“With revenue from live performances a distant memory, artists need money from their recordings more than ever,” writes David Karlin in Thursday’s (3/4) Bachtrack (U.K.). “The recorded music industry is booming: it was estimated to be over $20 billion dollars in 2019 and growing at over 20% per year. But reports abound of artists earning a pittance for their recordings…. The UK Parliament is currently running an inquiry into the economics of streaming: the evidence to the inquiry reveals the recording music industry to be a jungle of entangled businesses and agencies … a pile of copyright legislation and treaties across the world and … thousands of rights contracts signed over decades in different territories…. These are generally kept secret…. On a broad average … around 10 cents of your subscription dollar is going to the artists who recorded the track, and 7 cents to the composers/songwriters…. The majority of music listening in the world—an estimated 51% of all music worldwide … happens … on YouTube—and they don’t pay upfront money to rightsholders…. If someone uploads a piece of music, YouTube’s systems scan it: if a match is found, a payment to the rightsholder is triggered. Those payments are small.”
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