Thanks for the rant against the anti-streaming royalty whiners.<\/p>\n
The problem is people hear the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153million\u00e2\u20ac\u009d associated with their stream counts and think that it should equal lots of $. Then they look at the imputed per stream rate and think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pathetic. The facts are:<\/p>\n
DSPs pay 50-70% of their gross revenues to the royalty pool (more than 10x radio).<\/p>\n
Successful records earn beaucoup bucks from streaming<\/p>\n
Complainers are either not popular, or have deals with a label or publisher that is either still recouping the advance or is an old school deal taking most of the pie.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s useful to think of each stream as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153impression\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00c2\u00a0and compare it to radio \u00e2\u20ac\u0153impressions\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and royalties. Since US radio doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pay master royalties, keep it to publishing only. Take a typical audience for a major market pop station, and one spin is equal to 1x that audience in impressions. Take what BMI\/ASCAPSESAC\/GMR \u00c2\u00a0pay per spin, and divide by the audience size. You get an amount per radio impression that is not light years away from the publishing part of the per stream rate. To get a million impressions on radio you might need somewhere around 10-100 spins depending on the size of the station. Nobody would think they are successful or expect large royalty checks if they only had that many spins at US radio. Big records have hundreds of millions or billions of streams and radio impressions. The radio and streaming royalties generated by a world-wide hit are significant and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hear people attached to these hits complaining. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hit driven business. Always has been, always will be.<\/p>\n
The real injustice in streaming is the 4 or 5:1 ratio of the value of the master vs publishing. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a travesty and hopefully unsustainable. There is no fundamental legal or economic reason why it shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be 1:1, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the result of an historic industry power imbalance favoring the record labels.<\/p>\n
Best,<\/p>\n
M<\/p>\n
Michael McCarty<\/p>\n
CEO<\/p>\n
Kilometre Music Group<\/p>\n
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The music business doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exist anymore? Nobody is getting paid? Really? How many times do we have to hear this? It reminds me of the election being stolen. Say it enough times and people believe it. Streaming royalty payments vary according to the arrangements artists have with their labels and distributors, not with the streaming services. Pretty simple. Blame your team, not the streaming services.<\/p>\n
Bob Anderson<\/p>\n
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I cannot fu*king believe this guy is still at it. This is simple, DSPs payout a little less than 70% of revenue to rights holders (approximately 54% is paid on the master, and around 14% on pub side). Therefore, we have\u00c2\u00a0just 2 ways for rights holders to receive more money: claim more than 70% of the overall revenue, or force DSPs to raise what they charge customers monthly. That’s it! This is the entirety of the debate.<\/p>\n
To me, companies retaining 30% to pay for technology \/ UX development and upkeep, servers, employee compensation, office\/building rent, health insurance, taxes, etc etc seems fair. But I certainly can understand a debate on that.<\/p>\n
He doesn’t seem like a dumbass, I guess he’s a liar.<\/p>\n
Peter Wiley<\/p>\n
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Everyone keeps blaming Spotify for an existential problem in the music industry. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too much supply and not enough demand. Musicians used to make money from royalties when record sales were driven by listener demand. Nowadays, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much music and listeners don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want more.<\/p>\n
Indie musicians made the mistake of believing that if they released enough product, they could stand out in a crowded marketplace. One song a month. One song a week. But since everyone is doing it, the effects are minimal.<\/p>\n
Streaming is like an advertisement for your project. Not an income source. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re entering an era where streaming is the result of demand, not the driver of it. Playlists used to be a ticket to a larger audience on Spotify. Not anymore. Now you have to build your own audience, build your own fanbase, play shows, build community, and make people give a sh*t before they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll even think about streaming your songs. Streaming is for the fan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s convenience, not your pocketbook.<\/p>\n
The pinch artists are feeling is amplified because many of us were supplementing streaming income with sync placements and brand deals. But when TV production stopped and advertising budgets have been cut, so did the payouts.<\/p>\n
Music is no longer \u00e2\u20ac\u0153culture.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not interesting enough on its own to move the needle. The future is in the niches, not the mainstream.<\/p>\n
Nicholas Roberts<\/p>\n
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Hi Bob,<\/p>\n
I couldn’t stop giggling at this. A few months ago I did a couple podcast episodes on this; my grievances are almost identical to yours. I referenced Damon (he is among the “indie music guru bros” I mention), because I found his articles and tweets on the topic infuriating, as someone who works in music. My artist friends were starting to discuss streaming as if they knew what they were talking about because they read his pieces.<\/p>\n
I knew I would get called a bootlicker for saying “artists aren’t entitled to royalties”, and I did at first. I’d rather be called a very inaccurate insult from people with zero dogs in the fight\u00c2\u00a0and be right\u00c2\u00a0than be Damon right now.<\/p>\n
It’s validating to know that an industry “vet” agrees with me. And you’re right, it’s hard to get people to listen. There’s so much noise, and most people who work in the industry don’t even know enough to know that Damon was wrong. Concerning, to say the least.<\/p>\n
If you’d like to listen to the next generation sh*t talker:<\/p>\n