By Jem Aswad, Variety | Back in the days when “music” meant CDs and vinyl, a songwriter could make a decent living: their percentage of a song or songs on the average $18.99, 12-song CD could add up quite nicely, as anyone with a credit on a blockbuster album like “Thriller” or “The Bodyguard” could attest.
But when streaming — which pays around $.004 per play — became the dominant format, songwriters were quickly shunted to the bottom of its economy, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is probably under the influence of a streaming service or another interested party. Songwriter royalty rates — which are appallingly low, as you’ll see below — have increased only slightly in the 13 years since Spotify launched in the U.S. and it’s still almost impossible for any but the most successful songwriters (as opposed to performers) to make a decent living.
And with Spotify, the world‘s largest streaming service by a wide margin, dodging those rate increases by introducing subscription-bundling options that will lower its royalty payments to songwriters by an estimated $150 million in the next year, it’s about to get even worse.
This situation is presented in sobering detail by a new study titled “Songwriters Take the Stage” from London-based marketing intelligence and consulting firm MIDIA Research, written by former Billboard reporter Tatiana Cirisano and music researcher Fernanda Balzaretti. The data in the report is proprietary and thus Variety can only share a small amount, but there’s more than enough to make the point.
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For more information read the MIDIA report, Variety’s extensive past reporting on this subject, and contact SONA, NSAI or the 100 Percenters. And most of all, pay for your music, because there’s no art without artists. [And, as COMBO says, “There is no Music Business Without a Songwriter!”]
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Go here to read more and to understand how this is NOT working:
https://variety.com/2024/music/news/songwriters-are-getting-screwed-by-streaming-midia-1236090862/
Songwriters Are Getting Screwed by Streaming Even Worse Than They’d Thought, New Study Shows
