The introductory recording contracts that musicians have to sign to get anywhere in the business are the next best thing to a combination of slavery and working in an old west mining town supported by the company store. In some ways the advent of the Internet has improved things because it gives artists a direct route to the consumers outside of the studios, but it has also caused the available revenue to dry up. The exploitation in Hollywood is a shadow of what it is in the recording industry where artists are turned into virtual, or factual, whores with every aspect of their lives potentially controlled by the label.