In the first three months of 2012, the song “Tugboat” was played
7,800 times on Pandora. Tugboat's three songwriters earned 7 cents each.
The rise of streaming sites has made it impossible for most musicians
“to earn even a modest wage through our recordings,” said Damon
Krukowski in Pitchfork.com. My band, Galaxie 500, broke up in 1991, yet
our single “Tugboat” was played 7,800 times on Pandora in the first
three months of 2012. For that privilege, the song’s three songwriters
earned 7 cents each.
“Spotify pays better”; the three of us earned a collective $1.05 for
5,960 plays there. In other words, “it would take songwriting royalties
for roughly 312,000 plays on Pandora to earn us the profit of one—one—LP
sale.” When I began making records, the idea was simple: You priced
your recording at slightly more than the manufacturing cost and hoped it
sold. Now streaming sites are simply “selling access” and aim only to
attract speculative capital for themselves.
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