> it's yours to keep and the label eats the cost Not quite. It's structured as a loan. As far as book-keeping goes, they write it off as a sunk cost, but you s

> it's yours to keep and the label eats the cost Not quite. It's structured as a loan. As far as book-keeping goes, they write it off as a sunk cost, but you still owe them. The contracts usually tie you to them for a period of time (or something like X albums). If you make a single album and it flops, you are still tied to them. If they decide not to give you the money to make more albums your music career is basically over.