Dunno. Looking at the terms on their website, they're supposed to pay 80% of the gross (yeah, I know - gross WHAT?) and in addition to their 20% they also take a bite out of every track sold AND a small per-download deduction.* I don't know whether this is standard practice or not. I don't even know if there IS a "standard practice" in this new wide-open field of downloading. It hasn't even been legal for that long!

So there are two questions, really: Will they be fair to their artists; and what does "fair" actually consist of in the cyber-world? But even if they pay out the royalties, I suppose they're unlikely to take on the bad debts back-owing to the artists from the label's previous incarnation - unless they can be legally forced to - ???


*
"1. The digital music stores track purchases and provide us with a master report of sales along with a payment of royalties. These reports include both album sales and track sales.
2. We process the reports from each digital store and provide you with a detailed report. We subtract a processing fee from each track sold plus a small per-download deduction, and process payment to you." [There's more info on the FAQ webpage.]