Re: Freetardonomics
"Spotify (which only exists because the alternative is zero revenue amid piracy) pays 0.007 USD per stream. So if you had a million plays that'd be 70 USD. You would get paid more working at the checkouts in Tesco."
You get substantially less for reaching a similar number of ears in radio airplay (ears, not airplays).
Long before the advent of the Internet, the average recording act ended their career at least $40,000 in debt to the record labels. More popular acts tended to be deeper in debt.
This is because every cent of recording/production/advertising/promotion/advances/"salary"/touring costs associated with an artist is charged to the artist's "account" (plus interest), and is repaid out of sale royalties (about 40c per CD, used to be about $1 per LP). The system was deliberately setup to ensure only the record companies benefit and what they're really shitting theselves about is not piracy, but the notion that artists can reach their audience directly
Despite the "low" figures, there's far more money for a musician in airplay royalties than in sale ones, as any accountant will happily explain and even more in NOT recording stuff, but letting others do that with your material and taking copyright fees - airplay royalties are composed of copyright and mechanical components. As a for-instance, Kathy Dennis made more in airplay copyright royalties in a year from Brittney Spears "Toxic" than she had made from sales of her own back catalog up to that point.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
