Believe it or not, despite the doom and gloom of piracy and streaming, the music industry is still a money-making business. It’s simply harder than ever to make a living at it, with physical media devalued to a niche medium (vinyl) and an army of middlemen stepping between artist and profit.
Unfortunately for the artist, the connections required for most standard-channel success stories turn album sales into a multicolored pie chart that slims down the artist’s share, most often to discouragingly low levels.
Also See: Study Finds Terrible Music Sells Better For a Reason
Trying to give an interesting breakdown of where all the money in the music industry goes can be painfully tedious, but thankfully the people over at Superfi created an infographic to make the trickle-down structure much easier to understand. For a better look at where money in the music industry goes, take a look below.
Citing that in the first half of 2014 alone, streaming increased by a whopping 42%. Furthermore, the infographic breaks down what it would take on each major music service to earn an average minimum wage rate. The results are not very promising for would-be musicians trying to make it in the industry.
