Here's the statistic I didn't find in the report:

How is it determined who is in the 100% of musicians from which the 1% make 77% of the profits?

I would submit that for sales of music, there are WAY MORE people actually converting soundwaves to dollars these days, than in the past when you really did have to be signed to a label, to get into a studio, to get vinyl pressed and tape magnetized.

So, in light of this report, how do they count up to 100% of musicians? It's a very crucial statistic completely lost in the mud of the report. From what I can tell, it's artists that have streaming content available or iTunes content available. You all know people selling on iTunes - anyone that has put stuff at CD Baby in the past several years. They are counting all of them/us as part of the 100%.

Well no kidding - a bunch of stuff on CD baby is absolutely awful. A huge steaming pile of awful. Pick any CD at Random for sale at CD Baby. No cheating, just start clicking and listening. Smelly....

Read the whole report - it really doesn't hold up statistically as a finger pointing at the superstars. The claim is that superstars are eating 77% of the revenues. That number pales in comparison to what it used to be. I would guess that in the past, that number was more like 1% making 90+%

Watch the 'Produced by George Martin' DVD. In there George talks about the idiot executives at EMI who questioned George on why only a handful of the Beatles songs that he recorded made something like 80 or 90% of the entire EMI revenue - all labels included, not just Parlophone. The exec was asking why there weren't MORE hits by the Beatles, as in every single song they recorded. Superstar tyranny, as it's referred to in the report, was way more prevalent in the past than it is now. It was actually label tyranny.

It's a golden age of recording-->moneymaking. The playing field has leveled immensely compared to in the past. The superstars will always command the large chunks, but there are way more crumbs now than there used to be.

What has dried up, and many here attest to it - is the playing of live music other people have written and recorded, for gainful employment.

The two topics should not be confused. They are not very closely related to each other, other than due to the fact that many people now pay big dollars to go watch/hear/see pre-recorded music played by artists, bands and DJs. Nobody here who plays along with pre-recorded tracks - whether MIDI generated or pre-recorded audio files, etc. can point fingers with much credibility.

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