Shifting Sources of Artist Income: 1999-2012…

If artists make more than three times the percentage from concerts as they do from recordings, does it matter if people are stealing their recordings? Or, is that just a label problem?

The breakdown comes from the Consumer Federation of America, which just released an exhaustive report that deeply questions the entire premise behind anti-piracy campaigns, legislation, and litigation (more on that ahead). And part of that doubt is whether any of this anti-piracy stuff is actually about artist welfare.

“If the demand for, say, live performances is enhanced by the ‘popularity’ of the artists generated from the number of distributed recordings (legal and illegal copies combined), then we obtain the conditions under which publishers of recorded media may lose for piracy, whereas artists may gain from piracy.”

(Sources: RIAA, Year-end shipments. Concert revenues from Geoffrey P. Hull, Thomas Hutchison and Richard Strasser, Source: Hull, The Music Business and Recording Industry (Routledge, 2011) 3rd Ed., pp. 144. Pollstar, Year End Issues, Economist. Unsigned artists estimated based on Exhibit xx. Unsigned share grows from 0 to 45%. U.S. equals half of total (equal to U.S. share of label digital sales). Net cost savings equals – (.5 * reduced Album Revenues) +(.33 * Digital revenues) + (.35 * Increase in Concert Revenues). Album and digital cost savings based on Hull (2011). Concert cost based on Passman and Vogel)