What Do You Get Paid For 1,000,000,000 Streams?

In this episode, I try to figure out how much money a hit song REALLY makes.

ON SALE:

📘— The Beato Book Interactive - $99.00 value
🎸 — Beato Beginner Guitar - $159.00 value
👂— The Beato Ear Training Program - $99.00 value
🎸— The Quick Lessons Pro Guitar Course - $79.00 value

… all for just $99.00

My Beato Club supporters:
Justin Scott
Terence Mark
Farren Mahjoor
Jason Murray
Lucienne Kilpatrick
Alexander Young
Jason Wagner
Todd Ladner
Rob Kline
Nicholas Long
Tim Benson
Leonardo Martins da Costa Rodrigues
Eddie Perez
David Solomon
MICHAEL JOYCE
Stephen Stubbs
colin stead
Jonathan Wentworth-Linton
Patrick Payne
MATTHEW KARIS
Matthew Barouch
Shaun Samuels
Danny Kurywchak
Gregory Reedy
Sean Coleman
Alexander Verbitskiy
CL Turner
Jason Pappafotis
John Fulford
Margaret Carno
Robert C
David M Combs
Eric Flatt
Reto Spoerli
Herr Moritz Adam
Monte St. Johns
Jon Beezley
Peter DeVault
Eric Nabstedt
Eric Beggs
Rich Germano
Brian Bloom
Peter Pillitteri

[AskAScreenwriter]

Sounds like a classic “Confuseopoly.” Keep things so confusing, that no-one can figure out how they're being shafted.

[AdeleMcAlear]

Here's why you can't get a straight answer (simplified version) - Looking at Spotify - Each stream is paid at a different rate. Free tier listener payout is lower than the paid tier. Live in a country where the paid tier is super low, like India? Then your free/paid rates are lower on streams generated in that market. Now, in each market, the streaming revenue is a pool of money. The major labels have negotiated payout rates with Spotify for master recordings. These rates are not public knowledge and they are likely higher than everyone else (because the majors were investors in Spotify and had closed-door meetings in the early days). Those 3 majors get their slice of the pie first at whatever their negotiated rate is. When the label gets theirs, they do the split with each recording artist according to the terms of their contract. Artist hasn't recouped the cost of their record yet? They get nothing. If the artist has recouped and they're on a typical 80/20 deal, then they'll get 20% and the label keeps 80%. After the majors are paid, Spotify takes whatever is left over in the streaming pool and divides by % of streams an artist had on the platform and pays out to the master rights holders through their distributor - from medium labels down to independents on Distrokid. The total size of the pool changes every month depending on how many people stream around the world and how often. That's Spotify. But Apple, Tidal, Amazon Music... well they each have their own rates. Now... that was **JUST** for master rights holders (who own the recording). Songwriters & Publishing is a whole separate thing and flows through a combination of PRO (ASCAP etc.), the MLC ( or other mechanical rights org.) Songwriters do not typically get a % on master revenue. If you wrote the song, own your publishing, performed it, and own the master, then you get all the revenue, but only if you've registered everything properly and know where to collect it from. Thank you for attending my TED Talk.

[ZachWirchak]

As an independent artist and songwriter for my solo music, I've consistently made about $0.003 per stream on Spotify for the past 4 years or so. $3000 per 1, 000, 000 streams (Apple Music pays more than double Spotify). Being the only writer for my music, I'm able to support my family with that streaming income. But if I had to split it multiple ways, it would make that mountain so much harder to climb. I feel like being a truly 100% independent is becoming the only real way to make a living off stream as a mid level artist.

[Ceddy_]

I can tell from my own experience (roughly 27 million streams on spotify with my band over the past 7 years) that after all cuts for label, management etc. we probably have enough money to pay some stuff like small video productions, a touring van for a weekend, merch etc. We are talking about less then 10.000$ gross earnings per year through streaming, split on 5 people in the band.

[Howdytoons]

Rick most of the money does not get split between the publishers and writers. Only a small portion goes there. Most of the money goes to the owner of the master recording which is not always the writers and publishers. This is paying the people who put up the money to make the recording not the writers.

[toneman]

People often say that the music industry is corrupt, .... it's actually the whole publishing industry...
Not just the music industry

[FourRulesRacing]

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

[sirtogii]

The fact that even the people working in the industry have no clue is telling. Looking forward to hearing more.

[ericponce]

Mr. Beato, your videos are informative, to say the least. I am always learning when viewing them.

[killergrooves]

It seems like the best thing to do is to simultaneously build a fanbase on a platform like YouTube or maybe TikTok and then use that to drive album sales instead of streams. Because even only selling 1, 000 digital albums at $10 each if it’s self-published is probably going to pay out way more than Spotify will for a million streams. Plus you’d get revenue from the YouTube channel you built.

[gordonmills]

Crazy how much things have changed. Back in the very late 90s, I was talking to country artist/songwriter Radney Foster and he said that his mid-level solo hit "Nobody Wins" (one of the most-played recurrent records on country radio) "will put my kids through college." But he also co-wrote an album track on The (Dixie) Chicks' "Fly" record, and that? "Honestly, I never have to work another day in my life if I don't want." The money was in the songwriting.

[harrycrab]

For all of the people asking about playing on a hit but no writing/publishing credit, you get nothing unless you’re a pro studio cat who is able to include royalties as part of your deal. Even many studio players just make scale and don’t receive royalties even if the song goes big. If you’re in a band concept with a group of friends, make sure you’re all listed as writers.

[Gracchusmusic]

What I can tell you is that 1 million streams on Spotify is about $3200 for us. The problematic thing with the calculation and why it‘s difficult to give an exact answer is that the money you get paid depends on the territory. There are countries that generate more money per stream than others. It’s indicated by the price of the relative subscription. We publish through CD Baby. I‘ll keep you updated once we hit a billion. Only got to 100x our numbers 😅

[tremolux]

Rick is overlooking a main factor! The biggest share goes to the label! UMG, Sony, BMG etc.. they earn the most from streaming! The CEO of Universal Music earned more in 2021 than all the sales and streams of UK songwriters combined!

[williamsmith]

This, it is an issue that needs to be made transparent and straightforward for everybody. Creating music is a talent that brings so much to so many and deserves remuneration.

[markfey-head]

That is one of the reasons I still buy CDs. From what I have heard, the artest gets paid more from CD purchases than from the streaming services, and I want the people who enrich my life to be paid well.

[malcocreative]

My band had one of the big songs of the mid-80's. I won't say the title. We get around 1.5 million streams a month, 38 years after it was released. I'm the only writer and we own the publishing. Our publishing admin company takes 15%. This adds up to somewhere between 150 and 200 thousand dollars a year. Hope that helps.

[tomatopie]

My biggest takeaway is that I’m really old and out of touch because Tate McRae has almost 900 million streams and I’ve never heard of her or that song. Now, get off my lawn.

[dxlphdayana]

Rick great video as always! To clear somethings up in what you said, most of the money made doesn't go the songwriters and publishers. There are 2 copyrights in music itself, one for the Musical Composition (Publishers/Songwriters), and one for the Master Recording (Record Label/Performing Artist). As a general rule of thumb, 80% of the money goes to the master recording copyright holder (Record Label/Performing Artist), and 20% to the copyright holders of the musical composition (Publishers/Songwriters). So that $4000 per million you gave, about $3000 goes to the master recording copyright holder and $1000 goes to the musical composition copyright holder. So let's make a scenario, so let's say I'm an independent DIY performing artist, I had 4 people help me write a song (I didn't write any of it), I record the song they helped me write. The writers had no part in the sound recording, and I didn't have any part of songwriting. I release the song and used Distrokid (which collects the master recording royalties), the song gets 1 million streams, I would get (as the Master recording copyright holder) $3000. The songwriters would get $1000 (as the Musical Composition copyright holder) from the PROs and MLC (if your in the US). The songwriters split it evenly at 25% each, so that means the songwriters got $250 each while me the recording artist (the sound recording copyright holder) got $3000. This is just an over simplified explanation


The second thing, about the not knowing what the streaming platforms pay and why it's so complicated to know exactly is because it's all negotiated. ASCAP, BMI, MLC, Distrokid, Tunecore, UMG, Sony, Warner Bros, Kobalt, United Masters etc... all have their own agreements negotiated with Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube etc. So when you sign up with ASCAP/BMI, you are agreeing to accept whatever they negotiated with the DSPs, same thing with Distrokid/CD Baby/Tunecore whatever they negotiated is what you get. So that's why no one can say exactly what the DSPs pay because it's all different! It's like asking how much rent is? It all depends on the property, location, and what you negotiated with the owner of the property! There is no universal price for renting out an apartment.

Hopefully this clears things up a bit, I'm not even scratching the surface with this stuff

[PepperWilliams_songcovers]

I made a 'whopping' $28.00 from BMI last year. It's no wonder that I transitioned into owning a fire protection company! My Pops told me years ago when I was studying music composition at CSUH, "Boy, don't just do music". Wise words from my loving Pops RIP