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“How Do We Make Money Now?” asks the Music Industry. Simple…You Don’t

One of the fun things you can do when browsing the internet is start to see an article asking a question, and then finding the answer yourself on another page. Take this example…

Over on BBC News is a report from the Midem Music Conference in Cannes, and the struggles that the music industry is going through a crisis of confidence. While they seem to have accepted that downloading over the internet is here to stay, they want to know “how do we make money now?”

And this is the crux of the problems with digital music – massive companies that are making huge profits on music instead of the artist.

Next link is an interview with Lily Allen from Q Radio (and covered on Digital Spy). Allen is a well established musical artist – not in the massive zone such as U2 or Madonna, but comfortably in the top 5%. Her debut album, Alright, has sold over two million copies. her earnings? £50,000. That’s a massive 2 and a half pence per album going to the artist.

Her money is made through other area, such as licensing the music to TV and films, concert sales and merchandise. She says “I don’t make any money out of record sales at all” which leads me to think she should just give it away… but of course the record company might not like that. Can’t think why.

I wonder how long till we see a protection racket like operation where they get an automatic cut from people paying for internet access, irrespective to what (or who) they listen to on their personal computers?

January 21, 2009; Digital Music, Mainstream Media, Web 2.0 (Observations);

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