Two months ago Geoff Barrow, the instrumentalist for Portishead, an award-winning British rock group, revealed on Twitter that 34m streams of his music had earned him precisely £1,700 ($2,604) after tax. He sarcastically applauded Apple, YouTube and Spotify, and his record label, Universal, for "selling our music so cheaply". Some have quibbled with Mr Barrow's figures, but no one has suggested the band has earned more than a tenth of a penny for each song streamed. What is more, few artists achieve Portishead's level of success, which suggests that writing music has become a lousy way to make a living. Two new books present differing explanations of how the economics of the music industry fell apart.
展开▼
