Dave Kusek* on The Future Of Music Blog drew my attention to a graphic representation of how much money artists earn from different formats like itunes downloads vs physical CD sales vs streaming services like Spotify.
It's both depressing and unsurprising and you need to check it out.
Some interpretation might help.
CD Baby will sell your CD for you for $9.99 and give you $7:50
iTunes will sell your download album for $9.99 and give you $0.94
That's right. That's not a typo. $0.94.
For an artist to make the minimum wage in the US they would need to sell 155 CDs per month through CD Baby or 1229 through iTunes.
Here's some more interpretation.
Apple are the bad guys.
The more market share iTunes gets, the badder they will get.
If you truly want to support the artists you love, you will buy their music from anywhere other than iTunes.
(CD Baby, and others like them, are the good guys)
Take a look for yourself
* BTW I would highly highly recommend Dave Kusek's book The Future of Music. It is an incredible road map for the next 10 years.
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