Authors grumbling over their royalty deals: Spare a thought for Aloe Blacc, part creator of “the biggest song in streaming history,” vocalist and tunesmith for the song behind Avicii’s “Wake Me Up!”, whichis credited with 168 million streams across various platforms. For that, Aloe Blacc has received the princely sum of $4000.
Aloe Blacc complains of the parlous situation of songwriters compared to other creatives. “By law, we have to let any business use our songs that asks, so long as they agree to pay a rate that, more often than not, was not set in a free market. We don’t have a choice. As such, we have no power to protect the value of the music we create.” And, he continues:
The abhorrently low rates songwriters are paid by streaming services—enabled by outdated federal regulations—are yet another indication our work is being devalued in today’s marketplace. Consider the fact that it takes roughly one million spins on Pandora for a songwriter to earn just $90.
However, others place the blame elsewhere than the streaming services themselves. U2 frontman Bono, quoted in The Guardian, pointed out that: “Spotify are giving up 70% of all their revenues to rights owners. It’s just that people don’t know where the money is because the record labels haven’t been transparent.”
So it appears that Big Media may be the culprits after all. I’d welcome more perspective on this, but for now, authors can be glad that they too aren’t beholden to streaming services.
Songwriters are upset because laws regarding analog radio greatly favor them. In fact, performers earn no royalties for radio play, all of that goes to songwriters and music labels. Digital distribution uses a structure with the royalties heavily favoring performers. The total royalties in the US are only 9.1 percent of what the record labels take in.