The recording industry LOVES musicians. But the musicians they love most of all are the musicians who don't know how to negotiate.
Every entertainment book I've ever read by a successful and intelligent musician or writer has emphasized, time and again, to get a really, really, really, really good lawyer. Or, in the case of Willie Nelson, two of them. Thomas Lennon (Reno 911, The Odd Couple) wrote a screenplay guide and said, paraphrased, "Oh our lawyer is a really nice guy and we like him - he's just not afraid to rip your heart out and eat it in front of you."
Amen.
That's not fair - they totally love dead musicians who can no longer comment on the use of their tunes for profit, like in commercials.
Maybe we can say that they love musicians, but love business even more? Sort of like the way many CEOs in S.V./S.F. love software developers but love business even more.
You have the option to quit and find a better job somewhere else (pretty easily I might add).
Musicians, once signed to a record company, are not so lucky.
I've said that if the RIAA could get people to buy an actual piece of cow dung in the shape of a circle that cost them $2 to make, including owning the cow, and they could sell for $18, they'd get out of music and into the manure business.
I think it's an apt analogy. The RIAA wants to make money. Music is the vessel. That's, well, kinda it.