When it was made, the video for "Waterfalls" cost north of 4 million dollars. Nonetheless, TLC's example is a prime illustration of how artists get raped by the labels. There's no way "the machinery" eats like 97%. No way. There was an article on Zeropaid.com a long time ago about what artists end up with. Usually somewhere in between 5 and 10 cents per unit with the exception of bands like Aerosmith which got the rights to it's back catalogue and sees roughly 25 cents per unit. Don't hold me to that, I read it YEARS ago. At 5 cents per unit, 10 million albums only bags you 500 grand in the end. TLC was likely seeing 2 or 3 percent TOPS. You sweat, I get rich. Nice work if you can get it. No wonder the internet makes them ***** themselves blind.