Music

Writer of the biggest song in Spotify's history earned less than $4000 from the service

by Mark Teo

As much as we love streaming music—and frankly, can’t imagine a world without Rdio or Spotify—we have to confront reality: The way we consume music is hopelessly broken. Indeed, the shift away from oft-illegally downloaded albums to streaming music has sent shockwaves through the music industry, and it’s impacted musicians of all levels. At the very top, for example, Taylor Swift pulled 1989, the year’s only platinum album, from Spotify, despite the fact that in some regions, their royalties recently eclipsed iTunes‘. For less-heralded independent artists, streaming music resulted in royalty cheques that amounted to pennies. In Canada, the Barenaked Ladies would require 9,216 streams to be able to afford a box of Kraft Dinner. That sucks.

See also: 7 royalty cheques that’ll make you lose faith in the music industry

How musicians get paid under the streaming model is very, very problematic. Songwriters may be considered creatives, but the work they do is just that—work. And Aloe Blacc, writing for Wired, acknowledged as much in an essay about how musicians’ work was being devalued—and what to do about the problem.

The problem, Blacc writes, is about fair compensation. And he’s right: Try calculating the amount of hours, resources, and talent that goes into a song. Then, consider that one million plays of that song earns you $90. It’s quite possibly the shittiest return on investment we could imagine.

“[U]nlike most people in creative industries, songwriters seem to have less control over our work than ever before. Knock off a handbag design from a high-end fashion house or use a sports team’s logo in your new t-shirt line, and expect a lawsuit in short order,” he writes. “And good luck copying a big tech company’s patented innovation. You need express permission from the original creators to use or copy their work before you resell it. That’s how they protect the value of their work.”

But songwriters—creatives, just like the professions Blacc cites—don’t have similar protections.

Of course, he’s right—consumers set the price for their songs, but they only pay the rates offered by competing streaming services. And those rates offer little incentive for artists to continue creating: Black cites Avicii’s mega smash “Wake Me Up,” which he co-wrote. The song earned 168 million plays, and when royalties were split between its four songwriters, each earned roughly $4000. Even the staunchest free-market advocates can agree: That’s not the proper value of a song that’s completely, utterly ubiquitous.

“But the irony of the situation is that our music is actually being enjoyed by more people in more places and played across more platforms (largely now digital) than ever before,” he correctly writes. “Our work clearly does have value, of course, or else it would not be in such high demand.”

Hard to argue that. Black suggests that it’s a systemic problem: It funnels revenue to platforms—i.e. those who own streaming services—instead of compensating creators. And we absolutely agree. So, is there a way to redistribute those profits more evenly? Anyone have ideas? ANYONE? Taylor, we’re looking at you.