Peter Frampton: 55 million streams and I got paid $1700
Musicians always get hosed. The record studios, the promoters, and the venues eat all the money.
It's even worse for composers than players. At least players' agents only take 10% (after promoters, etc. have stolen the Lion's share). Publishing companies take 90%, giving the composer only 10% of the transaction of their music sales. It's a complete racket.
I can attest to this.
In most cases, the band is usually the last to get paid.
Promoters, clubs, roadies and technicians all get paid before band gets paid.
My bands did the Louisiana club circuit back in the 80s and 90s.
We were playing clubs twice a week most of those years and we were lucky to go home with $10 in our pockets for most of those gigs.
Promoters, clubs, roadies and techs all got paid more than we did.
A famous "Music Club" in Uptown NOLA promised used the money from the door and the club was going get the bar money. We were going to have my brother collect at the door, but the "Music Club" owner insisted that one of his bouncers be there to collect. We relented because we were young and dumb.
We had my brother sit at the bar across from the entrance to do a head count on everybody who paid at the door. The cover charge was $5/person.
We packed 300 people into the "Music Club" that night.
At the end of the night the "Music Club" owner handed us $500.
My brother notified us that the bouncer was only counting every 3rd person paying at the door on his hand click counter.
We brought it to the "Music Club" owner's attention...and he turned his back on us and walked out.
That man screwed us out of a thousand dollars.
We never played that "Music Club" again...and we put our story out there to other local bands.
That type of thing happens to bands more than most people realize.