Streaming Services Generated More Than 50% of All US Music Industry Revenue in 2016 (variety.com)

Janko Roettgers, reporting for Variety: Streaming music services were for the first time ever responsible for more than 50 percent of all U.S. music industry revenue in 2016, according to new numbers released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Thursday. Paid and ad-supported streaming together generated 51 percent of music revenue last year, to be precise, bringing in a total of $3.9 billion. In 2015, streaming music was responsible for 34 percent of the music industry's annual revenue. Much of that increase can be attributed to a strong growth of paid subscriptions to services like Spotify and Apple Music. Revenue from paid subscription plans more than doubled in 2016, bringing in $2.5 billion, with an average of 22.6 million U.S. consumers subscribing to streaming services last year. The year before, subscription services had an average of 10.8 million paying subscribers.

Comments

That's it?

[Solandri]

according to new numbers released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Thursday. Paid and ad-supported streaming together generated 51 percent of music revenue last year, to be precise, bringing in a total of $3.9 billion.

So the RIAA's U.S. revenue for all of 2016 is just $3.9 billion / 0.51 = $7.65 billion? That's it? We're mandating DRM, incorporating it into playback media devices and transport layers, forcing ISPs and web services like YouTube to spend untold $millions to go on witch hunts and filter through the 57% of DMCA takedown requests which are fake, threatening people with loss of their Internet connection, bankruptcy, and jail time. All for less than $25 per capita, and what amounts to roundoff error for Google, Apple, and Microsoft's annual revenue?