record Industry fucking over artists? Who’da thunk? According to this page, Weird Al is making 85% less per song if you buy from iTunes than if you buy his CD in a store. Why is it just so much more enraging when it’s noodle-haired Weird Al getting screwed?

So buy CDs, directly from the artist if you can, at a record store or through Amazon if you can’t. Rip them yourself, keep the CD. You’re giving more of your money to the artist that way and you aren’t being locked into a proprietary DRM format that, mark our words, you’ll be trading in just as soon as some company finally steps up to the plate with an iPod/iTunes killer.

Weird Al Yankovic Homepage

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