This brings to mind an old, interesting essay written by legendary sound engineer Steve Albini:

http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

This appears to have been written for the "indie rock" bands that got picked up by major labels after the success of Nirvana. Steve watched a lot of his friends get burned and he breaks down exactly why in this essay.

The most detailed accounting I've come across of the economic realities of the record biz (including the myriad ways an artist can be screwed by his or her label) is the book "So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star" by Jacob Slichter (drummer for Semisonic). It's a really fantastic read I recommend to anyone who wants to be a professional musician or just wants to understand the industry. If you want wild antics and groupies and what not, skip it. But man does it ever go into a lot of technical detail of how the recording industry sausage gets made.

Similar to this is The Daily Adventures of Mixerman,[1] by Eric "Mixerman" Sarafin, which is largely a chronology of his experiences as recording engineer for a bidding-war band with a major-label contract. But he throws in a lot of background about the music business as well as the technology and techniques of recording music. It's also a laugh riot.

[1] https://mixerman.net/the-daily-adventures-of-mixerman/

You get upvoted for the negativland reference :)

That may be true, but in this context not totally informative, as the Beatles basically invented the modern concept of hugely successful pop stars who wrote their own songs. There was a lot more for publishers to do to earn their money -- namely find people to record the songs in their catalog -- in the prior model. There wasn't really much of a precedent at the time for what would come to be accepted as a fair deal.

It's like VC. Most artists cost money, a couple rare ones make some money, one in a million earns like the Beatles. The managers/companies/etc aren't greedy, they're surviving.