
Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays - cgilmer
http://theunderstatement.com/post/53867665082/pandora-pays-far-more-than-16-dollars
======
aresant
"A good flatterer doesn't lie, but tells his victim selective truths (what a
nice color your eyes are). Good PR firms use the same strategy: they give
reporters stories that are true, but whose truth favors their clients."

I have no idea if David Lowery's original post about making only $16.89 for 1
million plays was distributed by a PR firm, but it sure feels like it.

PG's thoughts on PR are spot on, and I love referencing his article to both
discern truth from half-truth in the news, and, of course, to push my own PR
efforts:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

~~~
yajoe
I imagine the minority here is aware that Pandora now owns a radio station,
and their goal is to use the radio station to get more favorable terms for
licensing. (wsj story:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732490400457853...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324904004578539983107566860.html?KEYWORDS=pandora+south+dakota)
) I interpret these stories and their timings as a prelude to undermine
Pandora's bargaining position. It's clearly PR to extract 'higher' payments,
even though Pandora already pays among the highest per-listener rates in the
US across all mediums. The blog author and parent are spot-on.

~~~
svantana
It's also mentioned in the OP.

------
jcampbell1
This makes sense. Another way to back into the figure:

Pandora spent $82M on content according to the most recent 10Q, with 4.18B
listener hours. That implies a cost of $0.02 cents per listener hour. A
million plays is roughly 62500 listener hours, which implies a content cost of
$1250.

~~~
hohead
Interesting analysis.

Based on their cost of $0.02 cents per listener hour, I wanted to calculate
how many hours per day my $36 yearly payment equates to (ignoring their
operational costs):

($36 / $0.02) = 1800 hours per year

1800 hours per year = 4.93 hours per day

~~~
sliverstorm
Sounds like the pricing structure all works together very well, then. 5 hours
per day sounds like a good point which plenty of people can easily eclipse,
but the majority will not, keeping the service profitable.

~~~
Retric
Licencing is hardly there only cost.

~~~
sliverstorm
Yes, but they said it was 50% of revenues. I believe Pandora is profitable, so
the sum of all other costs must be less. This means that the breakeven point
is actually somewhere between 2.5-5 hours. 5 hours per day is not a magic
number- I think 4 or 3 also sound perfectly fine, based on the usage patterns
I see.

~~~
spullara
Pandora is actually operating at quite a big loss:

[http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=P&ql=1](http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=P&ql=1)

------
Afforess
Its easy to complain about the low pandora royalties, but these artists are
essentially trying to kill the golden goose. Pandora currently spends > 50% of
revenue on royalties. Any increases would almost certainly lead to the end of
the company. $0 is a lot less than $1,300 for 1 million plays.

~~~
whiddershins
Arguing that high royalties make it hard for Pandora to do business is just
bullying and threatening. Obviously if sharing songs via violating copyright
weren't an option, listeners would happily pay a little more for Pandora
premium or endure a few more commercials.

Instead, the public starts from the stance that music should basically be
free, and artists are lucky to be paid anything at all.

The purpose of statutory rates is to create an economic environment where
businesses can operate without constant negotiation, and creators can earn a
living.

Virtually no one is earning a living from Pandora or Spotify, so, it isn't
working. Meanwhile the public has access to a functionally infinite amount and
variety of music for nothing, or next to nothing.

~~~
Tobani
Did any musicians ever make a living off radio?

~~~
whiddershins
Yes. Entire generations of songwriters made their living from writing songs
which were played on the radio.

~~~
Semaphor
[citation needed]

I'm pretty sure they made the money from selling the music people heard on the
radio.

~~~
whiddershins
downvote me all you guys want. People in the tech community consistently
conflate performing artists (bands and stars you recognize) with composers
(songwriters, the people creating the intellectual property, and who are most
screwed by the modern economy)

a song isn't an advertisement for ANYTHING for the songwriter. It is the
entirety of the songwriter's creation. The songwriter does not make a living
from t-shirts, ticket sales, endorsements, or hosting a reality TV show.

[http://blog.startmysong.com/2010/01/02/songwriting-how-
much-...](http://blog.startmysong.com/2010/01/02/songwriting-how-much-money-
can-i-make/)

~~~
belorn
I downvoted you, because your reply do not include a source that supports the
claim that an entire generations of songwriters made their living from radio
royalties.

The linked _blog_ do nothing of the sort. It simply state that song writers
get in average an $800,000 for radio _and TV_ for a "hit song".

It doesn't say how much is TV vs radio. It doesn't say what a hit song mean,
or how many CD's such song will in average sell. It doesn't say what the
average number of songs of a singular author is in such CD. It doesn't say
what the average income from digital downloads are from producing such hit
song, or how it effect sales from the authors other works.

And worst of... Its a blog without any source for its data, and has a
disclaimer at the bottom that says: _... the information is the opinion of the
author only._

~~~
whiddershins
It is really hard for me to realize how ignorant of the music industry tech
people are. Maybe that's because you guys seem delighted to pontificate all
day long, without mentioning you have no clue whatsoever how any of it works.

I didn't realize I need a citation to explain what is obvious to any music
industry professional: performance royalties from radio play are a major
source of revenue for songwriters of hit songs.

If the passle of you want to wave your opinions around for decades while
literally enabling and rationalizing the destruction of an industry through
targeted technology (napster, for example, originally ONLY supported mp3s)
maybe you should do your own research and educate yourself, and not expect me
to footnote every assertion.

Otherwise, just admit you want everyone else's IP for free and stop making up
justifications.

------
205guy
What I think is missing from this whole discussion is the ability to make a
living. Sure the industry is opaque to outsiders, and some of the established
practices are weird (radio paying only songwriters, not performers), and now
it's all being disrupted.

But forget about the numbers for one song. Let's say a guy like the OP of the
other article works full time as a singer song-writer. He writes a few songs,
performs some of them, has others (more popular artists) perform some of them,
and maybe he plays a few gigs himself (either as a musician in someone's band,
or good enough to do his own shows). Let's say he's median successful. One or
two of his songs (either recorded by him or someone else) is close to
charting. People are listening to it online and radios are playing it. Other
songs are getting played but not getting the same traction. He works 50-60
hours a week on music, either writing, recording, or performing. What kind of
living can he make?

a) 20K and lives off of another job? b) 40K and struggles to pay rent? c) 60K
and can survive? d) 80K and considered successful? e) 100K and lives
comfortably doing what he loves? f) More and can live in expensive parts of
the country (NY-SF-LA)?

How was it in the old system of labels and DJs? How has it changed with
Pandora and iTunes?

~~~
ThomPete
The ability to make a living is not a right, it's an opportunity.

The same opportunity that made it possible for artists to record once and
resell in the millions is now working against them.

Where where they when the distribution companies who used to make a living
from the music industry was laid off? Or the record stores?

It's not a right, it's an opportunity.

~~~
205guy
My point was we're trying to judge the merit of an entire system by one tiny
facet. What's a fair amount of money for this guy to get if it's not X? What
if I was a QA tester and I complained on my blog that my dev team was unfairly
closing the bugs I open as invalid, thus depriving me of my bug-based bonus?
Seems crummy, but maybe that just how the industry goes and I'm still living
comfortably.

Obviously, there is no "right" to earn a living in the legal sense of a right.
But it seems moral to say that if someone puts in average work, and they're
average talent, they should make an average living out of some industry that
is still in demand.

You raise an interesting point about the producers and salespeople of the
industry. Why shouldn't they have a "right" to make an average living as well.
Indeed, but they could also follow the technology, eg from "curating" a record
store to "curating" a recommendations website. Or, since they also have more
portable jobs, they could produce or sell other products or talents.

The musician, on the other hand, is stuck. If musicians can't live from their
music, even if they are in demand, will stop making music for us consumers.

~~~
ThomPete
You last claim is simply not true. There have never in the history of human
history been so many artists out there. If anything it's the amount of
competition amongst musicians that is pushing the returns down.

------
ghshephard
I wonder what the performers/songrwriters think of the fact that I purchased
(used) Aerosmith's Hits CD about five years ago for $3.00. I've probably
listened (in various formats) to that CD about a hundred+ times in the last
five years. There are 10 tracks, so, 1,000 plays for which everyone
(Songwriters, Publishers, Performers, Distributes) - all received $0.00.

Multiply that by 1,000 Aerosmith fan's who bough a used CD, and you have 1
Million plays that generate $0.00 for the music industry.

I wonder if the Music industry feels that they are being treated unfairly by
the Used CD Marketplace? Or how they feel about people just purchasing $4-$5
CDs used (S&H included) off of Amazon - the combination of low cost +
convenience.

Ironically - in the last year, I signed up for iTunes Match ($25/year), so in
theory, every time I listen to this CD the various contributors are once again
receiving revenue.

~~~
tunesmith
As a performer/songwriter, I don't have a problem with that used cd bit
conceptually. All those cds were originally sold full price, generating full
revenue.

The original purchaser bought it for full price, and assuming I'm a major
artist like Aerosmith, that's big money in the aggregate. A cd isn't rent, it
means you get to enjoy that stuff for as long as you own it. If the original
purchaser wanted to transfer that ability to someone else even for _free_ , I
don't have a problem with it. I don't see cds as somehow being linked to the
original person's lifespan, or a time-value of how long he's likely to listen
to it. It's the existence of the cd, period. The fact that he got three bucks
for it, more power to him.

Now, if he instead ripped the cd to continue his enjoyment and then sold or
gave it away, to me that's the same as keeping the cd and letting you rip it
(either for free, or for three bucks). That's not okay. He clearly liked it
enough to "keep" it, so he should have kept it. In which case (if everyone
else acted the same way), you would have bought a new copy, which means more
money for the artist.

At any rate, you, by purchasing a used cd, did nothing "wrong" from any
perspective in my book, because it can't be on you to ensure that the seller
will no longer listen to or enjoy the music. But people that sell their used
cds, technically they're stealing if they keep their rips after they sell it.
Or at least "stealing", in the sense that it's the same as letting someone
else rip/burn their copy.

------
hexis
On some days, I wish companies like Pandora, Spotify, and Rdio would just
voluntarily shut down. If the music industry thinks streaming companies are
ripping them off, the music industry is welcome to build their own streaming
business and show everyone how it's done.

Musicians were complaining about royalties and payment long before the
internet was invented and they'll be complaining long after we're all gone.
Keep that in mind when they act like streaming is the new scourge of music.

~~~
thijsc
Spotify is owned partially by the music industry:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/17/major-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/17/major-
labels-spotify)

I'm sure the labels are very happy to keep making the same margins they used
to with these new distribution channels. The music industry is doing fine
here, it's just the artists who are getting a small piece of the pie.

~~~
dtf
Maybe this is the crux of the issue. The labels would like to shut down the
competition and control the channel as did before. It would explain the PR
blitz.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Indeed. Pay to play, every singe time things are played they want you to pay,
and be in control. What is missing often from these discussions is that a lot
of bands and musicians could deal direct with a service like Spotify. But that
would cut the record companies out of the loop and hey are fighting this tooth
and claw. So they essentially have a cartel controlling Spotify and making
sure the pressure is on for the rest of the industry. It will be interesting
to see them end up in the middle, making millions as they have manoeuvred
themselves into controlling something hat could hav been an efficient market
with few middlemen.

------
RKoutnik
Coming up next: An article titled "I coded in Silicon Valley for six years and
only made $1,000[0]"

[0] Not including salary.

~~~
volaski
would be more like $10,000[0]

~~~
volaski
why the downvote? :(

------
ThomPete
I have said it before and I will say it again.

20 years ago that and thousands of others songs wouldn't even have been played
anywhere and definitely not a million times.

If you want to live off of making music or as an author or anything else you
have to think like a publisher not an artist.

Playing music is a joy, something you can enjoy whether you make money or not
from it.

Living from making music is an opportunity not a right.

~~~
jccalhoun
Actually, I think that if you want to live off of making music you should
think like an artist and plan on making most of your money by actually playing
music instead of hoping that you can make a living off of music you played
decades ago. Intellectual property and royalties were only invented less than
200 years ago and there's no guarantee that people will be able to depend on
that as a source of income in the future.

~~~
ThomPete
That was not my point at all. Sorry if that was unclear.

------
blhack
"Pandora advertised my product to 1 Million people and only paid me $1300 for
it!"

~~~
wmf
I can't speak to Pandora specifically, but Spotify is often pitched as an
alternative to buying music and it also pays comically low royalties.

~~~
notatoad
Comically low compared to what? Sure, compared to a CD sale they are low, but
the royalties on a CD sale cover all future listens, by all future owners of
that disc. Royalties on radio playback pay for one listen by tens of thousands
of people. Royalties from a stream pay for one listen by one person, of course
they are low.

------
aston
If I told you there was an e-commerce company without a profitable year in
over a decade of existence despite federally-mandated price ceilings placed on
their suppliers, you'd be incredulous. If I then added that the same company
was lobbying in Washington to get the price ceiling lowered, the pitchforks
would be out.

But then mention it's a company selling music, and people shrug, "Oh, well
music should be free anyway... The artists should be happy they get anything."

~~~
encoderer
But then you told them that the suppliers used a cartel model to prevent true
competition in the marketplace......

~~~
aston
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you claiming that what's stopping
the average artist from selling as many records as Justin Timberlake is
collusion among the major record labels?

~~~
atondwal
No, he's saying that what's stopping the average artist to get a high a
royalty percentage as Justin Timberlake and stopping pandora from paying
radically less for the music is collusion among the major record labels.

------
alphamale3000
1 million plays on Pandora is like one play on FM radio with an audience of 1
million, or 10 plays with an audience of 100,000. Either way, their royalties
are more expensive than ones of radio stations.

Pandora just bought an FM radio station in an effort to reduce its royalty
rates. [http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/11/pandora-buys-fm-radio-
sta...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/11/pandora-buys-fm-radio-station/)

------
arange
If I learned anything from reading this article, music royalties are an
extremely hard and complicated thing. Hat tip to them for even attempting to
do business in this kind of insane environment.

------
thehme
Considering that I have bought several CDs because I heard them on Pandora, I
am sure everyone is getting money, but it usually is never enough. I don't
know what exactly the cost of running a Pandora company means financially, but
with all the upgraded, changes, improvements I expect from it, they definitely
need money to pay the developers, so that we, the listener can love the music
and buy the albums, which I would think is what the artist ultimately wants.

~~~
smacktoward
_> I don't know what exactly the cost of running a Pandora company means
financially_

Well, Pandora is a public company, so they have to disclose all that stuff.
Which means we can look it up! Transparency is awesome.

According to their latest annual report ([http://phx.corporate-
ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9M...](http://phx.corporate-
ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MTgxNzIxfENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1)),
in fiscal 2012 Pandora brought in $274 million on $285 million in operational
expenses.

Of those expenses, $149 million were for content licensing. Product
development accounted for $13 million.

Of the money they made, the vast majority ($240 million) came from
advertising.

~~~
gizmo686
At risk of sounding stupid, $274-$285<$0. How does that work?

~~~
endersshadow
How does a company lose money? They didn't start from nothing--they have money
in the bank from equity infusions (e.g.-going public). You lose money if you
make less than you spend. That's what happened here.

Edit: Also, these numbers aren't just cash. Revenue is realized when it's
earned, not when it's actually paid. So, for example, if Pandora provides
$50MM of advertising, and then bills that, it records $50MM of revenue, even
if it hasn't received all of that yet. Instead of being counted in cash, it's
counted in accounts receivable (commonly abbreviated as A/R). This adheres to
GAAP (in the US).

------
tunesmith
The graph is funny. Pandora agrees it is roughly accurate.

So, a payout (revenue; before expenses) of $1372 for 1,159,000 plays.

Well, let's look at it in terms of an album where all songs are played
equally. In reality, some songs will be played more than others. Assume an
album of 10 songs.

Okay, that's $1372 for 115,900 complete album plays.

Well, you can sell an album for $10. More, actually, but let's say $10 since
that's the digital rate. And you hope for repeat listens out of an album...
ten listens? 100 would be pretty great, actually, maybe that's a true fan.

Well, 115,900 complete album plays for $1372... at ten bucks apiece, that's
akin to each purchase being played 1,000 times.

In other words - ignoring other benefits of Pandora - you don't want to use
Pandora to "sell" your music unless you have reason to believe that album
purchasers would listen to your album 1,000 times or more. Only at that time
would Pandora be worth it.

That of course doesn't take Pandora's discovery benefit. I don't know if that
would be enough to knock the numbers down to 100 or 10 album listens, but I
suspect people often overestimate Pandora's discovery benefit. Just because a
listener might discover a lot of new music doesn't mean that an artist gets a
lot of new fans from Pandora.

~~~
tunesmith
I should offer my own counterpoint here. That analysis ignores the question of
whether Pandora plays "rob" from anything else. But since Pandora songs aren't
available upon request, it doesn't rob album sales. It's basically gravy.

Now, someone who makes a lot of money off of radio plays, and sees radio plays
shrink as Pandora plays increase, they might still feel they have a beef due
to the lower songwriter royalty rates.

Spotify, on the other hand, is different. Spotify _does_ rob album sales.

------
chinpokomon
It seems the biggest problem is the metric used to establish royalties.
Broadcast mediums like radio can't accurately account for how many listeners
they have, and so their licensing terms are based on plays. Pandora on the
other hand knows exactly how many listeners it had, because the stream is per
individual, nit broadcast. Neither medium accounts for inactive listeners, but
I would expect the distribution would be similar. The bottom line is that
Pandora is closer to every individual having their own radio station and so of
course you cannot evaluate their worth the same way, despite what the original
article was trying to do.

Pandora's model actually works better for the artists, since there is metadata
that could be used to spy on American citizens... whoops, wrong story; that
could be used to connect to fans in markets the artist may not have had access
to previously. Maybe Pandora should be selling that information to the artists
and labels, although I don't know that they don't do that already.

Both radio and Pandora are more appropriately described as advertisement.
Playback restrictions of both formats means that listening to something is not
purely selective in the part of the listener. I can't request that Pandora
play Cracker's Low, anymore than I can shout that request to my radio. However
both give me exposure to music that I might not otherwise hear. Extra credit
goes to Pandora for giving me easy access to the Artist, Album, and Song
Title, as well as up sell links whereby I can purchase the music I'm listening
to.

Pandora provides much more value than terrestrial broadcast - value for which
the music industry should probably be paying Pandora. I fully appreciate the
positron Pandora finds themselves in, but they aren't in a fair fight, and the
artists that should be supporting them don't seem to understand that
distinction for their own good.

------
mech4bg
Not much has been made of the fact that skips count as plays... I wonder what
proportion of plays are skips.

Does anyone have information on what a radio station pays for one play of a
song, when they have an audience of, say, 100,000?

Edit: ah, I should have finished reading the original link, they make the
latter point well.

------
shortformblog
From the original post: _" I am also paid a seperate royalty for being the
performer of the song. It’s higher but also what I would regard as
unsustainable. I’ll post that later this week."_

Footnote from this post: _" He does clarify in the footnotes that $16.89 is
only for 40% of the songwriting and there is a separate performance royalty,
but certainly the headline & coverage could leave many with the impression
that $16.89 was everything."_

I'm not defending Lowery—he clearly wrote that post in an effort to draw
negative attention to Pandora's practices—but he stated that the documents he
threw online were outlining _songwriting_ revenue—he made that delineation in
the very first line of the post.

~~~
wmf
Arguably songwriting is kind of a dead field anyway since in recent decades
bands mostly write the songs they perform.

~~~
route66
I don't know what channel you are listening to, but in general there have
always been musicians (and bands) writing their own music as there were have
always been musicians performing songs composed by others with lyrics written
by others. Songwriting is about as dead as cooking.

~~~
ImprovedSilence
From what I've seen, it depends on what you listen to. Pop, country, and R%B
are largely written and produced by someone other than the performer (hence,
they are called "acts"). Most rock/inde/actual "bands" will do their own
writing 90% percent of the time.

~~~
_delirium
With the fields dominated by acts, how people make a living gets even more
convoluted. Some songwriters who regularly work in-house for a label get paid
"advances" that are really more like salaries (regular monthly payments,
sometimes considerably higher than the expected royalties). That's especially
common for career songwriters in-house at places like Nashville. Young pop or
hip-hop songwriters hoping to use it as a stepping-stone to become an act
themselves might not get paid a salary.

------
Glyptodon
> "On the contrary, it seems quite likely that others should be paying more."

 _Not that have knowledge of royalty proportionality,_ but it also seems
unfair to have royalty costs dwarf any other business costs. I have no idea
how much it costs Pandora to stream a song, but if it's a fraction of the
~$0.0012/listen they seem to pay in royalties, it seems like the royalty is
disproportionate and unfair. On the other hand, if the royalty is more than ~2
orders of magnitude less than cost to stream a song, then maybe there is an
argument that it's too low.

(of course the above is assuming you agree with royalties at all.)

~~~
klodolph
Amazon pays a 70% royalty for ebooks that were published directly by the
author. Is it unfair for this royalty to be so large?

(I realize that this is more complicated than "70%", see
[https://kdp.amazon.com/self-
publishing/help?topicId=A29FL26O...](https://kdp.amazon.com/self-
publishing/help?topicId=A29FL26OKE7R7B))

I think it's a sign of efficiency that a large portion of the money goes to
content creators. Content creation will get cheaper as technology improves,
sure, but in fields like music and writing, content creators struggle to make
a decent wage. Therefore as content distribution technology improves, the
percentage of money given to content creators should increase.

~~~
mullingitover
> Content creation will get cheaper as technology improves, sure, but in
> fields like music and writing, content creators struggle to make a decent
> wage.

As well they should--it's an ultra-competitive field, swarming with
competitors, the market is so flooded it makes New Orleans after Katrina look
like a kiddie pool. Unless you're the cream of the cream of the crop, you're
going to struggle in this industry. And not one of the content creators has an
inherent 'right' to make a profit from their work. The market decides winners
and losers, and inevitably in this market it's going to be mostly losers.
Whether or not it's 'fair' is irrelevant, life isn't fair.

~~~
klodolph
> And not one of the content creators has an inherent 'right' to make a profit
> from their work.

Agreed.

> The market decides winners and losers, and inevitably in this market it's
> going to be mostly losers.

But the problem is that royalty rates are decided by law, rather than by
negotiation between interested parties. This isn't a market economy, this is a
planned economy.

~~~
mullingitover
> But the problem is that royalty rates are decided by law, rather than by
> negotiation between interested parties. This isn't a market economy, this is
> a planned economy.

Those are the breaks. Copyright itself isn't a market economy, it's a
"temporary" monopoly that's granted by the people and it comes with
stipulations. The royalty rates perhaps aren't what the content creators would
like them to be, but complaining about that when the term lengths for
copyright are so outrageously generous just smacks of greed. For most working
people, you get paid for your work once, and not for the rest of your life
plus an additional 70 years.

~~~
klodolph
> The royalty rates perhaps aren't what the content creators would like them
> to be, but complaining about that when the term lengths for copyright are so
> outrageously generous just smacks of greed. For most working people, you get
> paid for your work once, and not for the rest of your life plus an
> additional 70 years.

This is a non-sequitur. "Musicians are paid royalties for the rest of their
life plus 70 years, therefore they should not complain about how large the
royalties are." Obviously if our top musicians earned $10 over a 120 year
period they would rightly complain about wages. Also obvious is that a $2
million per year royalty due for a song whose composers died nearly 100 years
ago is excessive and wrong.

What is not clear is how to pay musicians. Since you seem to care about this
problem, suggest something.

~~~
mullingitover
I don't have the answers. I'm just pointing out that writing, recording, and
selling music doesn't entitle one to profits, and if you're in a saturated
market like the music business you should _expect_ that you're probably going
to fail in your business ventures there unless you're in the top 0.1%. Perhaps
the answer is for musicians to lower their expectations about making a
business out of their art, because even with the system working as designed
most of them already operate at a net loss.

------
gems
Why do entertainers feel so entitled to high payment? Why is this even a
story?

~~~
mbreese
You seem to be under the impression that being an entertainer is easy, or that
they shouldn't make a living wage, or be able to profit from their work...

Everyone's gotta eat. What we're seeing now is the natural give and take
within the industry adapting to new norms and business plans. From a higher
level view, it's fascinating.

~~~
gems
"You seem to be under the impression that being an entertainer is easy"

No I'm not. If something is not profitable, then do something else that is.
Don't complain that you're not being paid enough.

------
ppradhan
Maybe.. just maybe... the market is beginning to correct the monies earned by
musicians. The heyday of yesteryear when (successful )musicians were paid
obscene amounts was due to 1. fewer mainstream musicians and 2. overcharged
customers who had no other means of acquiring music and had to pay the price
record companies saw fit.

Unsuccessful or moderately successful musicians didn't make a lot even back
then.

Now, musicians are basically fighting for attention among a greater number of
competitors. The choices are more varied. The output per year has grown
significantly and internet has brought international music into the fold
further increasing competition for 'ear-time'.

This should make one ask the question: what is the worth of musicians? Why was
the high figures of the last decades the 'right' level of earnings and why are
they being 'ripped off' today? Is the alleged ripping off due to content
delivery platforms (like Pandora) truly taking a larger cut of the revenues
compared to delivery platforms of the past (record companies and retail
distributors)?

It is not exactly pertinent to put past and present in the same basket,
compare the numbers and bring out the pitchforks. Circumstances have to be
looked at, and that little question of what the musicians are 'worth' needs to
be thought about. What makes musicians worth more than a farmer or a checkout
clerk. An even fairer comparision - why is their an income discrepancy between
a successful musician and a successful calligrapher. If the worth is more, the
market will decide. A given musician will have to continue making music
despite low pay if music is their true love. If not, time for career change.

The music industry and consumption is maturing. Musicians need to do the same.
There's no point fighting the ebbs and flow of the market by crying foul. My
opinions here are bound to be 'polarizing'. Do discuss.

------
masswerk
So [http://masswerk.at/404](http://masswerk.at/404) just got 1,017,260 hits
this month generating no revenues at all ... (as of June 26, partly thanks to
a post on HN earlier this month)

Meaning: all this "1 million of anything must be worth tons" isn't really what
everything should be all about.

------
crocowhile
I don't quite get the point of this. The original article already said what it
had to be said:

For frame of reference compare Sirius XM paid me $181.00 Terrestrial (FM/AM)
radio US paid me $1,522.00

All the artist cares about is how much it gets at the end of the day.

~~~
chockablock
Please actually read TFA: artists get performance royalties from pandora, but
not from terrestrial radio, but these were not included in the $16.89. Also,
terrestrial radio plays likely reached many many more listeners than pandora
did.

~~~
crocowhile
Satellite pays performance royalties. The fact the terrestrial is listen by
more people is actually a plus for the artist, I think (more happy listener =
more potential CD buyers)

~~~
Dylan16807
I think you're screwing up your logic here. While I will agree that more
listeners per royalty means more CD purchases, think through the implications
of that. It means that the best situation for CD purchases is one with minimum
royalties, in fact it's a situation with negative royalties causing large play
counts. Also known as payola. Which means your original argument about royalty
payments is disproved...

------
CulturalNgineer
If you could BUY a download or certain number of plays of the song for a
nickel or a few cents (one-click and without transaction costs making it
impractical)...

Would you?

patent issued... demo built and tested... its called a pooled-user-determined
account which forms the root for an internet wallet.

I'm a terrible entrepreneur but despite that the concept seems to be making
progress... especially for its potential in lobbying.

------
veritas20
"Industry is shady, it needs to be taken over Label owners hate me, I'm
raising the status quo up" \- Jay-Z, Izzo

There are way too many hands in the cookie jar and it's way too easy for
artists to connect directly with fans and sell to them directly. The current
model serves the labels and associated organizations.

------
dllthomas
"I'll prove to you that I am bad enough to get into hell, because I have been
through it! I have seen it! It has happend to me! Remember: I was signed for
Warner Brothers for eight fucking years!" \- Frank Zappa

------
Nux
Holy cow! Anyone else thinks the Record Company takes way too much of the
profits??

------
nickjamespdx
Should've gone Vadio.com / Terrestrial. Exposure + better pay per spin/play.

