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Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

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Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#61

Post by dave_sullivan »

walshemj wrote: post #29
look_lookatme wrote: post #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…

Is this when your being held upside down out of the window over Denmark street (londons tin pan alley)? BTW the father of one reality show host is alledged to have done this to a famous British musician back in the day.

I thought that was Suge Knight's move with Vanilla Ice.

Music business can be rough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3zesMAuJrM

Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#62

Post by abiox »

ropeladder wrote: post #38
look_lookatme wrote: post #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…

You are confusing "distribution" with "supply". Having lots of people making music is a different issue from having music freely available via youtube. Music has been pretty darn cheap to reproduce for decades. Yes, availability of substitutes can diminish bargaining power of music rights holders, but I'm not convinced that's at all how we should interpret these numbers. I think this is more about market power and ne…

> Music has been pretty darn cheap to reproduce for decades.

in a sense yes, but it depends on what you refer to by 'cheap'. other factors like convenience, availability, quality, storage, etc. were often quite different.

it's one thing to wait around for your song and then tape if off an FM radio broadcast, another to just download some 'lossless'-encoded bits off the web at will.

Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#63

Post by csallen »

Applejinx wrote: post #33
look_lookatme wrote: post #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…

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'…

Simply reaching huge numbers of people in and of itself isn't necessarily valuable.

They may listen to what you've produced and enjoy it. But are they paying to listen? Did they buy the track or sign up for a subscription? Are advertisers paying to be featured alongside the song, or to use it in their commercials?

If not, maybe your song isn't so valuable. If those listeners could easily listen to some other song for free, then maybe your song isn't so valuable.

And this is talking about the whole song. If you're just the writer, it's even more stark. How good of a writer do you need to be to write a hit Justin Bieber song? If you didn't exist, how easy would it be to find another writer who could write a hit for Justin or some other star?

I would guess that what's really bringing money to the table is Justin's star power, not the uniquely amazing abilities of a single writer. So 20% seems generous.

Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#64

Post by conductr »

trgv wrote: post #24
mfoy_ wrote: post #4

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...

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 Justi…

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.

Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#65

Post by 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.

Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#66

Post by 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.

Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#67

Post by look_lookatme »

Applejinx wrote: post #33
look_lookatme wrote: post #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…

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'…

> 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.

Seems like a weird detail to fixate on. Plenty more money has been spent on office space (whole buildings, even) by music industry and music industry adjacent companies that acted as gatekeepers and ensured only a hand-selected few ever made a living off their songs.

> 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'.

I also have no problem with this, but I think creative people won't be sharing our opinion anytime soon.

Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#68

Post by jasode »

NathanKP wrote: post #53
Applejinx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

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 pro…

>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

Re: Royalties from Writing a Hit Song with Justin Bieber

#69

Post by wgj »

zaroth wrote: post #50
_kulte wrote: post #46

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

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

Rodney Jerkins is only one of five writers on the song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Long_as_You_Love_Me_(Justin...

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.

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