How much do music artists actually earn online? [Infographic]

For years, the music industry has been walking around like Private Fraser declaring, “Doomed – we’re all doomed!,” but what about the artists?

We’ve often wondered how the online music revolution is working out for artists, and are keen to see how distributing music online compares to selling physical CDs.

Online vs CDs

Apparently, there’s not a set of universal, straightforward figures available, as some of this data is kept secret, and it can vary depending on the country.

Fearlessly, David McCandless, author of the statisticians’ wet dream tome, “Information Is Beautiful,” powered on and researched the available data and knocked out a thumping great infographic showing how digital has impacted on musicians earnings.

McCandless includes some caveats, warning that the data was tricky to dig up, and that it may not be 100% accurate, adding, “these figures do not include publishing royalties (paid to composers of songs).”

There is a spreadsheet of data include royalties available here.

That’s enough of our yacking – here’s the big’n’beautiful graphic: