Citigroup recently published stats in regards to the finances in the music industry. In this report the investment bank explained how money moves through the music business in the U.S. in today’s digital streaming era.

According to Rolling Stone U.S. listeners are spending more money on music than ever before: over $20 billion a year and the total music revenue is about $43 billion. Out of that total, artists only take home $5 billion, which is 12 percent.

Citigroup’s media, cable and satellite researcher Jason Bazinet talked to Rolling Stone about the industry, and value leakage involving the production and distribution of music.

“When you end up tracing all the dollars, around 10 percent of it gets captured by the artist. That’s amazingly low. These young artists — you don’t even understand the gory details of the music industry or how the dollars flow. You’re really not going to make that much money. There’s an unbelievable amount of leakage through the whole business,” says Bazinet.

Based on the report, the music business is still operating on the systems that it used decades ago, when music wasn’t distributed on the Internet. And because of this there’s a lump sum of money that’s being kept away from musicians while other players step in and help with music distribution and sales.

However, Rolling Stone stated that Citi’s analysts estimate that the friction will decrease over time. Citigroup notes that artists are already getting more revenue than in past years through tours and self-released music.

Read the full article here.