about 75% goes to the distributor (Where u bought it)
about 20+% goes to record company
and less than 5% goes to the artist

so out of that $20:

$15 to distributor
~$4 to the Record company
And less than $1 to the artist, which is generally distributed amongst the members

So really it’s the record companies and Whole-Sellers losing out on the money.

Remember “Steal This Album” from System of a Down? They named it that because A) it was pure Garbage that the Record Company forced them to release out of their garbage bin
and B) they didn’t make anything whether you payed for it or not…. Artist make their $$$ from touring and shows, not record sales. And that’s how it’s always been. We can thank LARS ULRICH for this BULL SH!T of suing the downloaders, when in fact, he himself was doing that very thing – downloading other Artists work on NAPSTER without paying for it when he saw his own on there and threw a HOLY SH!T FIT and sued his fans for doing what he himself was doing….

And now I’m ranting… just a little bit to ponder upon when it comes to file sharing…