When a person buys a cd say from a store like Best Buy or online from Saikosounds or Cduniverse, do the companies pay the record label for the cds to sell? what happens here? how do the artists get the money if its not sold directly from the record labels website or store?

here’s what happens.

the record company makes the cd.

the cd then gets distributed through distributors to stores at bulk level.. for example.. best buy may order a few thousand copies of an album to sell in their stores… they buy them.. then sell them…

the artists get paid when the record company sells through the dist. to the stores. well… that is… after the artist recoups all the money they spent…. but that’s a whole different beast.