Oh look, it’s Karl acting like he knows what he’s talking about again.

Oh, look, it’s Anonymous Coward acting like he’s not an apologist for the big labels that make their money solely through exploiting musicians.

Say Karl: instead of gracing everyone with your comical opinions on how things work, why not post stats- rates and figures from first-hand sources.

Okey dokey.

Of the average income from the top 35 grossing musicians from 2002, roughly 17% was from recording and performance royalties combined. (And the only ones who made more than half their money from royalties, were those artists who were also other artists’ record producers.) Source: File-Sharing and Copyright (PDF), Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf, 2009, p.44 (Table 6).

For the 5,371 respondents, the aggregated amount of income derived from sound recordings in the past 12 months was 6%. This is the same size as the aggregated income from compositions, which was also 6%. The largest pie slice was income from live performance, which accounted for 28% of survey respondents? music-related income.

• Off the Charts: Examining Musicians? Income from Sound Recordings

Industries with the highest levels of employment in this occupation [27-2042 Musicians and Singers]:

Performing Arts Companies: 22,500
Religious Organizations: 8,090
Independent Artists, Writers, and Performers: 1,830
Promoters of Performing Arts, Sports, and Similar Events: 1,450
Amusement Parks and Arcades: 960

• Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2012 (Note: These are the latest statistics available. These industries don’t pay artists through royalties; they pay on either a wage or per-performance basis.)

The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties.

• Steve Albini, The Problem With Music

A word here about that unrecouped balance, for those uninitiated in the complex mechanics of major label accounting. While our royalty statement shows Too Much Joy in the red with Warner Bros. (now by only $395,214.71 after that $62.47 digital windfall), this doesn?t mean Warner ?lost? nearly $400,000 on the band. That?s how much they spent on us, and we don?t see any royalty checks until it?s paid back, but it doesn?t get paid back out of the full price of every album sold. It gets paid back out of the band?s share of every album sold, which is roughly 10% of the retail price.

• My Hilarious Warner Bros. Royalty Statement

If you thought the life of most musicians was comparable to the blissful and blinged-out existences of Kanye and Rihanna, you’ve clearly not heard much about our ever-desiccating music industry. According to the latest Nielsen research, only 2.1 percent of the albums released in 2009 sold even 5,000 copies — that’s just 2,050 records out of nearly 100,000, and to fewer people than go to a small liberal arts college.

As if that weren’t bad enough, even the bands who do move units end up paying through the nose, mouth, eyes and ears for management, legal fees, producers and other expenses, leaving most of them scrounging to pay for record advances and, if they can afford it, health care.

• The Music Industry’s Funny Money

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), approximately 90% of the records that are released by major recording labels fail to make a profit.

• How Record Companies Make Money (Please note: Until the label makes a profit, performing artists get paid absolutely nothing from sound recording royalties.)

If we’re not songwriters, and not hugely successful commercially (as in platinum-plus), we don’t make a dime off our recordings. Recording industry accounting procedures are right up there with films.

• The Internet Debacle: An Alternative View

Most artists never see any mechanical royalties, because the record companies have such an interesting way of accounting for all their expenses.

PM: Breakage, and all those clauses.

MS: Right, and you never see any mechanical royalties. That’s why, in the late 80s/early 90s, when Beck got that huge advance, bigger than anybody had heard of, that’s basically all the money he’s ever gonna see from his mechanical royalties, in spite of massive sales figures. Because they always find ways of deducting costs in their accounting reports of your sales.

• A Conversation With Michelle Shocked

Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist?s work without any intention of paying for it. I?m not talking about Napster-type software.

I?m talking about major label recording contracts. […]

This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. […] The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. […] Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.

• Courtney Love does the math (unfortunately, the entire article isn’t online any more – this is just the first part)

I’ve never made a dime from a record sale in the history of my record deal. I’ve been very happy with my sales, and certainly my audience has been very supportive. I make a living going out and playing shows.

• Lyle Lovett sells millions, earns nothing

If you think the fact that we have sold in excess of 2 million records and have never been paid a penny is pretty unbelievable, well, so do we. And the fact that EMI informed us that not only aren’t they going to pay us AT ALL but that we are still 1.4 million dollars in debt to them is even crazier.

• A Letter From The Front… (30 Seconds To Mars)

  Now, it’s your turn. Please post any reputable study – any whatsoever – that shows musicians make a living mainly through royalties, and not through the sources I mentioned.