I am sure it will not be a surprise to anyone that music industry revenues have changed enormously in the last ten years.  Both the total amount of revenue and the source.

The Globe and Mail charted key changes in global recorded music industry revenues in today’s paper.  Their source was the International Federation of the phonograph Industry (IFPI)

My Interpretations

From 2005 to 2015 the overall revenue dropped by about $5 billion. Physical media revenues dropped almost $12 billion.  Conversly digital media revenues rose about 6 billion while performance revenues were up a billion.

Also of interest is that overall revenue actually grew a little bit between 2014 and 2015.  This was the first actual growth in overall revenue since 2005.

For me this is an obvious trend .  Consumption of music is going digital.  Duh!

The drop in revenue is probably from the change in business model from direct pay to ad supported free digital music (streaming) . Basically The traditional  radio business model being expanded to digital media as higher margin physical media revenue slips away.

IFPI View

The IFPI views the revenue drop as a symptom of the lower price for digital media resulting in unfair levels of renumeration to the artists.

The obvious answer to this is legistlation to ensure sure artists are fairly compensated.  The next big trend is going to be laws that ensure lobbiests are fairly compensated.

Me, I am more a market supply and demand guy.  If you are not recieving fair return for your music, stop producing.

Of course maybe money is not really the issue as producing music is a joy in and itself and most musicians would do it for free.

Odds are Paul McCartney would still make music even without compensation of $50 million a year.