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The UK music industry is reporting record revenues. The reality is much gloomier | Eamonn Forde

We’re apparently spending more on music than any time since the CD era – but the calculation methods are archaic, and don’t reflect the low incomes for many artists

If the record business has learned anything during those brutal years between 2000 and 2014 when the CD market wobbled and then went into such sharp decline that it halved, it is to seek out good news stories wherever you can. The past decade for the record business has been one of recovery and regrowth, hoping to put the traumas of the Napster-led piracy age in the rearview mirror. A thousand premium streams might “equal” an album for the industry’s computation purposes, but the royalties from them – which also vary depending on the terms of their record label deals – weigh a lot lighter in the pockets of artists compared to the peak of the CD business.

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