And Musicians Get What Percentage, Again?

So much for the recording industry’s claims that the culture of digital music would be the end of its profit margins. “Apple Computer, the dominant legal download business in Europe and the US, retains just 4 cents from each 99-cent track sale while ‘mechanical copyright’ holders – generally the record labels, who own copyright in the song’s recording – take 62 cents or more. Music publishers take the rest – about 8 cents. With the sites, the copyright owners have doubled their share of royalties, even though the marginal cost of manufacturing has fallen to almost zero.”