
Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber - microtherion
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/10/03/hit-song-justin-bieber-royalties/
======
peapicker
If each radio spin at 347,820 spins hit 10,000 radio listeners average (a
Denver hit station has about ~250,000 weekly listeners, a popular rush
hour/drive time show with mixed talk/music format has ~80,000 listeners) ,
then the $53,000 was at a rate of 0.00001524 dollars per listener.

If Pandora paid that, his royalty would have been $582.55...

So it looks like the industry from a streaming point of view assumes about
20,000 radio listeners per play on the radio.

This might even average correctly across the US market.

~~~
sidlls
Aren't royalties paid per play (i.e. spin)? The rate for the radio is about
$0.14 per play (53/347), in that case. Stations have no way of knowing how
many listeners actually heard the song. They can estimate with ratings
services, but not get exact numbers like say Spotify.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
Right. But the point is that it's sort of weird to directly compare album
sales, radio plays, and online streaming view count. Those are fundamentally
different both in terms of audience size and income potential.

------
look_lookatme
> How will I be able to support my gift?

In the end what we are seeing is that that golden era of creators making a
living (and much much more) was an anomaly. Control of new types of
distribution created scarcity and new forms of expression and shifting norms
jacked up demand. But now distribution is free, instant and global. Demand has
flatlined and production has exploded.

The hard question a creator needs to ask themselves now is not "how do I get
paid for what my art is worth?", but instead "was my art ever worth much to
begin with?"

~~~
Applejinx
If even people reaching a truly stupidly huge number of people don't get even
close to making a living (I get more than that off a few hundred people on
Patreon for the work that I do), in a situation where those operating the
streaming services are renting out entire floors of office buildings in
Manhattan, your question is disingenuous.

Just because some of us are eking out a sort of existence in the new era
doesn't make it a functional system.

I would be perfectly happy to see it become 'this is the Star Trek future,
your entire compensation is the satisfaction of a job well done and being
personally liked for what you've created', if our world operated on some sort
of UBI and we didn't have to have our performance linked to survival at all.

Under those circumstances, things naturally shift down the Maslow hierarchy of
needs, and people take for granted that they'll live, and get desperate for
validation and popularity, that being what they lack. I have NO problem with a
world that completely unlinks money from performance, because I'm not a free-
market capitalist type demanding that financial reward behave like a
'meritocracy'.

Self-evidently it doesn't anyway, so literally nothing of value is lost.

BUT, we have that completely decoupled world and yet demand that people pay
for even the most frugal living with money they got somebody to give them, in
a world where people simply can't and don't do that anymore.

Silicon Valley clever-boffins: come up with some disruptive alternative really
fast. We don't have time to mess around, and what these songwriters face is
the same fate waiting for all of us, in turn, including you. How about
abolishing money and replacing it entirely with 'likes'?

~~~
NathanKP
The problem is the middlemen and the way the revenue is distributed through
them.

Someone who produces and uploads their own video that reaches a stupidly huge
number of people will make bank guaranteed, just like someone who is reaching
their audience directly through Patreon.

On average you should be able to get $5-$10 per 1000 YouTube video views if it
is on your own monetized channel. So that 35 million views probably generated
around $245,000 dollars for someone.

Probably most of it ended up in the hands of the record label that owns the
YouTube account, and by the time they finished taking their cut the final $200
made it back to the song writer.

My point is that new methods of distribution flattens the distribution and
gives you the potential to make much more money if you spend the time to build
your own thing rather than going with a record label.

~~~
jasode
_> On average you should be able to get $5-$10 per 1000 YouTube video views if
it is on your own monetized channel. So that 35 million views probably
generated around $245,000 dollars for someone._

Not disputing your numbers but just putting it out there that Hank Green
estimated $2-per-1000.[1] That calculates 35m views to be ~$70k.

Google also recently changed its engagement algorithms and everybody's views
and monetization went way down. I'm not sure what the latest 2017 cpm
estimates would be. That Hank Green estimate was from 2015.

[1]
[https://medium.com/@hankgreen/the-1-000-cpm-f92717506a4b](https://medium.com/@hankgreen/the-1-000-cpm-f92717506a4b)

~~~
NathanKP
From what I heard it is/was $5-$10 per 1000 if your video is eligible for the
high value video pre-roll ads. If you only get text AdSense ads then it is
about $1 per 1000.

Either way, my point is that a 35 million view YouTube video generates a lot
more than $200 dollars for someone. Even if you take the minimum of $1 per
1000 you are still looking at $35,000 of ad revenue. That ad money must be
going somewhere, even if creators don't get it. So YouTube isn't to blame, its
the people who are skimming off so much money that only $200 is left for the
writer

------
realthings
Get with the times! The way people consume music has radically changed. The
music gold rush is over. The simple fact is people listen to music on YouTube
and Spotify now. Music is also absurdly high in supply because everyone wants
to be a musician. Guess what that does to the value? That's right, music is
cheap because it isn't worth much.

Whenever I see people complain about this, I just feel sorry for them. The
world changes, and there are winners and losers because of the change.

It's so strange to me how people think the world owes them something. The
value of objectively looking at the market is so underrated.

~~~
jbergens
On the other hand there is money in music, and it could and should increase.
When you have 1 billion people paying $10 / month you have $12 billion per
year to split between the artists, songwriters, record companies and
distributors. That might still be lower than before but it is some money.

~~~
vkou
Fortunately for Hacker News, most of that economic windfall goes to middlemen.

~~~
tormeh
Unfortunately, it goes to the labels. The streaming services aren't rolling in
the dough.

~~~
vkou
It also goes to the engineers working on the services. $200,000-$300,000/year
to a senior, even if the service itself is losing money (And when it goes
bust, you can always find another job.)

~~~
romwell
I feel like this irony is horribly lost on about half of the commenters here.
Creator's job is seen as worthless, but the deliveryman's job value is
indisputable.

And yet if Spotify were to pay its engineers scraps, I doubt the voices here
would be as supportive.

The only reason the engineers are paid as much is because the companies can't
get away with paying less. And just because they can get away with paying
musicians less, doesn't mean the musicians should "get with the times". I am
not saying every musician should be a millionaire, but there are plenty who
collectively carry the multi-billion dollar industry on their backs, but get
scraps in return.

On a more general note, when a vulnerable part of the population gets shafted,
they shouldn't "get with the times" either. It's a sign of our failure as a
society.

I guess it is not surprising that people in a capitalistic society think that
the value of an activity lies in how much _profit_ it can generate _to the
performer_ of that activity. I guess it's beyond reasonable to expect people
to think of _externalities_ and understand them. I guess it's not at all
surprising that a bunch of people who claim to be in STEM have a collective
amnesia when it comes to understanding that M in STEM is an art akin to music,
but with laughable ROI and a far more limited audience (and the number of
corporations that hire mathematicians to do mathematics in the entire world is
probably... 5? Go on ArXiV and see how many math papers there are by people
outside academia, i.e. are the product of the "free" market system).

None of that is surprising. But that doesn't make victim-blaming any less
tiring to see.

~~~
realthings
Actually, the musicians don't carry the industry. Even if Taylor Swift died
tomorrow, and all of her music was erased from history, the music industry
wouldn't be threatened even slightly. There is a virtually endless supply of
musicians.

Society hasn't failed either. Society is made up of individuals. If the
individual wants to stream music instead of buying a CD, and if that means
less money for the musician, then the only choice is to adapt as a musician or
"get a job".

I say all of this as a musician myself. I realized all of this the hard way.
Just about everything in the world that can be bought or sold is valued based
on perception, which means anything can be worth millions tomorrow or squat.
Nothing is permanent. We're all gamblers in a huge game of perceived value,
and technology only makes it more crazy.

------
capkutay
Everyone knows that songwriters do not make their money off royalties. They
make their money off charging pop stars hourly to write music with them.

The same way performing artists don't make money off their albums, they make
money by touring and increasing their brand reach as an artist.

Music industry is not about creating IP, the same way the tech industry is not
about creating IP. Making things and making money are two separate, yet
intertwined tasks.

~~~
thomastjeffery
> is not about creating IP

I wish more people would come to terms with that. Protecting "IP" should not
be the focus, but for many it is, so we have Copyright, DRM, etc.

------
southphillyman
My grandfather had a single hit song over 50 years ago and he still lives
comfortably off accumulated royalties and other proceeds in 2017. Those days
are long gone. In this current system artists can still become millionaires
via concert and show money. It's the writers and producers who are getting
shafted since they depend mostly on royalities and points.

What I find intriguing are the genres where producers are arguably MORE
important than the artist (think trap music). Some producers in that space are
circumventing this problem by starting their own labels and signing artists
under them. This is essentially what Mike Will Made It has done with Rae
Sremmurd. As the music industry evolves, people participating in it have to
continually think outside the box and innovate to maintain revenue streams.

~~~
thebiglebrewski
"Santa's Super Sleigh"?

~~~
southphillyman
No but my user name is a big hint. Artist who grew up in South Philly 50-60
years ago and had a hit song so big he still lives off the royalties
today.....

~~~
sulam
Chubby Checker?!

~~~
culot
I don't know that Chubby Checker did so well. I saw him at a county fair 25
years ago. He was performing in a tent the size of a large restroom, with only
two rows of benches, at about 2pm. There may have been only 3-4 people there
altogether.

------
nfriedly
Yea... I think the system is rubbish, but I don't really feel very sorry for
someone earning $149k from lyrics they wrote 3 years ago.

Edit: _helped_ write - per wgj there were 5 authors on that song -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15419567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15419567)

~~~
bm1362
I believe that was a total? I didn't read it as just for this year.

~~~
nfriedly
That could be, but it seems like he's being well compensated for his effort
either way.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Is he? Is he being compensated well when looked at relative to what others
have made off of it? It would be interesting to see those numbers.

~~~
pwinnski
Just consider it flat out: Pick something you did three years ago. Let's say
it took you a day, or a week, or a a good chunk of a month, off and on. With
no followup work after that, what's a "reasonable" rate of return for that
effort?

I make a good hourly rate, but at the end of each hour, my earning from that
hour is done, and none of my hours have every billed at $149k.

------
sxates
Everyone is very focused on the contrast between the Radio royalties and the
Streaming royalties - but we all skipped right past that first item: $149,000
in royalties for writing a song (just the first 3 years).

That's a lot of money - more than most people make in 2-3 years - for what
probably amounted to a few weeks of work. And we're supposed to feel sorry for
him because he couldn't retire on it? Seems to me if he got 1 of these per
year he'd be pretty set.

~~~
vkou
Writing a top hit song is a 'few weeks of work' as much as writing a program
is 'hitting the 'submit' button in your source control system.'

You don't get paid for all the non-hit songs you wrote.

~~~
pwinnski
I get paid the same for all the code I write, but none of it ever has any
chance at all of still paying me three years later. None of it. Ever.

------
dna_polymerase
Wait for GANs and Style Transfer. Your "blessing" will evaporate as soon as
the first Machine Learned Song hits Billboard 100.

~~~
bitL
RNNs are pretty close already:

[https://soundcloud.com/reivalk/basic-rnn-joplin-example-
over...](https://soundcloud.com/reivalk/basic-rnn-joplin-example-overfitting)

~~~
shmed
The title point out that it's "overfitted". Basically the AI just reproduced
almost the exact song that it was fitted with. It's basically a failed
experiment where the machine didn't learn how to make music, but insted just
repeated the note that it was taught. Not the best example to show case what
RNN can do for music.

------
itsdrewmiller
I can't say I've done a lot of research on this dispute, but so far I side
with the streaming services since they aren't constantly conflating completely
different numbers to try to trick readers. "Spin" is a radio term that isn't
used in streaming, for good reason; it's just not the same thing at all.

------
excalibur
In the absence of significant income from album sales, artists can make a
respectable living through touring and merchandising. This path isn't going to
work for songwriters. They need to find a different funding model. Perhaps
bill artists by the hour? Probably a flat-rate contract for x dollars per song
would be more feasible.

~~~
saaaaaam
Famous artists can yes. If you are a semi-known band with four people playing
a twenty date tour playing 400 capacity venues with two local support acts
you're probably not making so much.

That's 8,000 people who care enough to come out and see you. So let's say at
least 100,000 people need to like you enough that they would at least consider
buying the ticket.

$4000 dollars gross in ticket sales per night, 30% to the promoter. $2800
left. If you get 50% of that with 25% to each support act then after
commissions to booking agent and manager you're left with maybe $950. You need
to pay travel and accommodation costs out of that, and possibly a tour
manager. For a four piece band plus tour manager you probably need $30 a head
per diem for incidentals of living in the road. Add in food - another $30 per
head and you've got $650 left. Hotel rooms aren't cheap. travel isn't cheap.

Sure you can sell 25 t-shirts a night at $20 each and make $15 a shirt. And
throw in some CDs - maybe 30 at $10 a pop... you maybe net another $600 a
night.

$1250 a day for your hotels and travel for 5 people - maybe you have $600 left
after these costs. Oh and you have to pay your tour manager...

Each of the people in the band makes... what - $100 per show?

Can artists really make that respectable a living from touring and merch?

Sure, scale this up, play bigger venues - 2,000 capacity. But then your costs
increase - people want a more impressive show, not just spit and sawdust. You
need a set, lighting design, all the rest of it.

------
greedo
I've got a relative in the music/movie business. He was pretty successful at
both, most people in the US over 40 would probably recognize him. He and his
family live well, but he still tours; usually small venues, travels by tour
bus instead of fancy planes. Small crew, just a manager, sound guy and his
wife. I figure he might pull $5K a stop, maybe 2x that depending on the size
of the venue. Not bad, but not FU money. He still acts in movies, even some
that have not held up well over time. I doubt he makes a ton with those roles
either. But he still does them. My mom asked why he still does it, at his age;
he replied, "I've got kids to put through school."

I saw him perform for the first time in 40 years, and realized how much he
lied to my mom. On stage, he was (as the kids these days say) lit. He clearly
loved the music (he still writes and performs new material), but the light in
his eyes showed that what he really loved was performing and sharing his music
with the audience.

Most musicians can't count on a career lasting 50+ years. The era of singles
is gone, and performances are where the next generation will have to make
their living.

------
ilamont
This is a story about middlemen.

30 years ago, the supply chain for recorded music went something like this:

creator -> music label & radio -> retailers -> audience

Now it's something like this:

creator -> (label) -> digital platform -> audience

Huge power is concentrated in the platforms, which essentially combine
curation, distribution, sales, and marketing. They control pricing. They
control the playlists. They control the relationship with audiences and
_understand_ them far more than record retailers or radio ever did.

Labels now provide questionable value -- I would expect that some platforms
may start to move into that area, in order to guarantee exclusivity, which is
one of the few ways for labels to establish competitive differentiation. This
is already happening in other media, such as books (ex: Amazon-owned book
labels signing top authors or strong up-and-comers) as well as Amazon video
and Netflix funding promising scripts and creative teams.

What can artists do? They have a few cards to play. One of them is
exclusivity. Another is the ability to build their own connections with
audiences (often using free or low-cost communications platforms). And
dedicated audiences will do what is asked of them, within reason.

Some also perform, which is one of the few areas to make money these days. But
platforms are also horning in on that pot. Ticketmaster is ruthless when it
comes to manipulating pricing and forcing artists to play by its rules.

If I were an up-and-coming artist, I would concentrate not on becoming a
"star" but rather making music that both you and your audiences can love, and
building indestructible bonds with audiences that they will follow you no
matter where you go, whether it's jumping platforms, going on tour, buying new
march, or taking part in other activities that respect their love for the
music while helping you make a living.

~~~
konschubert
I'm worried about platforms moving into label territory too much because as
soon as label start seeing them as competitors, they'll start rolling their
own platforms and then we get that fragmentation which we know from video.

------
mfoy_
I can't speak as to the other platforms, but spotify's revenue sharing model
really sucks for small artists.

For example, if someone signs up for Spotify to listen to _exclusively_ songs
by one artist, that artist is not getting that user's monthly fee... they're
probably getting a couple pennies tops, if that.

~~~
dkrich
But why should they get most of the monthly fee? Spotify offers the ability
for that user to listen to that artist plus a million others and thus carries
the overhead required to create a platform for that artist to publish in the
first place. This seems a bit like saying that I as a taxpayer should only
have to pay for the public services that I, at this point in time, take
advantage of.

~~~
mfoy_
That's why Spotify takes its cut, no?

Comparing listening to different artists to funding multiple agencies with tax
dollars isn't a valid comparison.

It's like saying that when I buy my favourite brand of ice cream at the store,
that the other ice cream brands will get a cut simply for gracing the shelves.

~~~
dkrich
No, it's like saying that when you buy your favorite brand of ice cream at the
store the grocery store keeps most of the profit because without the store the
ice cream manufacturer wouldn't have a place to sell to the masses.

If said artist is in such high demand, then he or she can go make their own
streaming platform, charge $10/month, and keep 100%. Obviously that isn't the
case, so they must get some utility out of using the Spotify platform.

~~~
mfoy_
No... you're missing the point entirely The store is Spotify. The brands are
artists.

If I buy brand A, the store gets a cut, and brand A gets a cut. Brand B gets
nothing.

With Spotify, if I listen to Repartee, Justin Bieber is still getting some of
my money.

~~~
dkrich
Saying Justin Bieber gets some of your money isn't really the whole story.
Justin Bieber's songs are streamed billions of times a year, so his music
accounts for a very significant percentage of total streams, and consequently
use of the Spotify platform. Thus, he is bringing an outsized amount of value
to Spotify, so he rightly is deserving of more money.

Again, Repartee is free to pull their songs and sell them directly to you if
they think that will bring them more fans and more money. It's kind of funny
for two consenting parties who both use a platform to complain that the
platform is treating them unfairly.

~~~
nicpottier
Are you sure you are understanding the argument being made here?

I think the argument, which is fair, is that it is very weird that if I pay
Spotify $10 a month and listen exclusively to a single artist, that artist may
get a penny from me and Justin Bieber may get $3 from me, despite me never
listening to a single track from him.

Nobody is arguing Spotify can take it's 20% or whatever, people are just
arguing that the calculation Spotify uses to distribute the monthly royalties
severely penalizes small artists. (because it looks in aggregate across all
listeners instead of divvying per user)

------
pragmar
There are some interesting points in the article's comment thread.

>>> Amir Epstein - Money for big hits is in streaming on DSP’s. Spotify pays
$7,000 per million streams. That may sound like nothing, but when artists like
JB get 100,000,000 streams (that’s a conservative number) that’s $700,000. And
then there’s apple itunes, which pays around the same, and google play which
pays a little more. And if you are lucky and getting decent numbers on Tidal,
it pays $23,000USD per million. Not too shabby

>>> Anonymous (response) - That Spotify money you just referenced $7,000 per 1
million streams goes to whoever owns the MASTER. Typically the record company,
NOT the songwriters. Do your homework

There is a pot of money out there, but you're unlikely to see it unless you're
the one writing the record contracts.

------
StringyBob
I pay GBP10 a month for Spotify. I've never listened to Justin Bieber on
Spotify, but lots of other people (who don't pay) do.

As a percentage of my cash, how much goes to Justin Bieber vs how much to the
bands I've actually listened to who have many less total plays?

Or - do neither of them get anything?

~~~
alehul
The other comment was correct that most of the pooled money will go to Bieber,
however I feel there's a better way to frame it.

Economically speaking, you can imagine if Spotify had 100 users paying 10 GBP
each; 99 listened exclusively to Justin Bieber, and 1 to 'Band.' All users
listen to music in equal frequency. Though 99% of the pooled money — and if
divvied up equally, 99% of 'Band' fan's money — goes to Justin Bieber, 'Band'
fan's listening weight results in ~10 GBP of the total pool being pulled
towards 'Band.' So, in effect, all of 'Band' fan's money could be classified
as going towards 'Band.'

Also, as a couple side notes in Spotify's revenue structure:

1\. 70% goes to artists, 30% goes to Spotify.

2\. Over 70% of Spotify users become paying subscribers iirc, so there's not
much of a problem with listening weight being pulled by free users.

~~~
benjaminjackman
>Economically speaking, you can imagine if Spotify had 100 users paying 10 GBP
each; 99 listened exclusively to Justin Bieber, and 1 to 'Band.' _All users
listen to music in equal frequency._ [emphasis mine]

Well obviously not all users listen to music at the same frequency (which i
know you are likely well aware). What is the reason that they don't just take
each users $10 then dole that out only according to the songs that person
listened to. So if the user listened to one artist the entire month, then that
one artist get's the full portion of the $10 that is given to artists.

That will help with the situation where: 1\. Someone else listens to bieber on
repeat 24/7 (why should that affect where another's $10 goes) skewing the
sample massively towards that artist.

2\. In terms of free users, segment them off and pool the ad revenue again
boxed on a per user basis.

~~~
alehul
I completely agree with this solution being ideal, but I think it's a matter
of engineering effort and memory. It's not worth the time investment to build
a system more complex, and it's a lot easier memory-wise to just pool it all
together for allocation.

------
owly
Wow. The amount of hate in the comments is amazing. Eveyone knows best! I know
many artists who complain about their low streaming royalties turn around and
listen to music on Youtube, Pandora, Etc. HYPOCRITES. Do you really care about
directly supporting your favorite artists and encouraging the work of upcoming
acts? Then buy their music on BandCamp, go to shows and buy t-shirts/merch.

------
andybak
In case anyone wants to glorify the "good old days":
[http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17](http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17)

------
briandoll
On this theme, now is a good time to re-read the incredible letter Steve
Albini wrote to Nirvana about potentially producing In Utero, which includes
his perspective on royalties, etc.
[https://consequenceofsound.net/2013/09/read-steve-albinis-
pr...](https://consequenceofsound.net/2013/09/read-steve-albinis-proposal-to-
produce-nirvanas-in-utero/)

------
joshuaheard
The guy wrote a song. It took him, what, a month? For that he earned $150,000?
Annualized, that's almost $2 million. I don't see the problem here.

~~~
konschubert
The problem is that writing a hit song is not something he can do every month.
It's like finding a nugget of gold. It still has to fund the operation.

~~~
joshuaheard
His pay probably lasts as long as that song was popular.

------
majani
As with any article about music finances, it misses one crucial detail:
elaborating how the money is split between every single entity in the value
chain. There's plenty of YouTubers who make orders of magnitude more money on
the same amount of views. I feel it's probably largely due to the fact that
youtubers usually only split the cash two ways between the star and the editor

------
_kulte
I don't understand, so Bieber made $596,000 (assuming he owned the other 80%)
from this song? No way, it would seem like?

~~~
zaroth
There are actually a completely different set of royalties payed to the
performer vs. the songwriter.

~~~
wgj
Rodney Jerkins is only one of five writers on the song:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Long_as_You_Love_Me_(Justin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Long_as_You_Love_Me_\(Justin_Bieber_song\))

Bieber also has songwriting credit. If the royalty was divided evenly, Bieber
would also get 20%. However, it isn't required to divide evenly, and
songwriter royalties can be negotiated myriad different ways.

------
danjoc
I have similar feelings. My gift generates millions for someone else. I take
home above median income, but I'm not getting rich. I'm working toward a plan.
I wonder what his plan is?

It's interesting watching this comment section fill with bickering over what
commenters think he deserves.

~~~
darkdreams
Seconded. I think the software industry is an example where the "creators"
just get a salary.If you are lucky or an early stage employee, you may get
some equity. Software that we write creates billions for corporations but we
never get a share. Question: Why do musicians & "creative" people get
royalties for what they do and not others? If value creation is the argument,
I would argue we are also creating value. I am not asking to be mean, but I am
curious.

~~~
sfifs
It's the risk tolerance intersecting with demand-supply. If you join a startup
where you are willing to be underpaid in return for equity which could make
you rich at a small probability, you're in a entertainment industry model.

However if you want a salary and comfortable living, you take a salary and
don't get a shot at wealth. You could refuse to work on such terms but your
company could persumably hire someone else who won't refuse since the supply
of risk averse individuals significantly exceeds those who take risk..

------
tstubben
They are talking about songwriting royalties which are easily less then 5% of
the royalties paid out by streaming companies. The vast majority of the
royalty goes to the recording artist and their label in this case Justin
Bieber.

~~~
lukeh
Right, this is an important point which appears to be have been missed
elsewhere in this thread (and was probably assumed knowledge in the original
link).

------
x0x0
Obviously the streaming numbers are minuscule, but if people bought CDs, they
can play it unlimited times for a fixed rate. Streaming does substitute with
radio and purchased music, but more the latter.

Expecting radio rates for something that primarily substitutes for purchased
CDs is ludicrous. It would have been more interesting (to me) if the article
had compared the youtube/pandora payments with the equivalent CD purchases.

Also, this is what google and apple want to do to all of us. Make your
complements cheap to enhance your value. Hence the plummeting value of
software on their platforms. Apple is busying crying crocodile tears about the
difficulty of making a living on the ios platform. They're not gonna care
unless and until it damages their platform.

~~~
sbuttgereit
Your first point regarding how streaming cannibalizes CD I think is pretty
spot on. Radio play for record companies and artists was a way to entice
listeners to buy the record/cassette/CD/etc. and depending on where you sat in
the payout chain, you really didn't expect money from radio... often times you
paid to have your record played on radio
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola)
... and there were creative ways around the laws after they were created). But
radio didn't play what you wanted when you wanted (that took buying records),
radio played what they wanted when they wanted.

Streaming upends that. I don't buy records anymore, I pay a streaming
subscription. I get pretty much anything I want whenever I want on demand. I
have access to a much larger catalog than I would if I bought everything
individually and I'm probably spending on-par with what I did in the old days.
(I use to get a lot a free CDs and such because I worked for a record store
chain in the 90's, but even so, I have access to a larger catalog today). The
fact that I can get the vast majority of what I want means that those few hold
out artists that I would like to listen to, but can't because they refuse to
play the game (with good reason), simply don't get listened to... I have other
choices.

I can't comment on the other issues you raise.

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mfoy_
Well, I thought this was going to be about JB screwing over a writer... so at
least it wasn't that. Pretty low numbers though. I wonder what Spotify would
have looked like if it were on the list...

~~~
trgv
To some degree that is what happened, though I'm sure he was screwed by a
lawyer rather than the artist himself.

When they offered this songwriter some % of song royalties, they knew ahead of
time that it wasn't going to be a whole lot of money.

Solution? Songwriters need a new metric to charge by.

One problem, though, is that perhaps songwriting isn't actually worth that
much. When you look at a performer like Justin Beiber, how much of his income
depends on specific songs that he's putting out? I'm not sure, but I don't
necessarily think it's a large amount.

~~~
conductr
If writers are so opinionated about their works value, they just need to
charge a fixed price. The allure of the possibility of writing a song once and
having potentially massive perpetual income is why they like these royalty
deals (and why said lawyer knew it was a good deal). But that's more of a
lottery ticket in todays music industry. However, if you assign a price to
your work you will quickly know what it's worth.

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juancn
You want to know how many spins a day some of my code does?

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
Actually yes please...

I would love to see that math worked out with someone who has written a
popular program/website.

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rasz
Judging by YouTube alone he wasnt paid 20%, but rather 0.01-0.5% of real
royalties.

------
saaaaaam
The revenues from live when you write or co-write for a globally recognised
artist who tours will always be more lucrative for songwriters than the
revenues from recordings. This is because (generally speaking) the revenues
for live for songwriters come as a split of box office - and live performance
is generally going to gross a lot more than recording for an artist of that
stature.

For example, in the UK, PRS takes 3% of box office, and that is then paid out
to songwriters based on duration of performance. So for example, if someone
sells 1000 tickets at 10 each, there is £300 to be paid to PRS. If there are
three acts playing and they each play 30 minutes, songwriters get £3.34 per
minute. So if two songwriters co-write a song and agree a 60/40 split and that
song is 4 minutes 30 seconds one songwriter would get £9.02 from this show and
the other would get £6.01.

Bieber played six dates at the O2 in London - capacity 20,000 - and tickets
seem to have been around the £45 mark. Let's assume he pretty much sold out -
so those six dates grossed £5.4m

Assuming he did a 20 song set (so maybe 75 minutes duration for songs, with
two support acts each playing 30 minutes - total duration 135 minutes) then
the songwriters (for both Bieber and support acts) are getting £1200 per
minute of performance across that segment of the tour. So actually, if you are
the support act and you are a singer-songwriter playing 30 minutes support to
Bieber, you're going to walk away with your live appearance fees plus £36k in
songwriter royalties.

Streaming revenue splits between labels and songwriters (or sound recording
copyright royalties, and publishing mechanical royalties) are based on old
record label models, where the label invested a large amount of money to
record, manufacture and market product; because of this, they took the lion's
share of revenues from record music sales. It's easy to argue that things have
changed, but equally, generally speaking a songwriter needs an artist to
perform and record the song - and the artist probably needs a label (or
someone with some money) to market that song and help it generate the maximum
revenues. Songwriters still benefit, because they get MORE revenues than they
would have done otherwise. A great song is nothing unless someone records it
and performs it.

So the problem is not necessarily with Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and all of
these other companies - they are following models which by-and-large have been
dictated to them by labels - you can't operate a music streaming platform
without songs to play, and you can't play songs without obtaining permission
to use the recording, and the recording copyright - and thus that permission -
is controlled by record labels rather than songwriters.

The scale of the market is completely different. Bieber's 2016 world tour
apparently grossed $250m in ticket sales - if we stick (for ease) with the UK
model for compensating songwriters for live performance, this tour generated
$7.5m in revenues for songwriters. Let's say that across the whole tour -
including Bieber songs, numerous co-writes, and support acts - there were 250
songwriters involved. Assuming everyone's song was performed for roughly the
same duration then each songwriter should have walked away with about $37,500.
Not bad.

The problem is not streaming - it's people crafting flawed narrative that is
based around "my song got streamed a billion times and all I got was this
lousy t-shirt" but at the same time ignoring the completely different scales
of revenue for live performance vs recording. Bieber has 32 million monthly
listeners on Spotify. Assuming that they each listen to an average of 8 tracks
a month (for a total of roughly 250m streams) then his label is generating
maybe around $1.25m in recording revenues. The songwriters will be getting a
fraction of that - and each individual songwriter will get a proportion of
that fraction, based on how much their song is listened to. If his most
popular song gets 50% of streaming activity, second most popular 25%, third
most popular 10%... and his tenth most popular gets 1% then that track is only
generating the label $12,500 a month - and maybe $2,500 for the song writer -
but it's still getting 2.5m streams a month. If the writer has a 20% share of
the song, then they are getting $500 - over a year (all things remaining
equal) then maybe they get $6,000 for 30m streams.

If that song was played on every date of a Bieber tour as part of a 20 song,
75 minute set, on a tour where headliner is performing 60% of the total
duration, then based on the UK model for songwriter performance royalties the
writer of that song would be getting $225,000.

If someone has a 20% share of that song they are getting $45,000.

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rurban
At least we know why Google earns so much. They don't pay any royalties,
rather keep everything to themselves. Interesting business concept.

~~~
civilian
I don't think they're keeping everything for themselves. I think they're
actually not taking in that much money from Youtube ads / youtube red.

