For years, we’ve heard the music industry talk about declining sales and profits — often unconvincingly tying these numbers to piracy) — but what about the artists? How much do they earn when their music is distributed online, compared to selling CDs?

It’s a very hard question to answer because much of this data is kept secret and it varies from country to country. Still, David McCandless, author of the book “Information Is Beautiful,” rolled up his sleeves, researched the available data and created this beautiful infographic that shows how hard life is these days for most music artists (unless they’re Lady Gaga).

McCandless discloses that the data was very hard to research and that it may not, therefore, be 100% accurate. He also warns that “these figures do not include publishing royalties (paid to composers of songs).”

Here's the chart [Warning; it's big]

http://i.imgur.com/G4Q1b.png

I saw this and thought some other people might be interested in it (I'm not sure if this is the right section to post this in).

Well it's a cool graph, meaning it looks pretty decent. May not be 100% accurate but comes close for sure. I've at one time looked into something similar myself.. came up with - albeit crudely - similar figures.

I think however that online endeavours mainly serve promotional causes... Any band or act gains the most profit from live action/touring..CD sales (and online sales)... (and merchandise sales!!)  are just complimentary in the end... It's the live stuff that brings the big cash... And annoyingly being very active on the live front brings more CD/online sales too.. Can't have one without the other, sort of speak.

Anyway.... That's more or less how it goes.. so yeah.

cheers

PX

Well, at first I thought it was spam, but it's not, so that's good.

I'll have a look at it.
Thank you.

              > Iszil

Nope..not spam. I'm not really offering anything...except info.
Hope it was informative.

So do you make music?
Or do you just know how to market it 

You seamed to have arrived at just the right time, you could give Denis some well needed tips on how to market bandAmp Vol1

Hello,

Yes please contact me if you have any tips. bandAMP have recently launched an album, all proceeds to 'VH1 Save The Music Foundation', it was arranged through Tunecore, available from many digital outlets.
You can either PM via bandAMP or email me,
denis.ahmet@gmail.com

Yea Steven ! With a daughter called  Angelina !!!!! LOL
God! What a wanker !!!

So if anyone out there thinks they can write a few songs and quit their day job....Good luck with that. 

Gone are the days of "come on up here boy have a cigar youre gonna go far"

Now it's "come on up here boy have 8% of a cigar and give the other 92% to the agents, managers, record companies, insurance companies, etc etc etc and of course the tax man

PX is right,  music dollars are for the most part from performing live. 
Id like to see a chart showing the local rates for bands playing in different types of venues.
Or even just a discussion on BandAmp as to what the going rate is in your area for local bar band type.


.....SA

In a similar vein, I've always taken heed to this little bit,

I think that's a realistic view on things... Life is grim!