How little musicians earn online

It's misleading to compare a single track download on iTunes with an entire album bought on CD. If you assume that a CD comes with about 10 songs, the iTunes payout is actually better than a Retail Album CD (low end royalty deal).<p>Of course we all know that record labels loved making users buy an entire album for one or two songs -- but that's their own fault.

Once again, musicians don't really earn anything on record sales. Theoretically they receive about 30% of the profit made on album sales but that's normally deducted by the record label as payments for the loan they have given them for recording their tracks, shooting the videos etc. so unless you're a very very famous musician it's unlikely that you'll ever pay back this "loan" or earn anything on record sales.<p>The two main sources of income for musicians are:<p>* Performing rights. They receive royalties for public performances of the works they composed. Which means not everyone in the band gets paid, only the ones who are registered as composers of that particular work. This is paid for public performances, e.g. radio and television broadcasts. If your work gets broadcasted (or played in chains such as McDonald's as background music) you can earn an awful lot of money.<p>* Live performances. Even for moderately well-known musicians, it's not unusual to get paid around $1500 per gig per person.<p>(I work in the broadcasting / recording industry)

Why is there so much interest among web developers and entrepreneurs with the business of music?<p>I really can't figure out it.<p>Why are you all trying to "solve" an industry that you have no interaction with and seemingly know little about?<p>How many gigs do you go to a month? How many new albums do you listen to?<p>Where do bands in your city practice? Who does booking, and for what nights, at what clubs? Who are the promoters? Do you know any music publishers? Tour managers? Record labels? Recording studios?<p>Do you know any online and radio promotion companies? Do you know any band managers? Do you even know a single musician who makes more than $1000 a month from music?<p>Do you know where to get a tube amp repaired? Do you know anyone who does live sound? Do you know any good drummers with room for another project on their plate?<p>Should I go on, or is it painfully obvious that you are all commenting on things you can see very little of?<p>Why are you so compelled to enter in to the conversation at all?<p>I am truly curious.

They still make more than chess players or mathematicians, but I don't hear complaints from mathematicians about only getting paid $0.01 per proof.<p>This is what society has said online music is worth, so if that is not enough why do you produce music?

Make sure you catch the issues with the data and presentation of the viz. First there's the basic "albums vs. tracks" equivalence, and then someone's reply post is here: <a href="http://freshspectrum.com/2010/06/04/critiquing-the-infographic-%E2%80%9Chow-much-do-music-artists-earn-online%E2%80%9D/" rel="nofollow">http://freshspectrum.com/2010/06/04/critiquing-the-infograph...</a>

This is blogspam, source is <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/" rel="nofollow">http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music...</a>

Hmmm... and why wasn't the "pay a gig in front of x number of people each who pay $5" included as how I understand things, that's how most artists make their money.

As a musician with a startup in this space, so I know first had these numbers are skewed.<p>First, a musician's online product isn't just their music -- merch sales like t-shirts make up a big part of their revenue stream. For our members it is 70/30 split in terms of music/merch, but the profitability of merch is a lot higher. And as others have mentioned, royalties are not in the picture.<p>Second, the data seems to favor CDbaby. I guess it was easier to just look at one source, but these days there are a lot more compelling options for musicians that have no fees (through sites like Bandcamp). Even the physical CD pricing with CDbaby is incorrect -- on a physical disc an artist selling an album for $10 would only make $4 with CDbaby, not $7.50.

OK I totally thought this was going to be an article about how "little musicians" earn money :-)<p>Awesome graphics btw!

My main reaction to this is "So?"<p>It seems to me that online music sites are a form of advertisement for the artist and his shows, which is where most of the revenues come from.

&#62; The sort of artist who survives at the long tail is the sort who would be happy doing nothing else, who willingly sacrifices security and comfort for the chance to communicate something meaningful, hoping to catch the attention of those few in the world who seek what they also find meaningful. It’s a somewhat solitary existence, a bit like a lighthouse keeper throwing a beam out into the darkness, in faith that this action might help someone unseen.<p>Robert Rich<p><a href="http://robertrich.com/1000-true-fans-an-answer/" rel="nofollow">http://robertrich.com/1000-true-fans-an-answer/</a>

How much would a musician pay to advertise their song to 4 million interested listeners? Negative 0.000017 cents sounds like a pretty good price -- better than Adwords anyway.

LastFM and Spotify should be compared with having your videoclip on MTV or your song on radio, not with selling albums.

As you can see here, the real numbers are much less straighforward,<p><a href="http://www.ascap.com/about/payment/royalties.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ascap.com/about/payment/royalties.html</a>

How about big musicians?

I think this infographic got debunked a while ago. I cant remember where or why though.

Anyone else just picture very small sized musicians making money online when you read the title of this thread?