Peter Frampton: 55 million streams and I got paid $1700 (7 Viewers)

[sonicboom]

I was just reading about this stuff. It must be something horrible, to be in debt to a record label, and not be selling records.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Good article
=========
Many of the younger musicians I know – musicians in the full flush of their career – don’t see a path forward toward making a living.

These aren’t artists failing to connect with a public; on the contrary, they are releasing widely reviewed albums, going on tours and communicating (constantly) with their fans via social media. But this work is not paying them enough to manage without second jobs or side hustles.

That’s a broken system. It’s not just broken for individual artists, it’s broken for our society as a whole. We all benefit from music. And I believe we as a society want that music to come from as wide and deep and rich and varied sources as exist. How could we not?

Yet that’s not what is paramount for those holding the finances of recorded music in their hands. In the platform era, the income for recording artists depends on a handful of massively capitalized corporations: Spotify, Apple, Amazon and Google dominate streaming, and streaming now accounts for 84% of all recorded music revenue in the US. There’s almost nothing left for recorded music outside that system.

What that system is paying for content is an average, across these platforms, of approximately $0.00173 per stream. And that meager amount, believe it or not, doesn’t even go directly to the artist.

It goes to the rights holder for the master recording, which is usually a record label – which then splits this income with artists according to individual contracts, with a typical artist share somewhere between 15% and 50%.

The math, at this point, is beyond ridiculous. Which is why so many younger artists I know simply don’t see a path forward in recorded music. What’s more, this crisis has come to a head just as AI enters the scene, threatening to do away with much original recorded music altogether.

What to do? We need to rethink the finances of streaming. We need to let artists have a say in how the money from this new technology – and there is a lot of it, it’s 84% of the entire recorded music industry after all – is shared.

To date, artists have had no seat at the table as streaming platforms and the three major labels – Universal, Warner and Sony – decided how the revenue from this medium would flow……

How are musicians supposed to survive on $0.00173 per stream? | Damon Krukowski

The way musicians are compensated is highly unfair. A new bill in the US Congress could fix that – and it’s about time

www.theguardian.com

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

Devils advocate - if the musicians don't like what they're being paid, they can use an alternate service.

It does seem a fairly competitive market to me. You have Apple Music, Youtube, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora etc. Unless those companies are all conspiring against artists/consumers.

Unfortunately network egress does cost money, but consumers are not used to not paying per stream - although perhaps you can make up for it on advertising revenue.

 

[Dago]

The American Federation of Musicians has been around since 1896...why aren't they doing anything about this?

 

[Sun Wukong]

Devils advocate - if the musicians don't like what they're being paid, they can use an alternate service.

It does seem a fairly competitive market to me. You have Apple Music, Youtube, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora etc. Unless those companies are all conspiring against artists/consumers.

Unfortunately network egress does cost money, but consumers are not used to not paying per stream - although perhaps you can make up for it on advertising revenue.

They all pay sheet. Some pay slightly more or less sheet depending on the platform but they all pay sheet at the end of the day.

 

[Madmarsha]

Good article
=========
Many of the younger musicians I know – musicians in the full flush of their career – don’t see a path forward toward making a living.

Never put these 2 words together again. My brain was broke for a couple seconds.

 

[J-Donk]

They all pay sheet. Some pay slightly more or less sheet depending on the platform but they all pay sheet at the end of the day.

The record labels still own the rights to the music correct? I assume artist only get a %. I would love to know how much people who own their rights are making?

Also, I don't know that Spotify is profitable to this day. They are for sure not taking a huge margin.

It's been common knowledge since at least 2010 to me that bands didn't make much except in concert. If I liked an artist, I should see them live, and buy some merch.

 

[Saintman2884]

The American Federation of Musicians has been around since 1896...why aren't they doing anything about this?

One possible reason among multiple is that streaming services/online platforms like Apple Music, Youtube, ITunes, music downloading sites are relatively new unlike other traditional, older mediums like radio, or watching musicians perform live in concert.

FWIW, The UK Musicians Union actually back in the early-to-mid 60's disliked radio and saw it as a threat to most working musicians in the UK and the Continent due to "pirate radio" stations like Radio London, Radio Caroline, Luxembourg, Radio Monte Carlo, blaring 24/7 unregulated rock music off of Britain's commercial territorial waters. The argument was: why should consumers pay for bands or performers singles or albums if you can hear it on the radio for free? So the BBC, after banning pirate radio stations in 1966, only played rock music for certain parts of the day, and created a live, in-studio platform for British and American musicians to play their newest material called Radio One. Geldo, as a former Welsh journalist who worked in London could tell all of us some interesting, juicy stories about those, heady "Swinging London" days plus some sad ones about successful Welsh band Badfinger, who put out a large, laundry list of timely, excellent, superb pop and rock hits and albums but their respective careers and band's momentum was destroyed by a petty, criminal manager and the Beatles having to drop them and fend for themselves after Apple Records collapsed when Beatles broke up in 1970. Two of Badfinger's main members were so devastated by their financial and creative earnings being stolen that they ultimately committed suicide (and blamed their evil, despicable manager in their suicide letters as being a major reason why). All in all, a very sad, tragic story that was all too common among many British rock bands and entertainers. Many of the more successful UK acts eventually had to permanently leave and become tax exiles (even Queen during the early 80's) because of Britain's high income tax laws.

Also, another major issue particularly as it relates more to British bands in the late 60's and 1970's was that they signed bad record deals with promoters and record labels because underworld figures ran the clubs, bars, auditoriums, and even the record labels. Ozzy Osbourne's father-in-law, Don Alden, had connections to the Gambino crime family and the Kray Brothers enforcers. Most UK bands didnt have much a choice back then because the "London underworld" ran most of the clubs back in the late 60's and 70's. Most famous, legendary British rock bands, from Rolling Stones, to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, even the Beatles had some undesirable, figures who had underworld ties to some degree or another. One time, Don Alden famously dangled Robert Stigwood out of his window office because he tried to sign Steve Marriot of the Small Faces, without his approval. One time, when Jimmy Page tried to ask Alden if he could recruit Marriot and Keith Moon for the soon-to-be formed Led Zeppelin, Alden replied, "How would you like to play guitar with five forking broken fingers?"

 

[kcirdor]

here is a song from a friend of mine... go help her make a few pennies.

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

They all pay sheet. Some pay slightly more or less sheet depending on the platform but they all pay sheet at the end of the day.

They should start their own streaming service then and charge/find revenue accordingly. Its not like some protected market. I could probably whip out the back end in a day or so. Front end (except mobile) maybe another day.

Yes, record labels own the recordings. They're free to re-record masters like Taylor Swift.

 

[bclemms]

I can't speak from a musician's point of view but I can speak to a videographer's point of view.

1. For some reason, everyone expects me to want to work for exposure and "credit'. People will pay $5 for their Starbucks in the morning, will drop $10 on a breakfast burrito, $3.50/g on gas, go to work fully expecting to get paid. When they go out to eat they would never consider asking the restaurant to comp them a meal on "credit". Yet when it comes to my work, they all want it for this magical credit that doesn't pay anything.

2. I lose 90% of my revenue to copyright infringement. Anyone reading this, pretend you had to give back 90% of your income and try to get by. The copyright laws are super restrictive and outdated for digital. The giant tech companies enable piracy every way possible while escaping liability and being the biggest benefactor.

3. When paying customers do call me up, they are expecting me to work for peanuts.

How am I combating it?
1. Anyone that asks for free content, I ask them if they are getting paid to ask me to work for free? I do this openly in public, former/current client or not. Simply do not put up with it and let the people who appreciate your work pile on them.

2. I created a separate company that is ruthless. I've trained a team of people around me and have law firms on every continent except Antartica. We will hunt you down, get your social media accounts/websites terminated and file lawsuits as fast as we can go. I don't care why you stole it, take no prisoners and get just as petty as those taking my content. We also represent about 100 of the world's best weather videographers and combined we've become a wrecking ball.

3. I know my level of work, I know my equipment and I know my track record. If you want to hire me, it's going to be expensive and I retain ownership to 100% of the content I create with no exception. Do nothing for free. Want an interview? You have to license video. Want to do an article on me? License my work. It is not my responsibility to donate my time, energy and work to make someone else money. Want me to post content on your platform? Pay me.


The result?
1. People have pretty much quit asking me to work for free out of fear of being publicly humiliated.

2. I make as much money off copyright as I do licensing content now. The theft has fallen off significantly. I'm still a big loser here and my platform is a fraction of the size it should be but it's starting to pay dividends.

3. Media companies recognize the value of my work even at high prices. I protect my content so well, limit distribution and rights that when they buy it, they get a much better return on investment than the cheap video aggregators.

4. My social media platforms have started skyrocketing after getting so many other hands out of my pockets. This is still a work in progress but it's paying well. When the numbers started shooting up, sponsors started coming out the woodworks and offering significant money. I have been turning them down to just grow my platform and wait for the right marriage but it's coming.


Who is to blame?
1. The industry has been beat down at every turn. Tech companies, media companies, etc. It's fiercely competitive. The people that run around looking to make a name for themselves are a dime a dozen. They all go out of business once the weather gets slow for a few months and they are replaced by the next batch. Working to make ends meat is the best way to go out of business. Just say no. Work with the people in the industry to pull the floor up instead of the ceiling down.

2. Ultimate it is the artist that is responsible. The idea that you have to pay someone else with your labor in order to get a better deal is such a stupid concept. Being broke and in fear of how you will pay your next bill is a product of cheap pricing. If you never say no to $200 you will never see $2000.


So if streaming is such sheet stop doing it. If the record company is taking too much of your money, quit using them. If people are ripping your content, punish them brutally. It sucks to have work this way but it's business and you have to treat it like business. If all creators of content, regardless of content took this approach then everything would change for them and the industry as a whole. But it wont.

 

[kcirdor]

Hell yea, I tell anyone and everyone I can, NEVER WORK FOR FREE.

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

So if streaming is such sheet stop doing it. If the record company is taking too much of your money, quit using them. If people are ripping your content, punish them brutally. It sucks to have work this way but it's business and you have to treat it like business. If all creators of content, regardless of content took this approach then everything would change for them and the industry as a whole. But it wont.

With any form of digital art, its a catch 22. On the one hand, you want people to consume your product , and you want it to be easily available for them to do so.

On the other hand, you want people to compensate you for the work you did.

Its a difficult situation.

What's happening in your situation, is people taking your work, then rebranding/aggregating it along with others, which is then (maybe) viewed by thousands. And your downstream users are demanding a fixed fee, not per view (I'm assuming)

With respect to streaming music. I think the network egress fees are not the real issue. Looking at it from the consumer end. Let's say a person listens on average about 100 songs per day (this is several hours), using up 500 MB of bandwith. Let's ignore caching for the moment (I'm not sure the extent to which these services cache). Over a month that would only amount to network usage of cost of about $1.50. The services I think are charging ~ $10/month.

But per stream, that is about 0.3 cents (bulk revenue) of which it was saying the "rights" holder got 0.173 cents, or about 57%. That is pretty much pure profit for the rights holder, who doesn't have to worry about those pesky maintenance and marketing fees.

This is actually about in line with alot of other employees in high end business. E.g. professional sports teams, players get maybe 50-55% of league wide revenues (gross, before costs)

So the conflict might be more with the record labels, as it has always been. This is why alot of the smarter artists, started their own label, or demanded being essentially business partners with their label.

 

[bclemms]

With any form of digital art, its a catch 22. On the one hand, you want people to consume your product , and you want it to be easily available for them to do so.

On the other hand, you want people to compensate you for the work you did.

Its a difficult situation.

What's happening in your situation, is people taking your work, then rebranding/aggregating it along with others, which is then (maybe) viewed by thousands. And your downstream users are demanding a fixed fee, not per view (I'm assuming)

With respect to streaming music. I think the network egress fees are not the real issue. Looking at it from the consumer end. Let's say a person listens on average about 100 songs per day (this is several hours), using up 500 MB of bandwith. Let's ignore caching for the moment (I'm not sure the extent to which these services cache). Over a month that would only amount to network usage of cost of about $1.50. The services I think are charging ~ $10/month.

But per stream, that is about 0.3 cents (bulk revenue) of which it was saying the "rights" holder got 0.173 cents, or about 57%. That is pretty much pure profit for the rights holder, who doesn't have to worry about those pesky maintenance and marketing fees.

This is actually about in line with alot of other employees in high end business. E.g. professional sports teams, players get maybe 50-55% of league wide revenues (gross, before costs)

So the conflict might be more with the record labels, as it has always been. This is why alot of the smarter artists, started their own label, or demanded being essentially business partners with their label.

It is multi-faceted for both situations.

For me to make my product unpublished would be like expecting Amazon to not list its products online. It simply isnt an option. I really dont want my content on Twitter, Telegram, Truth or any other platform that does not pay fair compensation. I dont have that choice because other people reupload that content. As far as the number of views I have lost, what we have tracked and logged alone is 9 billion in 10 years, the real number is likely multiples of that. On all digital platforms combined I’m around 800M views for perspective. 9B views is worth tens of millions of dollars. Those numbers are probably impossible to fully comprehend. Its taken me years of intense work to really absorb this data.

The music industry had the same problem even though they are afforded far better tools to combat piracy. This ultimately led them to accepting peanuts for payment with contracts with TikTok and META. Of course when artists start getting $1700 checks for 55M streams the backlash will be swift.

Ultimately the legislation is responsible for failing to act, supporting this failure to act is a tremendous amount of lobbying dollars from Google, META, Bytedance, etc. Google makes $30B per quarter on ad revenue from YouTube alone with estimates that about 1/3 coming from copyright infringements. They have huge incentives to keep the status quo. The social platforms ideal situation is to have creators struggle but survive.

The music industry beat Napster in a landmark case but realized it was going to be a constant game of whack-a-mole. Instead of continuing the everlasting legal fight they went the way of volume. Make music cheap and easily accessible on many platforms and they would make great money by signing 5 times more artists and doing 5 times less work supporting them. From an aggregation standpoint of the labels, they can make just as much money.

From the artists standpoint, the overwhelming majority are going to get shafted.

Here is what I am dealing with right now. We have thousands of youtube and META pages stealing our stuff. They have no moral compass, it is strictly a money making operation. Let’s say a typhoon hits a SE Asia country today. These pirate channels will rip dramatic tornado footage shot in 2016 in Kansas and claim it is from the typhoon that hit today. It goes viral and by the time the content is removed the money has been made snd the harm done. Rinse and repeat every time a storm happens anywhere in the world.

In order to have these channels terminated under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which predates social media we have to request the content be taken down. The DMCA says eeach platform must have a repeat infringer policy but fails to define repeat infringer leaving this up to the social media platforms who are benefiting tens of billions of dollars per quarter each. Originally most adopted a 3 strikes your out policy. Over time that has evolved to 3 strikes in 90 days to 3 strikes coming from multiple accounts in 90 days to a warning first, then 3 strikes coming from multiple accounts in 90 days. Now it is a warning first, 3 strikes in 90 days from multiple accounts, then the channel/page is given a 7 day grace period to advertise their alt account and the pirate is allowed to start over.

Next, the piracy channels can issue a counter notification. This is an aft of davit claiming the copyright strike was invalid. The artist thrn has to file a lawsuit within 10 days to keep the content removed and the piracy account stays open pending the lawsuit which may take a year to run its course. In order to file a lawsuit for copyright infringement, it has to be filed in federal court. The filing fee is $403 and a fairly complicated process. An attorney, if you can find one, charges about $2500 each. In order to file a copright lawsuit in federal court in the USA the content must have a copyright registration. That registration costs $65 and is a PITA to register and takes about 6 months to get. Each piece of content must be registered separately and must be done within 90 days of first publication.

So even if you make it to this point, the piracy channel/page being sued basically has a year to create and advertise dozens to hundreds of new channels/pages.

Since these pirates are 99% foreign actors they never show up in court and ultimately we win but all we win is a default judgement (an IOU from John Doe in Pakistsn) and get to shut down the channel/page that was ripping our content that has moved on to a hundred other channels and pages since.

It is not a coincidence that these piracy rings are mainly coming from terrorist and cartel states like Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Venezuela, etc. our content is being used to fund terrorism, war, drug cartels, human trafficking while simultaneously destroying US businesses. We’re talking about billions of dollars a year in piracy with no risk of penalty.

In recent years governments in countries like Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and some central and South American countries have begun actively encouraging people to start actively pirating content as a way to stimulate growth. It’s not by chance that companies like META have targeted these same developing countries for their own growth.

In the process, news agencies, videographers, photographers and artists are being destroyed, tech companies are getting richer and misinformation is running rampant.

Now we are about to throw AI bots into the mix. Anyone that thinks this is only effecting artists is sadly mistaken. The content is the bait to draw the views and generate revenue. The intent is pure evil.

 

[DaveXA]

It is multi-faceted for both situations.

For me to make my product unpublished would be like expecting Amazon to not list its products online. It simply isnt an option. I really dont want my content on Twitter, Telegram, Truth or any other platform that does not pay fair compensation. I dont have that choice because other people reupload that content. As far as the number of views I have lost, what we have tracked and logged alone is 9 billion in 10 years, the real number is likely multiples of that. On all digital platforms combined I’m around 800M views for perspective. 9B views is worth tens of millions of dollars. Those numbers are probably impossible to fully comprehend. Its taken me years of intense work to really absorb this data.

The music industry had the same problem even though they are afforded far better tools to combat piracy. This ultimately led them to accepting peanuts for payment with contracts with TikTok and META. Of course when artists start getting $1700 checks for 55M streams the backlash will be swift.

Ultimately the legislation is responsible for failing to act, supporting this failure to act is a tremendous amount of lobbying dollars from Google, META, Bytedance, etc. Google makes $30B per quarter on ad revenue from YouTube alone with estimates that about 1/3 coming from copyright infringements. They have huge incentives to keep the status quo. The social platforms ideal situation is to have creators struggle but survive.

The music industry beat Napster in a landmark case but realized it was going to be a constant game of whack-a-mole. Instead of continuing the everlasting legal fight they went the way of volume. Make music cheap and easily accessible on many platforms and they would make great money by signing 5 times more artists and doing 5 times less work supporting them. From an aggregation standpoint of the labels, they can make just as much money.

From the artists standpoint, the overwhelming majority are going to get shafted.

Here is what I am dealing with right now. We have thousands of youtube and META pages stealing our stuff. They have no moral compass, it is strictly a money making operation. Let’s say a typhoon hits a SE Asia country today. These pirate channels will rip dramatic tornado footage shot in 2016 in Kansas and claim it is from the typhoon that hit today. It goes viral and by the time the content is removed the money has been made snd the harm done. Rinse and repeat every time a storm happens anywhere in the world.

In order to have these channels terminated under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which predates social media we have to request the content be taken down. The DMCA says eeach platform must have a repeat infringer policy but fails to define repeat infringer leaving this up to the social media platforms who are benefiting tens of billions of dollars per quarter each. Originally most adopted a 3 strikes your out policy. Over time that has evolved to 3 strikes in 90 days to 3 strikes coming from multiple accounts in 90 days to a warning first, then 3 strikes coming from multiple accounts in 90 days. Now it is a warning first, 3 strikes in 90 days from multiple accounts, then the channel/page is given a 7 day grace period to advertise their alt account and the pirate is allowed to start over.

Next, the piracy channels can issue a counter notification. This is an aft of davit claiming the copyright strike was invalid. The artist thrn has to file a lawsuit within 10 days to keep the content removed and the piracy account stays open pending the lawsuit which may take a year to run its course. In order to file a lawsuit for copyright infringement, it has to be filed in federal court. The filing fee is $403 and a fairly complicated process. An attorney, if you can find one, charges about $2500 each. In order to file a copright lawsuit in federal court in the USA the content must have a copyright registration. That registration costs $65 and is a PITA to register and takes about 6 months to get. Each piece of content must be registered separately and must be done within 90 days of first publication.

So even if you make it to this point, the piracy channel/page being sued basically has a year to create and advertise dozens to hundreds of new channels/pages.

Since these pirates are 99% foreign actors they never show up in court and ultimately we win but all we win is a default judgement (an IOU from John Doe in Pakistsn) and get to shut down the channel/page that was ripping our content that has moved on to a hundred other channels and pages since.

It is not a coincidence that these piracy rings are mainly coming from terrorist and cartel states like Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Venezuela, etc. our content is being used to fund terrorism, war, drug cartels, human trafficking while simultaneously destroying US businesses. We’re talking about billions of dollars a year in piracy with no risk of penalty.

In recent years governments in countries like Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and some central and South American countries have begun actively encouraging people to start actively pirating content as a way to stimulate growth. It’s not by chance that companies like META have targeted these same developing countries for their own growth.

In the process, news agencies, videographers, photographers and artists are being destroyed, tech companies are getting richer and misinformation is running rampant.

Now we are about to throw AI bots into the mix. Anyone that thinks this is only effecting artists is sadly mistaken. The content is the bait to draw the views and generate revenue. The intent is pure evil.

Great post. Clearly the legislators are either not well informed, or they are beholden to big money who'd rather keep the status quo. I wish there were more protections for actual content creators.

My daughter is an artist and wants to make a living that way, but actually making enough money to do that is ridiculously hard.