harumscarum wrote:
Interesting.
Once the song is paid for sales commission go to the sender and Zune Marketplace while the bulk of the money would go to the copyright holder.
So do artists usually hold the copyright or is it the record company?
I'll give you 2 guesses

Actually, the songwriting copyright usually goes to the songwriter. The performance copyright usually belongs to the record company.
For example, if the song is played on the radio, then the record company get's the money (and the artist probably gets a tiny bit of that). If the song is covered by another band, the the artist gets much more money.
So, you see who gets most of the money, then...