D.I.Y.

Bette Midler: 4.1 Million Pandora Streams = $114, “Impossible for songwriters to earn a living”

bette midlerBette Midler has joined the slowly growing chorus of musicians and songwriters concerned about payments from streaming music services. ".@Spotify and @Pandora have made it impossible for songwriters to earn a living: three months streaming on Pandora, 4,175,149 plays=$114.11," Midler tweeted over the weekend. 

Pandora says Midler has the math all wrong.

 "We love Bette’s music and certainly respect her advocacy for fair compensation for artists," a Pandora spokespersom responded. "But we must clarify an important fact: Pandora paid more than $6,400 for those 4+ million plays, based on our 2014 rates which are published publicly.

"In terms of compensation to the creative community Pandora remains by far the highest paying form of radio," the response continued. "Pandora pays songwriters a greater percentage of revenue than terrestrial radio. And Pandora paid 48% of our revenue in performance royalties to rightsholders in 2013 – more than $300 million – while terrestrial radio was required to pay nothing."

 

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9 Comments

  1. The truth of ‘who gets which slice of pie’ within the stakeholders of the music supply chain will one day become public knowledge – it may surprise some …
    $6,400 to $114 … mmm …

  2. we would love someone to inform us – so we can make informed decisions on how to listen and buy.
    How could it be changed?
    Is there not some sort of writers union or advice centre?
    Does agents/managers do this for you or no? These questions put me off before pursuing music career when I was young.

  3. That’s not the point. The point is the same amount of plays on terrestrial radio with the same royalty and publishing deal would make a lot of money. Believe it or not the shitty deal she has with her label/publishing was still enough to make a living before. That’s the point.

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