Ayee, the all seeing eye.

If you're in the music industry this a must read.

how much do they make from owning a portion of spotify?

Most likely nothing? Spotify isn't profitable.

You seriously trust what some major label tells the Wall Street Journal?  There's obviously no learning going on here.

First off, Spotify paid KINGS RANSOMS for licensing, add that to the pot and of course you are not cannibalizing the iTunes downloads. Just another dumb number fudge by another major label in desperate trouble

No, really Spotify isn't profitable, just like 99% of music-based business.

This is a marketing tool for the majors and used as the alternative to online piracy (as long as it offers free plans).

Apple is not making significant money with iTunes, it's just a way to sell iPods / iPhones.

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www.lostindigitalmusic.com

iTunes grossed well over $ 6 billion dollars last year, on a 30% margin, so while I agree the real money is in the devices, its not bad incremental income, considering where the labels and the industry as a whole is at .

Quoting Peter Kafka from All Things Digital:

"What’s more encouraging for Warner — and, presumably, the rest of the big labels — is that streaming revenue is growing quickly, but doesn’t seem to be cutting into traditional digital sales from outlets like iTunes.*"

And that's good news for independent artists as well.  

Speaking of iTunes Match, in what category is the iTunes Match fee recorded?

I believe digital, but not in the streaming subset.  Here's what WMG told AllThingsDigital on the topic.

*Warner defines “streaming” revenue as money it gets from subscription services like Spotify and Rhapsody, along with Web radio revenue from the likes of Pandora, Sirius and Clear Channel. It doesn’t include the new cloud/locker services from Apple and Amazon. [UPDATE: That number does include YouTube, though, which is a significant income source for some corners of the business.]

hth, and please anyone add more.

thanks

/paul

interesting...

Nice to see physical still takes up 29%. I don't have it with this music as thin air through streaming and files. 

Shoutout to streaming services like Spotify and Rhapsody for bringing in some money...

This is crazy!

this is an eye opener for those who don't know.

This is a clear indication of the split in revenue, but to get an even better picture additional information is necessary.  What is the split between catalogue and new releases. This  would show how healthy the company is, breaking new artists is the future the costs of which need to be covered by creative and consistant sales of the catalogue. 

Also what is the split between local artists and those with international reach? Rarely is a new artist release profitable if it only sells in the country of origin, except maybe a US artist. You need those sales in Europe, Japan and the US to make the project earn the investment back. 

I can dig deeper into both Catalog and US/International splits, I think there's more information available.  

What's really scary is the percentage of revenue contribution across both recordings and live performance that come from catalog (ie, legacy artists and stuff released at least 18 mos. ago).  I'd hypothesize before looking that this is an extremely large chunk, maybe even a majority of revenues.

/paul

My advice to those who are diving into this music industry, get out of the business while you can!!