Recording artist royalties

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Recording artist royalties are a vital part of an artist's income and are gained through the digital and retail sale of their music along with the use of their music in streaming services, broadcasting, and in other forms of media such as TV shows and films. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

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A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item of such, but there are also other modes and metrics of compensation. A royalty interest is the right to collect a stream of future royalty payments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liner notes</span> Liner copy

Liner notes are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or cassette j-cards.

APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in Australia and New Zealand. The two organisations work together to license public performances and administer performance, communication and reproduction rights on behalf of their members, who are creators of musical works, aiming to ensure fair payments to members and to defend their rights under the Australian Copyright Act (1968).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Independent music</span> Music produced without commercial record labels

Independent music is music produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries; this may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording and publishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music industry</span> Companies and individuals that create and sell music

The music industry consists of the individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent and supply music creators. Among the many individuals and organizations that operate in the industry are: the songwriters and composers who write songs and musical compositions; the singers, musicians, conductors, and bandleaders who perform the music; the record labels, music publishers, recording studios, music producers, audio engineers, retail and digital music stores, and performance rights organizations who create and sell recorded music and sheet music; and the booking agents, promoters, music venues, road crew, and audio engineers who help organize and sell concerts.

TuneCore is a Brooklyn, New York–based digital music distribution, publishing and licensing service founded in 2006. TuneCore distributes music through online retailers such as iTunes, Deezer, Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Google Play, Tidal, Beatport and others.

SoundExchange is an American non-profit collective rights management organization founded in 2003. It is the sole organization designated by the U.S. Congress to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for sound recordings. It pays featured and non-featured artists and master rights owners for the non-interactive use of sound recordings under the statutory licenses set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 112 and 17 U.S.C. § 114.

Will Page is a British economist, author, podcaster and DJ. He is the former Chief Economist at streaming music service Spotify, a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and the Edinburgh Futures Institute.

Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 590 million monthly active users, including 226 million paying subscribers, as of September 2023. Spotify is listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts.

A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream digital copyright restricted songs on-demand from a centralized library provided by the service. Some services may offer free tiers with limitations, such as advertising and limits on use. They typically incorporate a recommender system to help users discover other songs they may enjoy based on their listening history and other factors, as well as the ability to create and share public playlists with other users.

In the music industry, a 360 deal is a business relationship between an artist and a music company. The company agrees to provide financial and other support for the artist, including direct advances as well as support in marketing, promotion, touring and other areas. In return, the artist agrees to give the company a percentage of an increased number of their revenue streams, often including everything from digital and online streaming and live performance to merchandise sales, endorsement deals, and songwriting royalties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SoundCloud</span> German audio streaming service

SoundCloud is a German audio streaming service owned and operated by SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG. The service enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming services in the world and is available in 190 countries and territories. The service has more than 76 million active monthly users and over 200 million audio tracks as of November 2021. SoundCloud offers both free and paid memberships on the platform, available for mobile, desktop and Xbox devices. SoundCloud has evolved from a traditional online streaming platform to an entertainment company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blocking of YouTube videos in Germany</span> Censorship in Germany of YouTube videos containing copyrighted music

The blocking of YouTube videos in Germany was part of a former dispute between the video sharing platform YouTube and the Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte, a performance rights organization in Germany.

<i>Sleepify</i> 2014 studio album by Vulfpeck

Sleepify is an album by American funk band Vulfpeck. The release does not contain any audible sound; instead, it consists solely of ten roughly 30-second-long tracks of silence. The album was made available on the music streaming service Spotify, where the band encouraged consumers to play the album on a loop while they slept. In turn, royalties from the playing of each track on the "album" were to be used to crowdfund a free concert tour by the band.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vulfpeck</span> American band

Vulfpeck is an American funk band founded in 2011 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by Jack Stratton, Theo Katzman, Woody Goss and Joe Dart. The band has released four extended plays, six studio albums and one live album through their own record label. The band gained recognition in 2014 for releasing Sleepify, a silent album that exposed a loophole in Spotify's royalty distribution and funded an admission-free tour. The band is one of the first to sell out Madison Square Garden without a manager or backing label, and released the recorded performance as a live album in 2019. The band's most recent album, Schvitz, was released in December 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tidal (service)</span> Subscription-based music streaming service

Tidal is a Norwegian-American music streaming service, launched in 2014 by Swedish public company Aspiro. Tidal is now majority-owned by Block, Inc., an American payment processing company that is owned by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horus Music</span> Music distributor

Horus Music Limited is a global digital distribution and label services company. Established in 2006, Horus Music allows artists, labels and right-holders to send their music to over 200 download, streaming, and interactive platforms including iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, VEVO, 7digital, Spotify, Beatport, Deezer, Tidal, as well as offering digital marketing and playlisting opportunities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DistroKid</span> American independent digital music service

DistroKid, formerly titled Fandalism, is an independent digital music distribution service, founded in 2013 by American entrepreneur Philip J. Kaplan. DistroKid principally offers musicians and other rights-holders the opportunity to distribute and sell or stream their music through online retailers such as iTunes/Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Tidal, Deezer, iHeartRadio and others.

Spotify, a music streaming company, has attracted significant criticism since its 2006 launch, mainly over artist compensation. Unlike physical sales or downloads, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the artist's "market share"—the number of streams for their songs as a proportion of total songs streamed on the service. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders, who then pay artists based on their individual agreements. Multiple artists have criticised the policy, most notably Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke, who temporarily withdrew their music from the service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music Modernization Act</span> United States copyright law

The Orrin G. Hatch–Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act, or Music Modernization Act or MMA is United States legislation signed into law on October 11, 2018 aimed to modernize copyright-related issues for music and audio recordings due to new forms of technology such as digital streaming. It is a consolidation of three separate bills introduced during the 115th United States Congress.

References

  1. Plaugic, Lizzie (7 December 2015). "Spotify's Year in Music shows just how little we pay artists for their music". The Verge. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  2. Ek, Daniel. "$2 Billion and Counting". Spotify News. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  3. Brabec, Todd; Brabec, Jeff. "Recording Artist Royalties". American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  4. Marcone, Stephen. "The Poverty of Artist Royalties". Music Business Journal. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  5. "About Digital Royalties". Sound Exchange. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  6. Dredge, Stuart (3 April 2015). "How much do musicians really make from Spotify, iTunes and YouTube?". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  7. "Spotify Explained". Spotify Artists. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  8. Johnson, David (18 November 2014). "See How Much Every Top Artist Makes on Spotify". Time Business. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  9. Reisinger, Don. "Music Royalties Adjusted: Did Taylor Get Her Way?". Fortune. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  10. Robley, Chris (8 May 2013). "Music Publishing Royalties Explained: What is a Mechanical Royalty?". DIY Musician. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  11. Raterman, Kaitlyn. "Music Royalties 101: What They Are and How to Collect". Sonicbids Blog. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  12. Kate, Swanson (2013). "A Case Study on Spotify: Exploring Perceptions of the Music Streaming Service" (PDF). Journal of the Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association. 13 (1). Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  13. Rae, Casey. "Where's My Mechanicals? The Ultimate Explainer". Future of Music Coalition. Retrieved 5 August 2016.