Also check out: "I'm an Indie Performer. And This Is a Breakdown of Every Dollar I Make..."

Is this what the FOMC study is gonna be? They pre-select successful musicians and then do their finances?  what's the point other than to bolster the technologists claim that "just because we're destroying musicians ability to make money from their recordings they can still tour!  everything is fine!  nothing to see here now move along move along".  

I could highlight the finances of 4 lottery winners.  Then issue a report "I'm a lottery player and my revenue is up"

Why don't you guys do something useful like come up with a way to protect the internet freedom, protect artists copyrights and encourage licensed innovation in the music tech space?

Why won't the FOMC come clean?  Just admit you are a fake artists organization.  Your true purpose is to be an apologist for the technology companies that don't wanna do the right thing and help musician protect their copyrights.  have a real balanced discussion.

I remember I wrote you guys once for help with how to use DMCA to get an unreleased record  off of some file sharing sites.  You were no help at all.  In fact I was strongly cautioned not to make "false" copyright infringement claims.  

Your board is stacked with technologists/anti-artist types except for a few useful idiots that don't seem to know what you guys are up to.    Why don't you guys reveal who finances your operation?  why have "anonymous" donors?  

wow! this isn't transparent at all... a small selective sample of annonymous musicians who all seem to be making more money than ever... wow, I guess all of this internet piracy stuff is just completely overblown... ok, I'll go back to sleep now and let the tyannts of tech continue ripping off artists... Seriously, Disinformation is not helping musicians... FOMC FAIL...

These are the case studies. There is also a very broad online survey of over 5,000 US-musicians, as well as something like 80 in-depth interviews. The sample is wide as can be, and includes artists from a very diverse set of backgrounds and career stages. I advise against making assumptions about our methodology based on any single presentation of data. 

As I've said in response to a previous comment, this study reveals a complex picture for musicians. It isn't necessarily a rosy one. I encourage you to continue to observe our ongoing rollout of findings, as I'm fairly sure that any accusations of bias will be discredited. 

Self-selecting? Yes. Survey respondents are to some degree self-selecting. The members of the PROs, unions and the recording academy are self-selecting in their choosing to affiliate with those institutions. Should they be discounted?

"Why don't you guys do something useful like come up with a way to protect the internet freedom, protect artists copyrights and encourage licensed innovation in the music tech space?"

I find this especially amusing because this is what I literally do every second of every day. I am reminded of that scene in Annie Hall where Marshall McLuhan appears in the movie queue to say "You know nothing of my work!" 

I may not convince some commenters, but our small research team hasexpended a tremendous amount of effort to do God's work in eliciting real data about how artist revenue streams are changing. Do you really think Cary Sherman of RIAA would be quoting some of our findings around new tech and compensation if we were somehow inflating the results?

Again, I hope you continue to observe the rollout, as we really do think that all three methodologies we employed can provide richer information and context than has previously existed regarding artist revenue (not necessarily rightsholder and definitely not tech) and today's marketplace.  

Casey Rae-Hunter

Deputy Director, Future of Music Coalition

Hey Casey, the question has been put to you a few times now whether or not these Future of Music Coalition "studies" are somehow affiliated with: https://www.insightcommunity.com/cases.php

Why are you trying to avoid such a simple question? It reflects very poorly on FOMC and makes it seem like you're trying to hide something. If you're not trying to hide something and if you truly stand by these studies as you claim, a little tranparancy on this would go a long way...

These are great stats to have but meaningless without some idea of the actual $ numbers. The relative percentage of any number -- esp. fixed expenses -- in any budget varies widely depending on scale.

If I make $50,000 a year and buy a $2,000 guitar, a $2,000 amp and $1,000 of other gear and repairs, I've spent 10% of my income that year on gear and repairs. But if I make $200,000, that's only 2.5%. Changes the picture entirely.

Since these are anonymous profiles, can't we have the numbers?

Our study is in no way related or affiliated with whatever that other link you keep posting is. Cool? I don't even know what it is. 

From what I know about "live performance" earnings, the bulk of it is not made from CD sales or even getting paid as a performer, but from T-shirt sales and the like.  So in your example of this band leader, I wonder what the "90%" of his live performance income really comes from.