STEP 1:  Create

STEP 2:  ?????

STEP 3:  Profit!

What is Step2?



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FMC asks, how do you make money from music?

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Are you a US-based musician or composer? How are you currently making money based on your compositions, recordings, performances or brand, and how has it changed over time? Take our online survey and tell us about it:

Much of the data about the music industry is based on top-line stats like record sales, touring grosses and commercial airplay. While these numbers are interesting, it's an incomplete picture.

To truly understand how musicians and composers are earning money based on their musical works, we have to ask musicians directly -- what percentage of your musician-based income comes from each possible revenue source, whether it be royalties, money from gigs, t-shirt sales or any of the 29 other meaningful revenue streams that FMC has identified? 

That's why we launched the Artist Revenue Streams project, a multi-method, cross-genre effort to examine musicians’ revenue streams. Through in-person interviews, financial case studies and a large online survey we hope to enrich the public conversation about how musicians earn a living.

And we need your help.

If you’re reading this post, chances are you either write music, perform or have close friends or business partners who do. We need as many musicians and composers to complete our ground-breaking survey on how musicians make money from music before it closes on October 28th.

Take the survey here today.

The survey has already been completed by thousands of musicians and composers, but high participation rates are crucial for this research. We want data from all the corners of the USmusic community, from individual songwriters, to professional rockers and pit orchestra players. You can be signed to a big label or be releasing your own music. We want to hear from emerging artists and seasoned professionals.

Your participation is both voluntary and anonymous. There are no questions that identify you as an individual, and your data will be aggregated with thousands of other musicians. By participating in this survey, you are contributing to something much bigger than simply providing us with some information about your life and musical work; the results will provide a rich snapshot of the complex nature of being a musician in the 21st century.

We will be sharing the data with organizations, advocates and musicians nationwide in 2012, and it will help us to ensure that policymakers and consumers understand the financial realities of musicians today.

Take the survey today.

You can always contact us at if you have any questions.

initiated Oct 20, 2011 in Business Models by Hannah Byam (200 points)   2 2 3

2 Responses

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No detailed comment here other than to say I think this is one of the most exciting, useful and interesting research projects to come out in a long time... and I can't wait to see the results. Having that kind of empirical evidence -- rather than just hearing what a few people claim is going on -- is going to be invaluable to better understanding the market today.
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response added May 31, 2012 by Jaime Anderson (180 points)   1

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