Has this guy been ripped off, or did he just sign a bad deal?

[Cato]

I don't really know anything about the ins & outs of Spotify but presumably someone must have made some serious money.

[url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/34344619/all-about-that-bass-writer-says-he-got-5679-from-178m-streams"]http://www.bbc.co.uk...om-178m-streams[/url]

Edited September 24, 2015 by Cato

[chris_b]

Why don't you read the article.

It tells you right there.

[Twigman]

Spotify 'royalties' have always been pants.....I make an almost insiginificant percentage of my royalty income from Spotify.

[Lw.]

Meh - share of revenue isn't it; you could have billions of plays but they're still worth almost nothing if no-one is paying for the service.

Spotify actually pay out quite a large percent of their income; well over 70%. That means that they have to pay wages, run servers, pay advances etc... from just their 30% - it's really not their fault.

Artists need to understand the finances better; if you don't think the royalties you'll receive from Spotify via the deal your publisher or label has made cover what you think your material is worth*, don't do the deal. It's not rocket science.

* edit - this can include the exposure/ease of finding for your tracks not just monetary.

Edited September 24, 2015 by Lw.

[Mykesbass]

This discussion kicked off on here a couple of months ago, and I worked out then that Spotify payments are actually quite good in comparison to radio plays per person listening to your track, The problem has arisen as artists are looking for streaming revenue to replace physical sales but there just isn't enough money being generated from streaming customers to make this happen. If Spotify put their prices up people would stop paying and go back to file swapping/sharing and then the writers and artists would get nothing.

[r16ktx]

According to the article "Streaming now accounts for one-third of the US music industry's income" so, with all things being equal, did this track earn that guy $17000 ?

[Cato]

[quote name='Mykesbass' timestamp='1443120024' post='2872461']
This discussion kicked off on here a couple of months ago, and I worked out then that Spotify payments are actually quite good in comparison to radio plays per person listening to your track, The problem has arisen as artists are looking for streaming revenue to replace physical sales but there just isn't enough money being generated from streaming customers to make this happen. If Spotify put their prices up people would stop paying and go back to file swapping/sharing and then the writers and artists would get nothing.
[/quote]

Sorry, I didn't mean to retread old ground. I also think I probably got the title of the thread wrong.

I was just a bit suprised that one of the biggest songs of the last few years had made so little for one it's co-writers via streaming. I think your points pretty much sum up the catch 22 that non-'name' musicians are finding themselves in with regards to streaming services.

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='Cato' timestamp='1443121551' post='2872476']
Sorry, I didn't mean to retread old ground. I also think I probably got the title of the thread wrong.

I was just a bit suprised that one of the biggest songs of the last few years had made so little for one it's co-writers via streaming. I think your points pretty much sum up the catch 22 that non-'name' musicians are finding themselves in with regards to streaming services.
[/quote]

Didn't mean it that way at all, and it is a valid question to ask. Plus the story keeps cropping up. I just wanted to give a different perspective to it having done my time working in record companies and having a good working knowledge of artist and writer royalties and payments.

found the thread - here's Ambient's point about his earnings and my response suggesting that it is more closely related to airplay than physical sales, and therefore the rate actually not being that bad:
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][size=3][b]
[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&section=findpost&pid=2817769"][/url]ambient, on 08 July 2015 - 07:59 PM, said:[/b][/size][/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][size=3]

If a song is played on the radio, Radio 1 or Radio 2 whatever. Then both the songwriter and and band (including the musicians playing on the session), get a royalty paid to them.

So what's the difference between that and someone listening via a streaming service ?

This is a screenshot of my CD Baby payments page. The amount I get varies enormously from as little as $0.0008 per play, to as much (sarcastically) as $0.010 per play. They owe me 42 pence, which I'm unable to withdraw, because it's below the withdrawal limit, kind of annoying, how many other 42 pences are they sitting on I wonder ?

[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=195908"]Screen Shot 2015-07-08 at 19.50.16.png[/url][/size][/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]It is all very speculative, but this could become the new model for the equivalent of radio payments. Radio 1 pays about £40 a play. This will go out to around 4 million listeners. Effectively this means you get 0.001p per listen.[/font][/color]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The big difference is that radio gets to a wider audience who haven't chosen to listen to that track, whereas spotify will make suggestions. Long term this could become a viable model for musicians, and is certainly better than the blatant piracy that kicked the whole problem off in the first place. [/font][/color]

Edited September 24, 2015 by Mykesbass

[Cato]

Cheers Mykesbass, Interesting reading.

Edited September 24, 2015 by Cato