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.
Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
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Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#12If 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 abo…
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.
Right - the point though is that playing a song on the radio and playing a song as a user of a streaming device have wildly different audience sizes (other than maybe for my 2am college radio show) and should pay very different rates.
Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#13If 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 abo…
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.
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.
Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#14Yea... 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
Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#15> 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?"
Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#16Yea... 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
I believe that was a total? I didn't read it as just for this year.
Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#17I 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.
I've heard this before. I think it's definitely possible that Spotify's revshare works out in favor of big artists, but I haven't heard an argument for that that didn't involve making broad, unsupported assumptions about users' listening habits.
Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#18Yea... 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
I believe that was a total? I didn't read it as just for this year.
That could be, but it seems like he's being well compensated for his effort either way.
Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#19Get 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.
Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber
#20> 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…
The question of worth changes as time goes by and technology changes. When your only option for consuming a new song was to either wait for it to play on the radio or go buy the album, the value was much higher because supply was controlled by a few and consequently in short supply, so pricing power was much higher.
Now most of the power lies with the consumer who will typically consume whatever artists choose to offer their creations for close to free. There are some artists like Garth Brooks and formerly Taylor Swift, who wield enough power through enormous demand for their songs to limit supply and charge higher amounts, but these are the exceptions.
What's ironic about this article to me is that Justin Bieber would likely not have ever become famous in the first place if not for YouTube because that's where he was discovered. The same goes for a large percentage of today's most successful artists. So previously the record labels wielded all the power and only the chosen few who they deemed worthy made large sums of money. Now pretty much anybody can put their stuff out there but the consequence is that they can't control the supply.