pupfresh:

Apparently an artist only makes 8 cents on a 99-cent iTunes download.

The detailed breakdown shows that for every 1,000 iTunes downloads sold, a UMG-signed artist gets paid $80.33. And that’s after the label collects on a 25% ‘Container Charge for Audiophile Records,’ as well as a 15% ‘Net Sales Deduction.’
With major labels abandoning the CD-format next year, it really looks like the world will be ending in 2012.

me:

This is the best thing i’ve ever heard. I’ve known the stats about artist pay for a long time, and the end of the cd was always going to happen. However this is not the death of music, this is the rebirth! This will be the end for artists in it for the money, no more horrible suedo punk and rock bands in it for the girls! We’ll still have disgusting pop artists who will be funded through endorsments and sponsorships, but we’ll lose the vile faux-alt music that has been destroying our culture for so long. Music will be made by musicians who WANT to make music not money! It will bring forth a new DIY era where the smaller labels will be in control of quality music, bands who play music because they want to, not to get paid. It will also help to usher the music subscription model, a time when a monthly fee is paid, just the same as sky tv, or internet, that will give you access to as much music as there is (like spotify does now) and artists will be paid based on amount of plays. If like itunes it will be possible for unsigned bands to add themselves, then it open up the market for small bands to finally have a stake in the earnongs. For too long the music industry has been run on greed, just like most of the capitalist world. With ‘alternative’ culture becoming more and more mainstream its been hard to know the difference between those that give a fuck and those that don’t. Soon the time will come that bands will be popular based on quality, rather than marketing. Dinosaurs will die, long live the DIY

Tumblr killer my punctuation - sorry