Did you see the streaming royalties on Tidal?! Please give me a play/like/add, NickFever on Tidal
Streaming Royalties, a definition
Streaming royalties are the money paid to the people that hold the rights to the music. This can and usually is more than the artist that performs the song (There is a simplified division/breakdown example further below.). Examples of these rights holders are artists, songwriters, publishers, record labels, etc.) These fees are paid whenever song is played on music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, etc.
Once a song is written, the writer has the copyright to that song. It can be recorded and/or performed by the writer, but a deal can be made with another band or artist. Then that band will be the one to record and perform the song. Whatever the case, the songwriter holds the publishing rights, and the recording artist has the master rights. Publishers and/or record labels may become as rights holders as well. As you can see there can start to be many slices in the streaming royalty pie!
Division of Streaming Royalties
Keep in mind this is the total amount of royalties generated from streaming in this generator. If the artist is on a well-known label, there is a good chance that the Artist and label split 50/50 (or it may be more complicated as illustrated above). Now say that the track is a collaboration of 2 Artists. They likely split the half due to artists from the Label.
Let's break it down: For ease of illustration, let's say there is $100 earned in streaming royalties from Spotify.
Division between label and Artist:
$100/2 = $50
If the collaboration was between 2 artists:
$50/2 = $25 goes to each Artist, while the label still receives $50 in royalties.
If the collaboration was between 3 artists:
$50/3 = $16.66 goes to each Artist, while the label still receives $50 in royalties.
Imagine you're getting 1 million plays a month on Spotify for a track that you and another artist released on a larger label (sounds like a dream come true, right?!). That comes out to about $12,000 per year! You'd make more working full time earning minimum wage in the US (Approximately $15,080 at $7.25/hour). This is why it's so important for artists to sell merchandise and do shows! So, remember to keep the division of royalties you calculte in mind.
* Spotify holds the majority of the market share.
Keep More Royaties
Many Artists now leverage Digital Distributors, such as Distrokid to cut out the need for a Record Label. Of course, you then don't get any benefits of being signed to a known label that way. In this case you only have to pay your distributor fees and/or percentage this way. This means you keep the majority of royaties this way, assuming you're making enough to pay your fees and/or distribution percentage.'.
I'm currently with LabelEngine.
Streaming Service Categories
There are currently 2 types of streaming services, "On Demand," and "Non-Interactive." They are detailed below.
On Demand:
- Listeners can choose when the want to play a song.
- Some examples are Spotify and Apple Music.
Non-interactive:
- Listeners can't choose what they listen to. Think, “radio.”
- Some examples are Spotify and Apple Music.
Royalties from Youtube
To even begin to monetize Youtube, you need to have 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months AND Have more than 1,000 subscribers. Here are the minimum eligibility requirements. Youtube pays roughly, $0.002 per stream. Maybe hold off on that Lamborghini!