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Post by drbill on Feb 1, 2020 19:15:23 GMT -6
Mr Holmes brought this up, so I thought I'd investigate a bit further. Streams are in full swing now, and they have been touted as "the hope for musicians" by many. Personally, they aren't doing my bottom line much good.
I thought I'd run some numbers. Depressing. I'd love to hear some SUCCESS stories, cause I don't have em.....
This quarter -- Internet Audio streams only :
2,014,736 Internet Audio streams. Grand payout?
$517.28.
That comes to $0.000256748278683 cents per stream.
From Amazon, Apple Family, Apple India, Apple Student, Apple Trial, Apple Verizon, Facebook, Google Play, Napster, Pandora, Pandora Plus, Pandora Premium, Soundcloud, Spotify Free, Spotify Premium, Tidal, Youtube Free, Youtube Premium.
Glorious. I'm in the money.
Oh, and that's not counting the Audio VISUAL streams. There more millions of those for me every quarter - probably pushing 100M per quarter. Hard to completely quantify with a spreadsheet, cause Netflix will not disclose exact viewing numbers. (How do they get away with that?!?!?!). There are too many to calculate, but for instance, I had 18,507,966 AudioVisual streams on AMAZON Video ON DEMAND this quarter.
Total payout from Amazon : $105.31
Tech is ****** musicians - and most don't even see it coming.....
Yeah, streaming....
Thoughts?
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Post by jeremygillespie on Feb 1, 2020 19:28:52 GMT -6
I’m not sure what the work around is. I pay $15 a month for a family plan. I can stream whatever music I want and so can my wife. As a consumer, I love it. I love music, I love listening to music, as does she.
We are ALWAYS listening to music or a podcast. It’s just the way we are. Not really much tv people, but when we are home, if we are awake there is music being played.
I’d pay $50 a month for streaming. I honestly think they screwed up with their pricing model and their free model. Once they started as low as they did, they diminished the value of their service, and now consumers aren’t going to just go along with a price hike.
Streaming isn’t the future. It’s the NOW. I’ve got no interest in cd’s anymore. I’d rather purchase a physical vinyl so I can listen through the McIntosh system. Otherwise, we stream off one of our phones to a sound bar the rest of the time.
I have no idea how we start making better money. I know John has suggested Apple Music pays better than Spotify, but I just don’t dig on the Apple Music app. Ive really no answers to how it gets Fixed, I just try to make my money up front and have been able to pay the bills that way.
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,817
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Post by ericn on Feb 1, 2020 19:43:42 GMT -6
Streaming wins for one simple reason, it’s dirt cheap for the consumer, sorry but that’s how it’s going to be.
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Post by drbill on Feb 1, 2020 19:53:19 GMT -6
Streaming wins for one simple reason, it’s dirt cheap for the consumer, sorry but that’s how it’s going to be. Of course. There's nothing inherently wrong with the concept. It's the ******* ****** ******** who are running the streaming companies.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 1, 2020 19:57:21 GMT -6
drbill do you own all the masters for these streams? If so, that proves what I’ve been thinking - the streaming companies aren’t paying ANYWHERE near the .005 they claim to be paying out.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Feb 1, 2020 20:03:31 GMT -6
drbill do you own all the masters for these streams? If so, that proves what I’ve been thinking - the streaming companies aren’t paying ANYWHERE near the .005 they claim to be paying out. It’s the music biz has anybody ever gotten paid what they were told ? Who’s going to audit them ?
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Post by drbill on Feb 1, 2020 20:03:41 GMT -6
drbill do you own all the masters for these streams? If so, that proves what I’ve been thinking - the streaming companies aren’t paying ANYWHERE near the .005 they claim to be paying out. Not all of them John. If I had to guess, I'd say probably about 50% of them though. Some are non-exclusively assigned to music libraries, and God only knows how they end up where they end up. For those and the ones I've put up, I'm the artist, writer and master rights owner. I'm happy for the $500, but it's a freaking joke. If streaming companies were paying $0.005 per stream, I'd be making somewhere in the vicinity of $10,075 a quarter instead of $517. Still not amazing by any stretch, but I could live with it.
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Post by drbill on Feb 1, 2020 20:06:08 GMT -6
drbill do you own all the masters for these streams? If so, that proves what I’ve been thinking - the streaming companies aren’t paying ANYWHERE near the .005 they claim to be paying out. It’s the music biz has anybody ever gotten paid what they were told ? Who’s going to audit them ? There's getting ripped off, and then there's getting ripped off, *****, **** ******, kicked ** *** ****, and *********. I prefer the old school getting ripped off.... Please, somehow quantify how it's fair in any universe that I make $105 USD for over 18,000,000 - yes, MILLION - performances on Amazon VOD. Please. I'll wait.....
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Feb 1, 2020 20:15:37 GMT -6
It’s the music biz has anybody ever gotten paid what they were told ? Who’s going to audit them ? There's getting ripped off, and then there's getting ripped off, *****, **** ******, kicked ** *** ****, and *********. I prefer the old school getting ripped off.... Please, somehow quantify how it's fair in any universe that I make $105 USD for over 18,000,000 - yes, MILLION - performances on Amazon VOD. Please. I'll wait..... Fair ? Welcome to the “new tech economy”! Ask anybody in NY who has a commercial lic. and a Taxi medallion about lLyft and Uhber or why the fing hell an Amazon delivery driver can just dead stop in front of me double parking on a downtown street? The rules don’t matter because its “ Tech”. While some idiot can ride down the sidewalk on a Bird Scooter. It’s Tech, yeah it sucks.
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Post by drbill on Feb 1, 2020 20:26:09 GMT -6
I don't expect fair. Never did since the day I entered this business almost 40 years ago. I did expect SOME degree of common sense though. And for the first half to 2/3 of my career, that's exactly what I got. I didn't get rich - BUT - I did get paid enough to live. I'm not sure how I can live on $517 divided into 3 months though. That's $172 a month. I blame this on mrholmes. heh heh. I was quietly living in denial. The music streams suck, but compared to the audio/visual streams, they are like hitting the lottery every week.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 1, 2020 20:56:10 GMT -6
drbill do you own all the masters for these streams? If so, that proves what I’ve been thinking - the streaming companies aren’t paying ANYWHERE near the .005 they claim to be paying out. It’s the music biz has anybody ever gotten paid what they were told ? Who’s going to audit them ? So that makes it right?
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 1, 2020 20:59:38 GMT -6
There's getting ripped off, and then there's getting ripped off, *****, **** ******, kicked ** *** ****, and *********. I prefer the old school getting ripped off.... Please, somehow quantify how it's fair in any universe that I make $105 USD for over 18,000,000 - yes, MILLION - performances on Amazon VOD. Please. I'll wait..... Fair ? Welcome to the “new tech economy”! Ask anybody in NY who has a commercial lic. and a Taxi medallion about lLyft and Uhber or why the fing hell an Amazon delivery driver can just dead stop in front of me double parking on a downtown street? The rules don’t matter because its “ Tech”. While some idiot can ride down the sidewalk on a Bird Scooter. It’s Tech, yeah it sucks. That’s a terrible analogy. This would be akin to Uber and Lyft teaming into the taxi companies and using their cars without paying for gas and then complaing that they don’t make enough. If this was ANY OTHER INDUSTRY, people would be rioting in the street. Name one other industry that the government sets the price for.
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Post by Blackdawg on Feb 1, 2020 21:03:15 GMT -6
It is actually good for some artists.
It's terrible if you're working for labels and things because they still take a big cut.
If you're an independent that 2 million streams would have paid out $16,000 from just Spotify.
So it's not really streaming. Is just the rest of the business model is wrong for it.
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Post by drbill on Feb 1, 2020 21:11:10 GMT -6
If you're an independent that 2 million streams would have paid out $16,000 from just Spotify. No, it wouldn't. They might say it might pay out that. But it doesn't. maybe it does, and they are paying it back to themselves? 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. According to your numbers, it should have paid me $4,000. It didn't. I was paid $106.14. Please explain the numbers to me. Like John, I was told there would be no math when I became a musician. Numbers can be manipulated. PR says whatever they want. Industry pundits can pontificate ad nasaeum. Internet numbers can get thrown around all over the place. You can't argue with the checks when they have streaming numbers attached. Care to share your Spotify streams and cash paid out? Seriously and honestly. I'm hoping someone can actually authenticate something rather than just toss out theoretical numbers. Hey, I'm not trying to play "woe is me". I get along fine. But I make it by playing smart in a field I'm intimately familiar with - not by making money "like an artist is supposed to". Bottom line - the streaming companies are making bank, and very few musicians are doing as well as they would have in the 70's-80's-90's-(and maybe) 00's.
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Post by matt@IAA on Feb 1, 2020 21:28:44 GMT -6
Are the streaming companies making bank? I thought Spotify was losing money? Pretty sure YouTube was always losing til Google bought them... now who knows.
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Post by Blackdawg on Feb 1, 2020 21:38:28 GMT -6
If you're an independent that 2 million streams would have paid out $16,000 from just Spotify. No, it wouldn't. They might say it might pay out that. But it doesn't. maybe it does, and they are paying it back to themselves? 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. According to your numbers, it should have paid me $4,000. It didn't. I was paid $106.14. Please explain the numbers to me. Like John, I was told there would be no math when I became a musician. Numbers can be manipulated. PR says whatever they want. Industry pundits can pontificate ad nasaeum. Internet numbers can get thrown around all over the place. You can't argue with the checks when they have streaming numbers attached. Care to share your Spotify streams and cash paid out? Seriously and honestly. I'm hoping someone can actually authenticate something rather than just toss out theoretical numbers. Hey, I'm not trying to play "woe is me". I get along fine. But I make it by playing smart in a field I'm intimately familiar with - not by making money "like an artist is supposed to". Bottom line - the streaming companies are making bank, and very few musicians are doing as well as they would have in the 70's-80's-90's-(and maybe) 00's. Okay but this is my question. How is the revenue of that track being split up? Are you getting all of it? or supposed to be at least? Is it direct to you or is their a third part? Are there contracts with how payment is divided up and all? I have nothing that is under my own name or anything that I can give you numbers for. I've only engineered things, which never pays royalties haha Im not a writer either. And the things I produce I'll never see a penny either due to the unique situation that I work in at the place I work. Either way, no one is getting paid enough. Period. How to fix it? No idea. It's common knowledge and sadly, its accepted knowledge now. Hard to win out over that.
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Post by m03 on Feb 1, 2020 21:38:42 GMT -6
I honestly think they screwed up with their pricing model and their free model. Once they started as low as they did, they diminished the value of their service, and now consumers aren’t going to just go along with a price hike. Consider the market during their rise in the mid-late 2000s. They had to provide a convenient service at a price that could compete with PirateBay etc. It had to be attractive enough to draw people away from piracy. I doubt they could have priced it any higher and managed to stay in business. Fair ? Welcome to the “new tech economy”! Ask anybody in NY who has a commercial lic. and a Taxi medallion about lLyft and Uhber or why the fing hell an Amazon delivery driver can just dead stop in front of me double parking on a downtown street? The rules don’t matter because its “ Tech”. While some idiot can ride down the sidewalk on a Bird Scooter. It’s Tech, yeah it sucks. The taxi companies were entrenched local monopolies / cartels that gave the consumer a poor and scam-prone experience for an extremely high price. If they hadn't been screwing the consumer and dragging decades behind the times, they never would have lost to rideshare services. No one will mourn them in the long term.
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Post by gwlee7 on Feb 1, 2020 21:39:00 GMT -6
Spotify has over 100 million paying subscribers. If they aren’t even paying 1/4 of a penny per stream, and they are losing money, where is all that money going? Some one is getting very rich.
ETA: at $5 a month per customer, that’s $6 BILLION a year.
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Post by Blackdawg on Feb 1, 2020 21:45:50 GMT -6
Spotify has over 100 million paying subscribers. If they aren’t even paying 1/4 of a penny per stream, and they are losing money, where is all that money going? Some one is getting very rich. ETA: at $5 a month per customer, that’s $6 BILLION a year. Yeah but the most played track had 8.2billion plays in 2018. Thats 4.1 million in pay out at $0.005. And that's just one song. really doubt they are doing that, they couldn't afford it.
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Post by Blackdawg on Feb 1, 2020 21:49:08 GMT -6
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 1, 2020 21:58:42 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.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 1, 2020 22:03:02 GMT -6
On top of all this, they just don’t fucking pay anything sometimes. Unless you have a team of lawyers like Sony or Universal. These are all based on backroom deals from the 1940s. The government looks at the CREATORS like they are the monopolies. These streamers, Youtube, Google, Amazon are all protected against us dangerous gold diggers.
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 1, 2020 22:04:22 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.
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Post by gwlee7 on Feb 1, 2020 22:08:50 GMT -6
Spotify has over 100 million paying subscribers. If they aren’t even paying 1/4 of a penny per stream, and they are losing money, where is all that money going? Some one is getting very rich. ETA: at $5 a month per customer, that’s $6 BILLION a year. Yeah but the most played track had 8.2billion plays in 2018. Thats 4.1 million in pay out at $0.005. And that's just one song. really doubt they are doing that, they couldn't afford it. I am just asking because someone somewhere is skimming themselves a nice living from the lint trap of a dryer that has $6 billion tumbling around in it.
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Post by jeremygillespie on Feb 1, 2020 22:12:01 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.
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