{"id":1739,"date":"2014-12-08T16:51:39","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T00:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=1739"},"modified":"2014-12-08T16:51:39","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T00:51:39","slug":"streaming-and-royalties-for-musicians-a-plea-for-better-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/12\/streaming-and-royalties-for-musicians-a-plea-for-better-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"Streaming and royalties for musicians – a plea for better reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"We'll<\/a>On the weekend the New York Times<\/em> had an article<\/a> from Clyde Haberman, a brief history of musicians’ earnings in the digital age. It included this (now oft-reported case):<\/p>\n

… thus far, the people who create the music on which others build their fortunes often receive mere rivulets of reward. Not everyone is a Beyonc\u00e9 or a Taylor Swift (who has removed her entire oeuvre from Spotify to keep it behind a pay wall). Many more musicians are like Zoe Keating<\/a>, a cellist from Northern California who described her situation in detail last year. Over a six-month period, Ms. Keating\u2019s songs had been played on Pandora more than 1.5 million times; that earned her all of $1,652.74. She had 131,000 plays on Spotify in 2012. She took home $547.71, or less than half a penny per play.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, does Spotify pay well? The reporter thinks it’s obvious, since 131,000 is a ‘big’ number, but ‘half a penny’ is a ‘small’ number.<\/p>\n

But can’t we do better? I’m not a music reporter, but it seems to me that Spotify’s payments are not that<\/em> out of line with earnings from radio or CD sales.<\/p>\n

First, consider radio. I don’t have detailed numbers on radio listenership, but this piece<\/a> from Bryan Farrish suggests that at any one second the top radio station in New York has about 157,000 listeners (and, one assumes, top stations in other markets have smaller numbers). But that means – and I’m working in ballpark terms<\/em> – Ms Keating had as many people hear a song of hers on Spotify in 2012 as if she had had one<\/em> play on New York’s top radio station. Would one play on New York’s top radio station net over $500 in payments to the musician?<\/p>\n

Second, let’s go to CD \u00a0sales. Here’s<\/a> a low-tech guide to royalties. Suppose I buy a CD with 12 songs, by a singer-songwriter (thus I combine payments to one artist). This would net – ballpark – about $1 for the writer\/publisher part of the deal, and about $1 for the recording artist part of the deal. So, around $2, or about 17 cents per song. If I listen to the CD more than 34 times (which is certainly true of many of my CD’s), the royalty rate is in Spotify territory on a per-listen basis (it’s higher than Spotify if I listen fewer than 34 times, less than Spotify if I listen more).<\/p>\n

So, again, does Spotify pay well? I’m honestly asking – I don’t know the answer. But it seems to me from these back-of-the-envelope guesses that on a payment-per-person-listening-to-a-song basis it is not wildly<\/em> out of line with the payments to musicians from either radio play or CD sales. I don’t know the answer precisely because of reporting that thinks the Spotify numbers, with no context<\/em>, say all that needs to be said. And if concerns about ‘winner-take-all’ are your concern, I think we also need to compare the Gini curves for all sorts of recorded music earnings.<\/p>\n

If I’ve missed something, or you know of a good piece that answers this question, do let us know!<\/p>\n

Other recent posts on Spotify here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the weekend the New York Times had an article from Clyde Haberman, a brief history of musicians’ earnings in the digital age. It included this (now oft-reported case): … thus far, the people who create the music on which others build their fortunes often receive mere rivulets of reward. Not everyone is a Beyonc\u00e9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/family-radio.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-s3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1833,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2015\/02\/superstars-have-always-been-with-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":1739,"position":0},"title":"Superstars have always been with us","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"February 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Krugman takes a look at top earnings amongst musicians, and the 'superstar' effect - the idea that the vast share of consumer spending on music will go to a very small number of performers, since they can reach very large audiences through recordings and broadcasts (see my previous post\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"not actually Taylor Swift","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Jenny_Lind_in_La_Sonnambula-227x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1694,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/11\/streaming-a-view-from-the-other-side\/","url_meta":{"origin":1739,"position":1},"title":"Streaming – a view from the other side (updated)","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"November 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times has an 'Opinionator' series asking 'Is Streaming Good for Musicians?' It's a narrow question, since in any dispassionate analysis 'Is Streaming Good for People Who Listen to Music?' would also factor into the evaluation of this technology. That said, let me try to broaden the debate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"looks nice to me","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/stream.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1715,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/12\/are-bands-on-tour-winner-take-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":1739,"position":2},"title":"Are bands on tour winner-take-all?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, Pomplamoose might not have made any money on tour, but band member Jack Conte's accounting of revenues and costs has sure generated a lot of discussion, and hopefully more people who know about the band. 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The abstract of the paper (free download here) is: Using unique historical sales data from the Leo Castelli Gallery, we introduce a novel model of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hockney's are up three basis points","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/traders.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/traders.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/traders.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/traders.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/traders.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/traders.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2203,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2017\/05\/cost-disease-does-not-explain-everything\/","url_meta":{"origin":1739,"position":4},"title":"Cost disease does not explain everything","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"May 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In my last post I wrote about cost disease, the powerful analysis of economic shifts that results from labor-saving technological change occurring at different speeds in different sectors of the economy. 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And Dora's talking backpack is full of dollars, courtesy of New York state taxpayers. 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