As a young artist in the '70s, he signed the standard major-label deal that left him with only a negligible fraction of the proceeds from album sales after recording and touring expenses and agents', managers' and lawyers' fees. That contract was actually written on a dry suppository. Yeah, it was rip-off city, no question about it. Over the years, he's hopped from label to label, and says he now hires people he trusts to look out for his best interests. Nonetheless, he objects to file-trading on principle, and says he's not interested in joining a musician's union like the one Courtney Love recently proposed.
Unions are for wimps.
There's no way that the civilian network out there can fathom the sacrifice that goes into creating a musical career. Only idiots like us would subject ourselves to such outrageous punishment and call it a career. There is zero guilt by any of my rich musical friends. If Nugent put as much time and energy into the file-trading conversation as he does with his other passions, the volume of the rhetoric would certainly go up a few notches. Nugent says he believes that the Recording Industry Association of America is fighting the good fight.