It's hard to know where begin with this incredible rant from Tim Quirk — member of Too Much Joy and current Vice President of Music Programming for Rhapsody America. (Full disclosure: Tim is also on FMC's advisory board.)

Back in the early 1990s, Too Much Joy signed with Warner Brothers Records and released a few discs on then-WB subsidiary, Giant. While TMJ had (and still has) a rabid cult following, they were hardly one of Warner's superstar acts. Which means, according to conventional major-label math, that they never "recouped." In fact, TMJ currently has a negative balance of $395,277.18.

Tim's post has nothing to do with the fact that his band never made money for the label (although he does provide an illuminating footnote that explains how WB likely broke even on TMJ, despite their lack of recoupment). No, Tim is more annoyed at the fact that the label does not seem to be accounting for digital royalties for records they produced for Warner. Although he's not naive enough to expect a royalty check anytime soon, he does have the sense that TMJ's recoupables should be decreasing somewhat due to TMJ's albums being available on digital services like Rhapsody, for whom he works. Remember, we're not talking about a band that never had any fans. read more