Subscription Music Services

How are subscription music services figured into album sales and download statistics? Anytime I see stats on this, they only talk about how many records are sold or how many songs are purchased via download.

Also, how do the record cos make money with subscription based services like Rhapsody? Do they just receive a one-time licensing fee?

Also, why can't I decide what to have for lunch?

I don't believe they are figured into sales statistics.

Subscription services, like satellite radio, pay a performace royalty to the owner of the recording (hopefully, some of this makes it back to the artist). I believe they also have agreements with performance rights societies to derive revenue for copyright holders.

Even with declines in CD sales, this is one of the reasons why none of the big music companies are un-profitable.

I don't know about remuneration arrangements but I do know that my subscription service (Yahoo Music, a little quirky but a good value for streams and non-portable DLs at $6/mo) is the best music deal I've run into in about a half century as a music consumer. (I own about 1200 LPs and around 500-600 CD's.) It's not a complete panacea but it's got maybe 85-90+% of what I'm looking for, as a rule. And it allows me to do things like hear all or part of new albums I would never be likely to buy (Britney, the latest rock bands, etc).