AFM, AFTRA and The Recording Academy have alerted their individual memberships of Sirius XM Radio's attempt to bypass performing rights organization SoundExchange and license music directly from labels, which they say could reduce royalties paid to artists and producers.
A recent Nielsen SoundScan study found that of the 97,751 albums released in 2009, only 12 sold more than 1 million units, down from 2006 (35 albums), 2007 (27) and 2008 (22), and only 2.1 percent of new releases in 2009 sold more than 5,000 units.
