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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.
That's a really shitty golden goose.
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.
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.
> "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…
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.
That's a really shitty golden goose.
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:
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.
That's a really shitty golden goose.
Artists, get over yourself. The market is huge now, and your product value is approaching zero. But keep on flailing in the noose.
EDIT: Half credit. Per dllthomas, "Per the article, FM radio pays royalties to the songwriter but not the performers."
> "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…
(I realize that this is more complicated than "70%", see https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A29FL26O...)
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.
> "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…
Why? Their business model is to take other people's work and distribute it to subscribers.
It seems to me that acquisition of the actual product should be the majority of their cost.
> "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…
Why do you think other business costs are pertinent to royalty rates at all?
I think royalties should be set in a way that maximizes what I'd call the versatility of utility. If royalty costs are far beyond the actual infrastructure or service costs, it seems as though entire industries and uses of content cease to exist.
It also seems pretty clear that huge differences between prices and real world costs are what lead to extensive piracy - people develop a perception of being cheated when you try to charge $25 for an e-book or album download. On the other hand most consumers seem to feel fine about paying $1 or $5 for a song/album/e-book.
You could argue that 'oh, the creator should have the right to control what they make as much as they want and charge whatever they feel like,' but it seems pretty clear that given free reign, copyright holders feel entitled and abuse copyright in ways that entirely undermine the whole system.
I'd say that if you believe in copyright there's a legitimate interest in restraining royalties to reasonable amounts so as reinforce the legitimacy of the whole system. After all, the perceptions of gouging and rights abuses create large masses of people like me who no longer believe in copyright as a whole to any great extent.
Ensuring the liberalization of restraints and apparent reasonableness of exercised privileges allowed creators seems key to creating a copyright institution that can survive and appear legitimate in the long run.