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Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

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Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#81

Post by guelo »

aresant wrote: post #16

"A good flatterer doesn't lie, but tells his victim selective truths (what a nice color your eyes are). Good PR firms use the same strategy: they give reporters stories that are true, but whose truth favors their clients." 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 refe…

Yea, the Pink Floyd article suspiciously came out at the same time yesterday in USA Today. And with legislation coming up in congress you know the lobbying pressure is ramping up.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#82

Post by mbreese »

gems wrote: post #53

Why do entertainers feel so entitled to high payment? Why is this even a story?

You seem to be under the impression that being an entertainer is easy, or that they shouldn't make a living wage, or be able to profit from their work...

Everyone's gotta eat. What we're seeing now is the natural give and take within the industry adapting to new norms and business plans. From a higher level view, it's fascinating.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#83

Post by route66 »

wmf wrote: post #70
shortformblog wrote: post #51

From the original post: "I am also paid a seperate royalty for being the performer of the song. It’s higher but also what I would regard as unsustainable. I’ll post that later this week." Footnote from this post: "He does clarify in the footnotes that $16.89 is only for 40% of the songwriting and there is a separate performance royalty, but certainly the headline & coverage could leave many with the impression that $…

Arguably songwriting is kind of a dead field anyway since in recent decades bands mostly write the songs they perform.

I don't know what channel you are listening to, but in general there have always been musicians (and bands) writing their own music as there were have always been musicians performing songs composed by others with lyrics written by others. Songwriting is about as dead as cooking.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#84

Post by k-mcgrady »

hexis wrote: post #71

On some days, I wish companies like Pandora, Spotify, and Rdio would just voluntarily shut down. If the music industry thinks streaming companies are ripping them off, the music industry is welcome to build their own streaming business and show everyone how it's done. Musicians were complaining about royalties and payment long before the internet was invented and they'll be complaining long after we're all gone. Keep…

I don't think the music industry has a problem with streaming (Pink Floyd who started this renewed debate yesterday just got added to Spotify). The problem is that Pandora wants royalties cut - because their business model doesn't work. If they can't afford to distribute the product they need to raise prices or shut down. They can't make the producer look like the bad guy. Trying to get the producer to lower prices because your business model is a failure is ridiculous.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#85

Post by gems »

mbreese wrote: post #82
gems wrote: post #53

Why do entertainers feel so entitled to high payment? Why is this even a story?

You seem to be under the impression that being an entertainer is easy, or that they shouldn't make a living wage, or be able to profit from their work... Everyone's gotta eat. What we're seeing now is the natural give and take within the industry adapting to new norms and business plans. From a higher level view, it's fascinating.

"You seem to be under the impression that being an entertainer is easy"

No I'm not. If something is not profitable, then do something else that is. Don't complain that you're not being paid enough.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#86

Post by klodolph »

mullingitover wrote: post #30
klodolph wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon pays a 70% royalty for ebooks that were published directly by the author. Is it unfair for this royalty to be so large? (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 field…

> Content creation will get cheaper as technology improves, sure, but in fields like music and writing, content creators struggle to make a decent wage. As well they should--it's an ultra-competitive field, swarming with competitors, the market is so flooded it makes New Orleans after Katrina look like a kiddie pool. Unless you're the cream of the cream of the crop, you're going to struggle in this industry. And not…

> And not one of the content creators has an inherent 'right' to make a profit from their work.

Agreed.

> The market decides winners and losers, and inevitably in this market it's going to be mostly losers.

But the problem is that royalty rates are decided by law, rather than by negotiation between interested parties. This isn't a market economy, this is a planned economy.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#87

Post by bjustin »

aston wrote: post #49

If I told you there was an e-commerce company without a profitable year in over a decade of existence despite federally-mandated price ceilings placed on their suppliers, you'd be incredulous. If I then added that the same company was lobbying in Washington to get the price ceiling lowered, the pitchforks would be out. But then mention it's a company selling music, and people shrug, "Oh, well music should be free any…

If an e-commerce company and Walmart both paid federally-mandated price ceilings, except Walmart enjoyed a much lower ceiling, there may well be pitchforks. But not on the side that you seem to think.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#88

Post by tunesmith »

205guy wrote: post #57

What I think is missing from this whole discussion is the ability to make a living. Sure the industry is opaque to outsiders, and some of the established practices are weird (radio paying only songwriters, not performers), and now it's all being disrupted. But forget about the numbers for one song. Let's say a guy like the OP of the other article works full time as a singer song-writer. He writes a few songs, perform…

I would have said a). The long-tail factor is huge here. I know people who are starting to "hit" in this way - songs on cable shows, even a national commercial, one with a major song placement that became a hit (performed by another artist). None of them are the types with comfortable incomes, health insurance, and Roth IRAs.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#89

Post by chaz »

Glyptodon wrote: post #3

> "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 think content is always the majority of the cost in these revenue share deals.

  Hulu: 70% [1]
  YouTube: 55% [2]
  Google Adsense: 68% [3]
  Spotify: 70% [4]
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-hulu-turns-prof... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/4/4062810/youtube-partners-co... [3] https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en [4] http://m.diamondbackonline.com/mobile/diversions/article_f94...

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#90

Post by sliverstorm »

hohead wrote: post #77
jcampbell1 wrote: post #27

This makes sense. Another way to back into the figure: Pandora spent $82M on content according to the most recent 10Q, with 4.18B listener hours. That implies a cost of $0.02 cents per listener hour. A million plays is roughly 62500 listener hours, which implies a content cost of $1250.

Interesting analysis. Based on their cost of $0.02 cents per listener hour, I wanted to calculate how many hours per day my $36 yearly payment equates to (ignoring their operational costs): ($36 / $0.02) = 1800 hours per year 1800 hours per year = 4.93 hours per day

Sounds like the pricing structure all works together very well, then. 5 hours per day sounds like a good point which plenty of people can easily eclipse, but the majority will not, keeping the service profitable.
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