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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

“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

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!

It seems like the best thing to do is to simultaneously build a fanbase on a platform like KZfaq 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 KZfaq channel you built.

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.

Love your channel Rick and another great post. Congratulation's on getting to 4 million subs.

Nice video set up for your channel, Rick... Looks awesome!

Rick, these are great! Love these topics!

A million sounds like a lot but it takes a billion streams to make it. A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. THAT paints an incredible picture.

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.

Great topic, love these new info videos.

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, KZfaq 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

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.

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 😅

Great video and great insight Rick. You just got a new subscriber 👍🏼👊🏼👊🏼

As always great stuff from Rick. The topic made me think of all the Apple iTunes 🍏 music - both albums and tracks - I bought for 10+ years ago which kind of vanished the day we all converted to Streaming 🤷🏼‍♂️ I hate the idea of a possesion just disappearing… don’t they owe me something?! 🤔

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.

More videos about the business of music is great!

I never miss a Beato post, and 1/2 the time, when he's speaking of a b-minor changed into a c, with a riff like that in a Beethoven sonata etc...I of course agree...to what, I have no clue, but I feel like I'm in the room, and he cares not if I actually know this stuff...he just makes it so damn consumable. Like a great tune!

Great video, great topic. Respect!

All of the Pro Band Musicians that I know today generally say the same things. "There is no work for Bands and the Music industry is a cut throat business." Thanx Rick for the curious info and You are correct about somebody knows about the money side. It is always "The big secret." 😃

Rick, this was a truly excellent video on the this topic. I have no idea how any of that works and like yourself I've tried to find it out from people to no avail, and they find it even more confusing than you or I do. Please do follow ups on this topic and let us know what you find.

Very interesting and open review.. - very much appreciated what you are sharing; Since I am just the "innocent bystander" not in any way in the Music Business - my gut feeling with all this is - I would ask - who is able to achieve 1 billion streams (that are actually long enough to be monetised) ? I guess that's for the already big artists.. - but for an upcoming band or artist?? - and - I remember a video with Steve Vai where he told about his time with Frank Zappa and the greatest advice he got from Frank "Own your publishing!!" .. - you're proving the point here Rick!

Great info, Rick, I have often wondered how the streaming money thing works.

Love the videos Rick!

All of a sudden the.term Music Industrial Complex just came to mind. Never heard it said before but it seems appropriate.

Congrat's on hitting 4 mil sub's, You rock!

Great video Rick, already making plans for when my big one breaks.

Wow dude! you did it, 4M! Congrats Rick.

Leads me to believe that its convoluted for a reason.

Thank you for your videos Rick.... You've interviewed many of my colleagues and long term friends & collaborators.... you do a fantastic job & please keep 'em coming! Regarding this video...my understanding is that the performers get the bulk of the royalties generated ...not the songwriters. If an artist like say Elvis has a billion streams he gets the artist performance royalties for those from the DSP's (through his record co or distributer) and then the songwriters like Leiber & Stoller get the Mechanicals for the streams from the MLC which are usually a lot less as you point out so the performer and songwriters are not getting the same royalties however if they are the same person(s) they get it all! My only problem is I am not close to a billion streams yet.... my hats are off to those that can stream that much!!

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.

I love these videos about the behind the scenes stuff on the industry.

Rick - I would love it if you could bring on Liberty DeVitto (Billy Joel's long-time drummer and collaborator during the height of his career) for an interview. He was such a great and consistently excellent contributer of great rhythms and drumming on some of the best and most beloved songs of the 20th Century. I'm sure you two would have a very colorful and musical conversation :)

Great video Mr. Beato.

Love your content Rick. Inspiring people of all ages to continue with music

Just a suggestion for an interview -- Justin Hayward/Moody Blues. And I still love CDs -- maybe it's the whole package experience that I grew up with LPs.

This reminds me of the VH1 Behind the Music episode with the group TLC. They asked, how does a group who sells millions of records go bankrupt?

Rick, I am a music producer / IT developer / music biz manager from Croatia, Europe. What I know is that streaming rates depend on the real income that the company locally gets. For example youtube gets money from ads / clicks. In Croatia, the money collected from local clicks is WAY lower than in the US. So a 1.000.000 views in Croatia or in the region is worth 1000$ at most cause ad clicks from this area make a lot less money for youtube. So what is imporant to get any kind of a dependable "formula" is to take into account that those streams are a composite of local streams globally. I guess that a good way of finding out more would be to intentionally select artists that are mainly local and still big, so in US that would be I guess country music. If you could find a friend in the country music biz and ask him about the real worth of 1.000.000 streams / plays (spotify / youtube) and then pick some that has an international career and ask the same question my educated guess is that the figure from the country guy would be 3-4 times bigger since most of the streams / plays would be US streams.

Thank you for being honest, Rick, about the industry and even your own finances, which you are not obligated to divulge to anyone and i applaud your revealing this shady industry! Someone should get enough VCs going into a new platform that presents new music to hear and view and the writers get fair compensation with no bewildering payment schemes.

Omg I've always wondered, thank you for making this video!

"What do you call a professional musician without a girlfriend?" "Homeless."

This is great content. So interesting.

I asked you about that some time ago and respect for answering that question- I think other asked the same. But what matters is - do you feel better now than before

Snoop Dogg popped up on a short yesterday saying he got a billion streams on spotify and it was less than $45,000.

I made over a million plays on Spotify with my catalog and that payed a little over 4.000 dollars, so that checks out, now I just have to do the same every month 😅

Thank you for raising this interesting topic. I would say the minimum is around 1800USD for 1mil. streams for all music services annual gross income of the phonogram rights divided by streams, excluding composers and text writers copyrights. The composers and text writers income is extremely country specific. Much more complicated than the phonogram income because of collecting societies lobby power. The phonogram income is also county specific and refers also to the locations where the stream was made and uploaded. We can say that the location based revenue share business model is a partly systematic business model for the phonogram and partly lobby driven business model for the composers and text writers.

Interesting video. You brought up how song writing credits are divided amongst writers in Nashville. How do people who write songs, in general, decide who should get writing credits? I especially wonder about certain bands which may list several of the artists as writers. Seems this might be a grey area in many cases, as to who wrote what and how much. Would love to here you're insight on this.

I'm listening to that book right now called "All you need to know about the music business" by Donald Passman and besides the fact that most of the info in there is so complicated and convoluted it makes you want to run away screaming from even trying to write music for a living, the thing he says about streaming, and spotify in particular is that it pays a lot less than you would think because the vast majority of the streams on there are actually coming from free users which means it's paid by ads which is a pittance really. Other service which are premium only may pay better but they're probably having far fewer streams. As it turns out, KZfaq is the worst in terms of revenue as very few people pay for youtube and there's a lot of music on here.

Reminds me of that line in There Will Be Blood - ''What would you give us for it?'' - ''I don't know'' - ''Something you don't know?'' - ''That's right.''

I’m loving your interviews with a great amount of my favourite artists. Thank you 🙏🎵😃 Would love to see you interview the following in particular: Dave Grohl & Jeff Skunk Baxter as well as The Eagles as I’d imagine they’d have some great stories and would to know more about when they had individually worked with Steely Dan. I would love to hear stories from all these guys including yourself Thank you 😃🎵🙏

Love this content Rick !!! We have the same problem in Argentina. They pay according to what foot "they" got up from the bed.

This what Im currious about because the next question is how many are "bot" streams and if the streaming services only pay out "authentic" streams and how they differintiate. Playlists stream music 24/7 and how do they pay out royalties for radio play verse streams?

My take on this is that attorneys are heavily involved and the legal language is so convoluted for a reason. It is for obfuscation so that the publishers rake in more money than is paid to the writers/artists and the writers/artists don't have any clue they are getting screwed over. I dare say that this obfuscation also goes on in the motion picture industry. This is why attorneys that specialize in royalties , whether they focus on the music business or motion pictures, make a LOT of money.

Thank you Mr. Beato. This is good information. I have one song on these through Tune Core 50 50 split. Creator and player of guitar and his band doing drums etc. Me playing solo, lead guitar. Last night was a practice disaster on our second one. Some leads I was playing is just not working. Back to the drawing board with a new one here plus fixing that one before release. I am on spotify now, etc. Next is how in the world to get people to see the songs?😮 Hmm. Being listed as Indie Artist etc. Sighhh ... lot of work here. Meadows of Serenity Artist here.

Loving the shirt Rick, where’d you get it?

I am grateful for being born in the era of radio and buying vinyl records before the internet.

Everyone needs to go back to the Chuck Berry system and get the cash up front. Great video Rick.

Hey Rick, very interesting topic and one I think about a lot as well. I think it's even more complicated than you suggest. For instance, writers don't see much of the streaming royalties at all. I've written songs with millions of streams and I barely see a cent. Instead, it's the master recordings rights holders. For example, for my own productions, I own the masters, and even though I have co-writers, the streaming royalties that are paid from my distributor, go 100% to me. Not my co-writers (unless I decide to split master royalties with them). My assumption was there is a small % of publishing royalties that gets paid out to a PRO... which the writers collect. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong...

Great atitude from Rick tô open this theme for ALL,there are many with the same doubts

its .004 across the board for everyone on Spotify, goes directly to the person or company who uploads it. After that who knows

I'm so glad you did This because I've always been curious about how individuals actually made from views. I'm still unsure.

Rick, I think it would be very interesting if you did a series on the business of music. Also when doing interviews, it would be interesting if you also asked some business-related questions.

The Nashville arrangement is particularly interesting; I think of Jerry Wexler, who got a songwriting cred for Goffin-King's "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman," just for suggesting the title. In Music City, he'd get a full third of the action!

“This would be a great business if it wasn’t for the artists.” -David Geffin. The powers in the industry is pricing bands out of the business. This needs to change.

We all need to listen to Rick’s number one song over and over and over and get his money rolling in….. let’s go people!

Rick, you do excellent break-downs, on songs, on Artists, instruments, music theory, and so on. So this breakdown on Streaming Revenue taught me about the ins and some outs on how money is made on songs streamed and who gets what, but i was shocked to hear their is actually a song out there that has 13 writers? Id love to know the song so i could listen to it, i dont know ive listed to a song 13 different writers. So where does an Artist or Band for that matter focus on to earn a living, lets say their music is good enuf to make a living on? Ive heard different things, and Rick it sounds like you still have some questions 9n where this modern day streaming and digital sales go? Ok, so i have a kick-ass band, we made a record that blew up. Pretend we maintain full owners on publishing, my band of say 4, split all the writing 4 ways. Now we go out on a serious 12 mo tour of the U.S., performing consistently every other night, with many nights back to back. Lets pretend again that we sold out med sized venue's of say 5,000 seats,, again pretend Am i going to make a living on tickets sales, after expenses, like your crew, transportation, and so on. Ive done some research around big time Artist's and Bands, and it seems theres million variances and cost over-runs of you dont have someone extremely sharp managing those things, which just cant be the Artist's or Band member, because there isnt enuf time for them to perform at these high pro levels. A good example to look at would have been Van Halens "1984" tour. Good ol Diamond Dave reportedly added more and more, in accomadations, entourage, things he insisted on for stage, back stage and so on. I mean i read that Ed and Alex were getting weekly checks for $220.00.

I still buy CDs 😊

In Brazil the musicians get a cut as well from the songs they played. I’m not sure if other countries are like that.

Great stuff Rick, keep digging please!

Good quick bit of info and wow the music industry is so confusing and I can see why the process of recording and releasing songs has changed so much.....

Would love to learn how bands usually set up legally as corporations? What if key members get replaced due to quitting, get kicked out, death? Band hires a replacement, is new corporation set up? How are the old members treated with royalties, etc..

Rick, talk to (a) an accountant for a songwriter who has had a number one hit; (b) the department heads of the accounts payable for the streaming service, or (c) the accounts receivable or accountant dept for the publishing firms / management firms. The people who pay the money, and the people who receive the money as part of their jobs would know. It may be something where you have to get info form both payers and payees; also what financial information is publicly available about the financial activities of these companies? Somewhere, Alphabet / Google has to make a public filing with the gov for KZfaq, and there are public shareholder meeting minutes as well, and quarterly reports (if they are public companies.)

so then -- what has more value for the musicians / artists? should we, the listeners continue to keep listening to music via the streaming options? or try & keep buying physical media (CDs/vinyl)? does one method pay more than the other? say, if i only buy CDs & it pays the artists more, does it only last for the short term & in the longer run, streaming finally catches up because the providers pay a small amount but for pretty much an indefinite amount of time???

I'd like to know more about the financial side. How much does a band /artist make with streams, physical sales, ticket sales, merchandise etc.? Maybe an idea for future videos?

the windows 95 computer tracking all this is the real mvp

Great topic!!! I was wondering why so many hits today have a million songwriters in the credits. PLEASE INTERVIEW MAX MARTIN!!!

We need an internaional standard for this streaming stuff! I hope music making will pay off for artists again in the future. I just hate how the quality of new music goes downhill because there is no budget anymore for big productions

Really interesting topic to talk about this.

You talked about the publishers and writers. Where do the artists come into the equation?

I think more money can be made in so many ways these days between social media, KZfaq, merch and touring? The outreach is insane. Great time!!! Especially without labels grabbing a bag

Great subject on paying out and I always wonder what about copyrights❤

It's so interesting that even music insiders don't know what's what! Amazing.

They used to put only the name of the actual lyric writer in the writing credits of bands, but that person would make a disproportionate amount of money compared to others. The biggest ethical artists will now put most collaborators they can on songwriting, as it makes them some money on all versions, not just their direct interpretation. Divided by twelve: that’s actually the entire point.

What makes a song #1 anymore? It used to be either record sales or radio airplay. I don't know what it is now.

I cannot speak to the music business but can speak about tech startups having started three. Basically the only way developers make any money beyond salary (if the company actually pays this), is if the investors make so much that some of it spills off the table and they don’t notice. Human nature being what it is, one expects the same in pretty much any industry. And, before you ask, we never missed a payroll, and everyone made out OK if the company was successful.

Would be interesting to hear how much similar hit would have made during the CD period. For artist and for the manufacturing. I bet they all made a lot more. It had to be the perfect business to sell plastic disk for such a high value.

Thank you for "Getting down to Brass Tax". This was quick and informative. So many times people over-explain and loose the audience

For us artists... This kind of stuff is really important. Thank you for covering it and I would say continue talking about the business side more.

Just listened to a great Interview with Rene Meredith from Exploration on this very subject. MCL’s will depend even on what country is listening to the music/watching videos, etc. and add in different pay out schedules. This all makes it very difficult to get a full number, since you may never get paid from certain regions at all even. Time for a reboot, the rules were made in the early days of streaming.

Aloha Brother Rick, you're awesome man. What about the Master side? I'm a producer and I have heard from some very successful song writer friends of mine that on the streaming side, the master gets more of the money than the publisher.

This feels like some sort of mystery-thriller movie. I can see some record company exec: "Beato's asking questions again... getting too close to the truth." Good luck, Rick; maybe play some Lalo Schifrin soundtracks while you suss it out.