Record companies tend to complain about downloads, particularly since most songs are still downloaded illegally. But when it comes to legal downloads, they get most of the cash.
Record companies keep about 72.5 cents on average for a 99 cent song, Dave Jaworski, CEO of PassAlong Networks, at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit. PassAlong sets up online music services for other web sites. It has a big store on Ebay too.
The credit card company then gets a small slice. The rest goes to the people who sold the song. In PassAlong's case, the company divides the remainder with the retailer.