Tuesday, June 25, 2013

"The Reality of the Music Business Today: 1 Million Plays = $16.89"

On Saturday we looked at the Superstar effect and how it had thus far failed to benefit journalists.
Here it is in action in the industry it was discovered in, music. If you aren't in the top 1% you get nothing.
From The Atlantic:

Musician indignant that free radio station does not make him rich  
"My Song Got Played On Pandora 1 Million Times and All I Got Was $16.89" is the eye-catching headline by David Lowery, a musician who wrote "Low," which is earning him just over a thousandth of a cent per Internet radio play.

Which is the law. The Library of Congress Copyright Royalty Board decides how much Internet radio companies like Pandora must pay artists like Lowery. And even that microscopic number is high enough that Pandora, which earns 80 percent of its revenue from digital advertising, has lost money in five of the last six quarters....MORE
"...The solution is to abandon all hope ye who enter the Internet as a means of making a million dollars with streaming music. Even if Pandora quadrupled the royalty rates paid to Lowery, it'd barely pay for three days rent. If you want to pay a musician, there is an easy fix. Go to a concert...."
So what is the "concert" equivalent for our journalist friends?