James Taylor did an audit of Warner Brothers to see if he had been paid properly for his music by his label. To no one’s surprise, James Taylor found out he had been ripped off by his label. To the tune of over $1 million.
Incidentally, these are the very same labels that sic their RIAA watch dog on music pirates and then charge them ridiculous sums for pirating music. In one recent example, a woman was fined $220k for pirating 24 songs (that’s $9,166 per song), which is approximately $219,976 over face value - the rationale for going after these 'pirates' so vengefully is that piracy deprives artists and other music industry employees of money.
Of course, this is nothing more than the pot calling the kettle black, because the entity that steals the most from artists is…(drumroll, please) the fucking record labels themselves. See for yourselves how the average record contract works. The bands come up with the songs (generally speaking), tour in support of the songs, and have next to nothing to show for it; that’s when the label is being honest. When the label is actually trying to defraud artists, as is seen in the James Taylor incident, the labels rip off artists to the music of millions of dollars.
Really, record label execs are nothing more than greedy hypocrites who don’t couldn't give a shit about artists or music. To them, it's just business. All they care about is profit demographics, which is why they so readily cheat the artists who make the music industry possible in the first place, and it’s why they press for excessive fines for people who download music illegally instead of asking for straight-up restitution.
At this point, my advice to any unsigned band or artist is to avoid these larger, established record labels like the plague. Distribute your music online and make money off of ticket and merch sales. Eliminate the completely unnecessary middle man of record label managers, because all they want to do is rip you off and make you their slaves, and defraud you in the process. For fans, my advice is to support every artist that operates without a record label (Amanda Palmer, e.g.), and to support artists as directly as possible.
In the meantime, fuck record labels.