The London Times newspaper has done a fascinating survey of who is making money from the music business.
Its conclusion is that while music labels may be suffering, singers, bands and artists are actually making more than they've every earned (see graph below). This is because revenue from concerts and live performances is soaring. As the Times article points out, an artist keeps a far higher percentage of the take form a concert or a tour than they do from a CD or record deal.
This is not to belittle the problems facing music labels. However, it does shed some very welcome light on the charge often made by labels that it is artists -- and not music labels -- suffering when music is swapped for free.
For anyone interested in this debate, this is a must-read analysis.
This is exactly what Chris Anderson quotes in his book "Free" - the model(s) are changing and content revenue is being replaced by other revenue streams like merch / concert rev etc.
Unfortunately the labels are resisting due to legacy vested interests, so the more of this REAL data that gets out there, the better....
Posted by: John P | November 15, 2009 at 12:03 PM