Turning the world on its head

Suppose the financial model of the music industry worked like this. The artists are employed by record companies who also owned all the record stores (or iTunes store). The artists wrote produced and performed music for a flat salary. After the songs were written they became the sole property of the record companies and the artists could be fired or have their salary reduced at the whim of the record companies. It was illegal for the artists to bring their songs to other record companies and for other record companies to hire artists or use their current catalog at the new company. The sales clerks in the record stores were paid salaries higher than artists and are given bonus incentives to sell the artists work. The executives of the record companies are paid salaries 384 times higher than the artists. Ludicrous you say....

Well this is the model that business follows every day. The artists are the engineers, scientists and inventors and the record companies are the corporations. If an engineer uses his or her creative talents to develop an award winning product which results in 500 Million dollars a year sales. He or she will receive no royalties for the results of their work. For the resulting patents, that engineer will receive $1 in compensation. That's per patent mind you so it not quite so bad.