We’re an Indie Label. And This Is What Spotify, YouTube, TIDAL, Google Play, and Beats Are Paying Us…

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And here’s the complete royalty statement…

35 Responses

  1. Anonymous

    So they are technically paying them more but their (distributor?) is taking 30%?

    30% is a lot of money. Perhaps the problem isn’t what the services are paying but that there are too many middle men taking their share.

    • Anonymous

      Tunecore takes 0%.

      (You can’t use them for Youtube though, but Youtube pays you directly.)

      • Oh Yeah

        Middle-men suck, as do PROs. Pay the artist directly. That’s where we’re heading.

        • anon

          Really? Its not viable for music services to deal directly with each artist or label individually. There’s a good reason that iTunes will only deal with approved distributors and a hand full of labels.

          Tidal’s waffle about allowing artists to upload their own metadata and assets is more pr fluff from them, its never going to happen. No sensible business would allow it and they have already backtracked on it.

          • anon

            and to add, there are very few artists who either want to or are able to provide the services with data and assets to a good enough standard for the services to be able to sell their music. until the serves are prepared to bear the cost of making idiot proof back ends there will always be the need for middle men, either labels, most of whom don’t at present have the expertise or the means to pay for it, or distributors, who do.

          • r.p.

            viable? It’s not 1960 anymore. You can easily contact anyone and get answers within seconds. -_-

            lazy? yes. a bit.

          • Anonymous

            That wasn’t my point, I was referring more to the headache that dealing with a lot of artists and data and technology involves. There is a cost involved in that that a present is borne by the distributers and larger labels that would be passed on to the artist if the services dealt directly with the artists

            But you inadvertently make a good point about customer service, it’s not something that interests them at all the moment. And why would it – no service in its right mind would take on the cost of providing customer service to every small artist and label at the moment, there isn’t the money and theres nothing to be gained from it as long as there are distributors to do that job for them. Again, if they did it they would only pass the costs onto the artist – theres no way they’ll give up market share by raising their prices to pay for it.

    • Vail, CO

      Is that a distributor cut? I think it’s the cut of the service, 70% standard.

  2. indie label

    we are stupid. we expected millions. we suck.

    we will work at mcdonalds tomorrooooowww….

  3. Chris

    This is very misleading – very small sample size for YouTube. How have you only had 763 monetised streams? and all just in the USA?

    • Anonymous

      I think Amyt is right, this isn’t YouTube, it’s Music Key.

    • Paul Resnikoff

      Chris, yeah I was thinking this was YouTube MusicKey also. I didn’t clarify with the source, but I wanted to just show the data exactly as we received it. Let me ask about that.

  4. Anonymous

    YouTube pays 3 cent/stream? Hahaaa! In which world…

    It pays about 3-15% of that (per click-through, not per stream).

    • Amyt

      I’m guessing this chart is about YouTube Music Key, which is currently in beta I think

      • Anonymous

        Ah yes, that explains the few streams.

  5. Jiri

    Anyone notice how good those Scandanavian numbers look compared to the U.S.?

    • Nick Dixon

      Uschi Digard was always a favourite.

  6. HansH

    Interesting stuff. Paul, maybe you can add a graph of the total revenue per service? That would put things a different perspective.

    1. Xbox Music 3,478.29
    2. Google Play 786.78
    3. Spotify 691.53
    4. Rhapsody 537.63
    5. Omnifone 357.95
    6. Rdio 132.93
    7. Aspiro 107.65
    8. Beats 80.21
    9. YouTube 28.16
    10. Deezer 0.88
    11. Yandex 0.09
    12. Cricket 0.02

    • Anonymous

      So, why aren’t we talking about Xbox Music?

      • Anonymous

        …also, why oh why doesn’t it have video…

        I actually like the fact it’s Microsoft. Sure, they used to be stupid or evil, or both (like Google today), but look at them now — they keep innovating, and they’re very good at it.

        So why this old-school audio-only?

        • Genius

          Xbox is the real deal. Supported by gamers, no music subscriptions and supported by a large company selling software and related items. Good business supporting fledgling music streaming service, sort of like many Starbucks locations opening in other existing businesses. Great music selection on Xbox too AND you don’t need an Xbox gaming device to use it- unlike the new Sony Playstation/Spotify merger.

          All hail Xbox.

        • Paul Resnikoff

          That’s something I could into more. Actually, under youTube there were two designations: one for video stream, the other for audio stream. So maybe there’s more data on that.

    • Anonymous

      YouTube is #9 because it isn’t YouTube, but Music Key…

      • HansH

        That explains for the low # of streams. Thanks!

  7. Jose Fritz

    I’m surprised there’s no data for Pandora.

    • DavidB

      Presumably because Pandora is not on-demand streaming. I don’t see Tidal either, despite the headline, but I don’t think Tidal had started yet.

      • Sarah

        Tidal is included in the numbers for Aspiro, I think.

        • Paul Resnikoff

          TIDAL is Aspiro.

          Pandora fits under ‘non-interactive streaming,’ not on-demand, so the reports come from a different source (administered through SoundExchange).

          • Alex Cann

            TIDAL isn’t Aspiro. TIDAL bought out Aspiro and revamped things entirely, including upping the money paid to artists.

  8. Rickshaw

    This entire industry is a joke. The time spent complaining that things aren’t the same as they used to be outweighs the efforts to make things better. It’s a constant wait-and-see mode that labels are in when it comes to technology, with expectations set incorrectly. Here’s the plan going forward – work with everyone, because despite popular thinking, most online services don’t cannibalize other revenue streams. Now go to work.

  9. John Smith

    It would be interesting to see a more detailled version of the report, as most services have applied different Unit Prices within the same territory. Can you disclose the different types of “Streams” as listed within the report ? The per stream rates for Rdio for example within the US are ranging between 0.0003 to 0.0101

  10. Chris Horvath

    Believe me – I’m 100% on the side of the music creators, but…

    On a shear journalistic level, I have an issue with a “Confidential Independent Label” as the source model. Either do it on the record with open books, or don’t.