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Post by drbill on Feb 1, 2020 22:29:39 GMT -6
I’ve had a No.2 , an No.15 and several other songs that charted. I make about $100 a quarter from streaming. Jesus John... that’s f...’ed. No kidding. Beyond F'd. But thanks for sharing John. I can't believe I'm making 5X's what you are with those kinds of hits..... maybe part of the secret is MORE crappy music than less GREAT music? LOL. So....there's a broad cross section of writers and artists and composers around these parts. Who IS making money? Care to share. Maybe give the rest of us some hope? I don't want to hear theories. Or internet legend. Or quotes from someone who doesn't post here. I want to hear about streams and payouts from people who are in the game. Not theories of how it's supposed to work. Anyone?
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Post by chessparov on Feb 1, 2020 23:26:19 GMT -6
Thanks Dr. Bill for starting this thread. Along with all those, who contribute.
Honestly, "streaming"-at least right now is (virtually), off my mental radar- As a pragmatic avenue.
If I'm ever fortunate enough, to write/co-write/sing, on a song that makes it... Into a film and/or TV ie. "Media", that's the "big win" for me.
Also this pushes me, into (possibly) beginning one or two Musical Shows, I want to develop, and have ideas for.
So... Bottom line it is sad, this streaming state of affairs.
I'm pretty empathic, and it bothers me to know so many are taken advantage of!
Will be following this thread closely. Catch up more, by tomorrow. I hope Bob O. chimes in too... Chris
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,937
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Post by ericn on Feb 1, 2020 23:31:33 GMT -6
He said he owned the masters and still isn’t getting paid anywhere near what he should. Here’s the cold hard truth. This is basically the split: Streaming company - 30% Owner of Master recording (label) - 60% Creators (publishers/songswriters) - 10% The creators have no choice or control whether their songs are streamed. Only the owner of the master controls that. Creators are not allowed to negotiate different prices with different entities. A government rate bird determines the worth and value of their creations - NOT a free economy like every other industry in the United States. This is the biggest robbery in American History. Not true plenty of industries are regulated and have their prices set in both direct and indirect ways. The rush to the bottom is going to kill us all no matter the industry, the world in general will look at us all and say “ well streaming is better than not getting paid for file sharing.” It sucks, it really sucks for those of you who need to pay your bills with the pennies streaming generates. Your screwed, sorry but it’s true I’m sorry to say, but the youth don’t value what you do. I’m here because I was the kid who spent almost every penny in the record store, I decorated every surface but the floor of my room with the photos of musicians and writers, but my 15 year old loves music, see’s the value of a stream equal to 30 seconds of wasted time. Your other big issue is those who could be the best public face of the issue are poster children for excessive consumption. The problem is everybody see’s Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Jay Z. Nobody see’s Bill or John.
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Post by swafford on Feb 2, 2020 1:26:47 GMT -6
I ran into Jim Boskins of QCA in Cincinnati a couple weeks ago at a friends show and we got talking about CDs, LPs, streaming, etc. go-qca.com/about_htm/history.htmlJim related that the income from music releases have been roughly divided accordingly: 60% from streaming or downloads, 20% CD's and 20% vinyl (I assume he was talking major labels.) The nut cruncher for him was, as of last year, all CD manufacturing for major labels has been moved out of the US (Mexico if I recall correctly) and all major label vinyl releases are being manufactured in Europe, affectively drying up his major income streams. He was not a happy clam.
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Post by pouletdegrains on Feb 2, 2020 4:42:34 GMT -6
A few thoughts on this topic, I am currently studying the evolution of creativity in the music industry with the development of audio streaming platforms: - Contracts between platforms and majors are going to be renegotiated this year, so the rate may change: originally majors had huge negotiation powers because platforms had no choice but to offer the vastest catalog possible. The issue is platforms are now owned by the majors: Warner Music has bought Deezer, Universal has shares in Spotify, etc. This is not looking great. - The way royalties are paid to artists is detrimental to non-mainstream music: streaming services use “per rata” or “platform-centric” payout distribution model, based on the global share of audio streaming (Drake alone takes a large part of it for example), as opposed to the user-centric approach which directs a share of each users’ subscription to the artists they have effectively listened to. - Users listen mostly to playlists, either curated or generated by AI, which tends to concentrate the attention on just a few songs/artists. Millions of songs are available, but only a few are considered effectively. - Another consequence of playlists is the disappearence of the album format: 1) listeners are more passive in their discovery routines: songs in popular playlists are listened millions of times, but other songs from the same artists are just getting a few hundred views; 2) to maximize profit on digital revenues, artists should produce songs which don't last more than 3 minutes, and put them in albums lasting more than 70 minutes (Drake is a specialist), as payment is made by song; 3) to pass the 30 seconds listening time (triggering payment), production techniques favor the absence of introduction, lack of dynamics, emphasis on low end frequencies,... - Independent labels use platforms to promote the physical sales and the concerts of their artists, digital revenues represents next to nothing for them. - IMO the main issue I see is the lack of development by majors: they sign artists which are expected to be profitable directly. They do not develop the career of innovative artists via subsidiaries as it was traditionally done. - The second issue the overrepresentation of listeners aged 15-30 on platforms (now the main source of income in the industry): as they favor urban music, majors concentrate their ressources on the production of R&B/rap songs, which may be detrimental to diversity.
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Post by stormymondays on Feb 2, 2020 8:29:27 GMT -6
I run my numbers recently. At the rate that I get paid by Spotify (through CD Baby) I would need 700 streams of a 12 track album to make $15.
I don’t think I’ve listened to ANY album 700 times throughout my whole life!
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Post by jcoutu1 on Feb 2, 2020 9:01:52 GMT -6
I'm going to pick ONE example. Spotify Premium. I have a song that's played just shy of 1/2 million times last quarter. Got a link to the track?
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Post by nick8801 on Feb 2, 2020 10:10:11 GMT -6
I had a song make it onto one of the big playlists. In one week it was streamed 200,000 times. To date it’s close to 300,000. Between my songwriting partner and I we’ve made around 500 bux. I think the trick to money making in the streaming world is lots and lots of content. You have to have your successful YouTube channel, several popular songs on streaming services, maybe some synch licensing, and enough fans to book shows that can pay out well. With that combination today you can survive, but it’s a lot of non-creative work involved. Unfortunately there are very few people out there that are lucky enough to just be an artist these days. I definitely don’t trust the streaming services to pay out what they should anytime soon. A good friend of mine gave me great advice several years back. He said, just keep making music. Regardless of the economy of art right now, you’re still better off making stuff and one day being paid something rather than throwing in the towel because it’s unfair out there and making nothing.
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Post by christopher on Feb 2, 2020 11:34:36 GMT -6
Makes me sad to see this. I feel really guilty streaming stuff, but I also see it as a way to discover things.
It’s sort of like the new radio, just customizable. People do playlists mostly.
Radio paid ok royalties that industry could accept, but each play on radio reaches thousands of people, it might be equal to 10,000 streams or more for many stations.
( a quick google search says the following is how Radio royalties worked. Seems low.. If it’s wrong, I’m sorry, maybe I’ll get a better understanding how it used to be?))
Maybe a major station in a giant region could pull 100,000 listeners or more? And they would only have to pay something like 12cents to play that song. So if a theoretical station like that played a song 100 times per month, it might be equal to 10 million streams, but that radio station only had to fork out $12.00 in royalty payments.
The reason radio royalties worked was because all the small stations had to pay the same price, even when nobody was listening. If you imagine all the hundreds of stations paying 12c to play the latest hit song, and then pretend all those stations had 100k listeners, well in one month it would be equal to billions of streams.
The math for streaming needs to be improved. The streaming companies should be held accountable and pay fairly. But how? and its another thing, if Warner owns a part of a company, how do we know they won’t fake the streams? whats stopping them from editing the number of views to make an artist look billions of times more popular? if there’s no law against it, it would be the first thing they do. Ive seen headlines “artist was quickest to 1 billion views” or something. I’m like.. sure.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 2, 2020 11:58:51 GMT -6
Jesus John... that’s f...’ed. No kidding. Beyond F'd. But thanks for sharing John. I can't believe I'm making 5X's what you are with those kinds of hits..... maybe part of the secret is MORE crappy music than less GREAT music? LOL. So....there's a broad cross section of writers and artists and composers around these parts. Who IS making money? Care to share. Maybe give the rest of us some hope? I don't want to hear theories. Or internet legend. Or quotes from someone who doesn't post here. I want to hear about streams and payouts from people who are in the game. Not theories of how it's supposed to work. Anyone? I don’t own the masters and hardly any of the publishing and they’re co-writes.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 2, 2020 12:01:20 GMT -6
He said he owned the masters and still isn’t getting paid anywhere near what he should. Here’s the cold hard truth. This is basically the split: Streaming company - 30% Owner of Master recording (label) - 60% Creators (publishers/songswriters) - 10% The creators have no choice or control whether their songs are streamed. Only the owner of the master controls that. Creators are not allowed to negotiate different prices with different entities. A government rate bird determines the worth and value of their creations - NOT a free economy like every other industry in the United States. This is the biggest robbery in American History. Not true plenty of industries are regulated and have their prices set in both direct and indirect ways. The rush to the bottom is going to kill us all no matter the industry, the world in general will look at us all and say “ well streaming is better than not getting paid for file sharing.” It sucks, it really sucks for those of you who need to pay your bills with the pennies streaming generates. Your screwed, sorry but it’s true I’m sorry to say, but the youth don’t value what you do. I’m here because I was the kid who spent almost every penny in the record store, I decorated every surface but the floor of my room with the photos of musicians and writers, but my 15 year old loves music, see’s the value of a stream equal to 30 seconds of wasted time. Your other big issue is those who could be the best public face of the issue are poster children for excessive consumption. The problem is everybody see’s Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Jay Z. Nobody see’s Bill or John. Well, again, that’s just not true. More money is being spent on music than EVER before in the history of mankind. It’s that the creators are getting bent over. The pyramid is completely upside down. The labels are making more than they’ve ever made.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 2, 2020 12:10:08 GMT -6
He said he owned the masters and still isn’t getting paid anywhere near what he should. Here’s the cold hard truth. This is basically the split: Streaming company - 30% Owner of Master recording (label) - 60% Creators (publishers/songswriters) - 10% The creators have no choice or control whether their songs are streamed. Only the owner of the master controls that. Creators are not allowed to negotiate different prices with different entities. A government rate bird determines the worth and value of their creations - NOT a free economy like every other industry in the United States. This is the biggest robbery in American History. Not true plenty of industries are regulated and have their prices set in both direct and indirect ways. The rush to the bottom is going to kill us all no matter the industry, the world in general will look at us all and say “ well streaming is better than not getting paid for file sharing.” It sucks, it really sucks for those of you who need to pay your bills with the pennies streaming generates. Your screwed, sorry but it’s true I’m sorry to say, but the youth don’t value what you do. I’m here because I was the kid who spent almost every penny in the record store, I decorated every surface but the floor of my room with the photos of musicians and writers, but my 15 year old loves music, see’s the value of a stream equal to 30 seconds of wasted time. Your other big issue is those who could be the best public face of the issue are poster children for excessive consumption. The problem is everybody see’s Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Jay Z. Nobody see’s Bill or John. Price control absolutely doesn’t work. And in no other business has the government price controlled one side into bankruptcy like they’re doing here. It’s so unfair, that the big money corporations paying off the government to keep this in place got the government to pass a law that the creators can’t even pull their material off of streamers unless they own the master. I would much, much rather not make a dime than to get screwed like this, but since I don’t own the master recordings, I have no say.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 2, 2020 12:14:52 GMT -6
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Post by jcoutu1 on Feb 2, 2020 12:21:35 GMT -6
How much did the band make from those 72M streams? Let's say I write and record a song. Totally independent. I drop it on Spotify and get a million plays. I wonder if I would see the amount that Spotify is promising. It seems like there area lot of hands in the pot when you have artists, songwriters, labels, etc involved and somewhere there is a breakdown happening. I'm curious if the totally independent guy would get what's being promised.
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Post by damoongo on Feb 2, 2020 13:12:27 GMT -6
Jesus John... that’s f...’ed. No kidding. Beyond F'd. But thanks for sharing John. I can't believe I'm making 5X's what you are with those kinds of hits..... maybe part of the secret is MORE crappy music than less GREAT music? LOL. So....there's a broad cross section of writers and artists and composers around these parts. Who IS making money? Care to share. Maybe give the rest of us some hope? I don't want to hear theories. Or internet legend. Or quotes from someone who doesn't post here. I want to hear about streams and payouts from people who are in the game. Not theories of how it's supposed to work. Anyone? OK. Here's some real world data. I get a massive spreadsheet breakdown from my digital distributor every quarter that details every song, every day, every streaming service, by region separately. For random example: As MASTER OWNER (that's the important part) of a song that got played 4,223 times on April 30th on Spotify, I received $16.79 after my digital distributor takes it's 25% cut. That's about $0.004 cents per stream. About what they say it should be. (Rate changes based on the country it was streamed in, if it was from a paid or free account and a few other factors.) The reason artists are not seeing much money is because the MASTER OWNER (Label) is collecting and giving you whatever shitty split you agreed to in your deal. (Often older deals gave artists almost NOTHING from streaming revenue because it didn't really exist yet and artists didn't know they were signing it away.) So who are you're cheques coming from? That's who's collecting the master payout.
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Post by chessparov on Feb 2, 2020 13:57:27 GMT -6
Gee after the Super Bowl... Like in "Naked Gun", I'm watching "Platoon", just to cheer me up! Chris
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 2, 2020 14:43:31 GMT -6
How much did the band make from those 72M streams? Let's say I write and record a song. Totally independent. I drop it on Spotify and get a million plays. I wonder if I would see the amount that Spotify is promising. It seems like there area lot of hands in the pot when you have artists, songwriters, labels, etc involved and somewhere there is a breakdown happening. I'm curious if the totally independent guy would get what's being promised. It all depends on the band’s contract with their label. Unless you’re extremely successful, you don’t own the masters, so right there, they make zero from 30% of that pie. Big bands can make millions from touring, merchandise, etc...and that’s in part from the millions the label puts into marketing. I don’t have anything that I’ve solo written, owned the pub and master on, so I don’t know. My guess is that they DON’T pay anywhere near what they say they do in a situation like that. They most likely bet that person doesn’t have the money to pursue legal action. Now, they don’t play that game with the majors, but for the little guy, It’s as dirty as it gets. Btw - I’m pretty sure it’s been proven - Spotify offered the majors stock/ownership to solidify that these deals went through. Owning the masters is the name of the game - Spotify knew that’s what they wanted and they needed the labels on board to get things going. No one gave a fuck about the people that wrote the songs.
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Post by yotonic on Feb 2, 2020 16:15:57 GMT -6
With Billie Eilish making her record in her bedroom with her Brother maybe there is a way for musicians to join an Association nationwide where a network of recording studios become a place that member artists can record projects where they will own the Masters. In return these Artists would donate back 2% to the Union/Association from their streams to fund more growth of union owned studios where Artists own the Masters. And then get a union owned streaming platform and educate consumers to buy from it versus Spotify. Get Taylor Swift and others to join..
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Post by geoff738 on Feb 2, 2020 16:22:18 GMT -6
As consumers, what are we to do?
I m not on any of the streaming services. I want to listen on my stereo and I don’t know how easy that is to set up. Plus, I want to own the stuff. I don’t like the idea that something I cherish is there today and gone tomorrow.
But it seems like CDs are on the way out. I just tried to buy the Orville Peck CD. Local guy, on Sub Pop in the states, I think a local indie up here in Canuckistan. Can’t find it online to buy in Canada at the moment. And had to buy couple other things either at excessive cost or via importing.
I know new vehicles don’t tend to have CD players anymore.
Not sure what I’ll do when CDs go the way of the dodo.
And it takes away another income stream from the artists. What do they sell at shows? A drive?
I don’t know what the answer is, but streaming obviously isn’t working for artists outside the few dozen at the top. And not sure it works for me as a consumer either.
Cheers, Geoff
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Post by dankin on Feb 2, 2020 17:12:48 GMT -6
That's unbelievable...at what point does it all go away? Supposedly around 40,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify everyday. Seems like the distribution companies are the ones making money and the people charging to push to playlist.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 2, 2020 18:40:24 GMT -6
That's unbelievable...at what point does it all go away? Supposedly around 40,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify everyday. Seems like the distribution companies are the ones making money and the people charging to push to playlist. The sea is too big right now. Without some level of promotion and marketing, independents stand virtually zero chance to get noticed. It’s even worse than it was before every knucklehead with a computer could “make beats.” As someone said earlier, maybe the labels will cut out the middleman somehow.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 2, 2020 18:44:51 GMT -6
That's unbelievable...at what point does it all go away? Supposedly around 40,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify everyday. Seems like the distribution companies are the ones making money and the people charging to push to playlist. The sea is too big right now. Without some level of promotion and marketing, independents stand virtually zero chance to get noticed. It’s even worse than it was before every knucklehead with a computer could “make beats.” As someone said earlier, maybe the labels will cut out the middleman somehow. I probably lose tons of jobs because I just won’t lie to people about how hard it is to make it right now. Best thing to do is learn how to entertain and do THAT. Make a product you can sell to earn a little extra income while you build a following.
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Post by gwlee7 on Feb 2, 2020 19:11:45 GMT -6
I was just kidding with my songwriting partner that we need to be glad we do this more for “fun” and as a serious hobby than as a way to make money. I am too old to want to tour what it would take to support myself if I even did have a “following”. A strictly studio band like Steely Dan was for all those years wouldn’t stand a chance these days would it?
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Feb 2, 2020 19:17:54 GMT -6
A number of my mastering clients are releasing vinyl-only.
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Post by jeremygillespie on Feb 2, 2020 19:42:22 GMT -6
With Billie Eilish making her record in her bedroom with her Brother maybe there is a way for musicians to join an Association nationwide where a network of recording studios become a place that member artists can record projects where they will own the Masters. In return these Artists would donate back 2% to the Union/Association from their streams to fund more growth of union owned studios where Artists own the Masters. And then get a union owned streaming platform and educate consumers to buy from it versus Spotify. Get Taylor Swift and others to join.. The people like Taylor are the ones who make the model unsustainable. They price the subscription based on how much they have to pay out to to the top artists per stream. So, she’s doing just fine I’m sure - but the little guy can’t compete with her amount of streams, so they get pennies on the dollar. What they need to do is base it on a curve. You get 50,000 plays and under, and you make a certain amount per play. You get 100,000 plays and the payout changes. It seems backwards, and would be frustrating the further up the ladder you go, but I feel like it would make things more equal for everybody.
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