Artists Make Pittance On Streaming Services

Cyraxx said:
Incredibly stupid viewpoint. What if you just enjoy the work of making music peacefully? Your talent is the making of the music, but lets say that you don't enjoy playing live in front of an audience. Then what - ? YOU DONT DESERVE MONEY FOR YOUR WORK! That seems to be the response because you aren't finding this unreasonable.
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Not everyone can get paid to do what they love. In fact most of us don't get to do just what we want to do and get paid for it. Non-artists like myself generally have to make compromises/sacrifices to earn a living doing something we may not like at all. Some people even do jobs they hate to earn a living.

I enjoy working on my car. People look at my car, but they don't pay me even 1/3 of a cent for the privilege, even the ones that look more than once! DON'T I DESERVE MONEY FOR MY WORK? No, I don't fucking deserve money for my work, it's a hobby, a labor of love

If these artists enjoy making music in quiet solitude, more power to them...but liking doing something doesn't mean you deserve to be paid for it.
 
Semantics said:
That inforgraphic is of what, i don't see the 30% distribution gets. It's also labeled band member, you get more of the pie the more work you do, if you produce songs yourself, if you write them yourselves, play them yourseleves you get bigger and bigger parts of that pie.
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OMG, so there's another 30 percent out there. The music business is truly evil if it can generate 130% of profitsssssss. :p
 
hey spot pays 3x more than apple at 1 cent per streamed song rounded.. so pshhh only has to play once. cmon now. less drama :)
 
Hate to sound smarmy but they make it up on volume.

A million people listen to one song 3 times in one year, that's $100,000 for one song. Most people take years to make that much. The idea that all musicians can make Seven Digit salaries or better is pretty silly.

OTOH, we now know why they shutdown kim dotcom. He may not have captured the top names, but he'd be doing pretty good with everyone a few notches below on down. And, musicians need to start pushing their own music.
 
@jpm100 above, it would be 10 million people, as you are talking fractions of a single cent. With spotify it would be 10 mil people giving it one listen though, as its rate is basically a penny (rounded).

For big artists though, it is still an okay deal. If spotify play numbers ever get to be anything like youtube views, someone like rhianna could still easily make 5-10 million a year or more just from streaming revenue. For a smaller artists it likely won't be sh**, but the ability to make a few grand while people check out your stuff is not the worst thing in the world. With streaming services I know I listen to a lot of stuff that I wouldn't pay for in a million years if I were paying per album/song. From just seeing what is popular to checking out random stuff I have never heard of, that is all money to the artists (even if it is a penny here and there) that they otherwise wouldn't be getting, and it eventualyl adds up. And, they are getting paid whether I like the track or not, unlike an itunes single etc.
 
Then find another way to make a living???

Lol. Most artists are broke, they do it cause they love it.
 
Lets run some numbers. How many people would it take to make 10k a month?

Assuming: The person listens to your album once a week, and there are 14 songs in an album.

10000/0.00330526797710/14/4 = 54,026 people

If half your album is junk and no one listens to it, that's 110k people. To make 10k a month.
 
I think this is misleading...whats the rate a pay for songs played over radio?
 
When that same song plays on Spotify, the band makes $0.00966947678815
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$0.00966947678815 is almost $0.01


Are you really trying to tell me that's not 1 cent?
 
Cyraxx said:
Incredibly stupid viewpoint. What if you just enjoy the work of making music peacefully? Your talent is the making of the music, but lets say that you don't enjoy playing live in front of an audience. Then what - ? YOU DONT DESERVE MONEY FOR YOUR WORK! That seems to be the response because you aren't finding this unreasonable.
Click to expand...

It's not a "viewpoint" it's the way the world is. If your music, is on some streaming site, where people pay $20 a month, to listen to 1000s of songs from 100000 artists, of which a few might possibly be yours, how much are you going to realistically see from this? A dollar? Maybe 3 on a good month? the people running it will see more, because they take a cut from 100000 places.

I never said "you don't deserve money filthy peasants"! That was some argument you just invented for some weird reason. Go shout at someone who holds it. :confused:

I said some avenues of income are MORE WORTHWHILE (one of them wasn't playing live) and to not rely on tiny slivers of income. Read that again, twice, then again and think about it.

Some types of income make more profit so are more worthwhile persuing. You can rely on fractions of a cent, but for small time musicians, it's unlikely to pay for food. If you don't wish to persue the two most profitable avenues and go for the least, it's still possible but it will be way way harder.

It's like someone who is offered work in a shop for $15/hr, or a job handing out leaflets at the for $3 for 1000 leaflets. Both ways make money, and you could probably live off both, one just makes much more. As a small unknown artist, relying on tiny microprofits which are only worthwhile when scalled by a million or so, as a wage might not be the best way to go about it.
 
Kueller said:
Not everyone can get paid to do what they love. In fact most of us don't get to do just what we want to do and get paid for it. Non-artists like myself generally have to make compromises/sacrifices to earn a living doing something we may not like at all. Some people even do jobs they hate to earn a living.

I enjoy working on my car. People look at my car, but they don't pay me even 1/3 of a cent for the privilege, even the ones that look more than once! DON'T I DESERVE MONEY FOR MY WORK? No, I don't fucking deserve money for my work, it's a hobby, a labor of love

If these artists enjoy making music in quiet solitude, more power to them...but liking doing something doesn't mean you deserve to be paid for it.
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Head on nail.

Bravo.

My thoughts exactly.
 
I use the Imatch service and everyone is missing a key point here. I have used the service to match all the MP3's I created from albums I have bought over the last 20 plus years. If the artist is getting paid each time I stream that song, then he is getting paid many times over for the song I BOUGHT ALREADY. This is money he would never have gotten prior to Imatch being created and is in addition to the money he got for my original purchase of the song.

In addition, he is getting paid every time a pirated copy of his song is streamed too because Imatch doesn't know if you bought the song or not.

Looks like a great program from that standpoint.;)
 
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