Songwriters get low paid? Well depends on how you look on it!

Usually this is in Swedish. But sometimes when I find things in english I just write in English.

So i got this crying article on my feed, okey it's from 2014 so it's a bit outdated. Still the debate is going on. And the reason is not always to people understand the things behind it.

http://www.ascap.com/playback/2014/05/wcm-blog/shannon-hurley-pandora-sea.aspx

The article is about that the songwriter Shannon Hurley don't think the musicservices pay the songwriters fair. And how sorry it is for songwriters that they have to make it as a hobby.

Well like i wrote it is kind of old. But the latest figures from Spotify showed that they pay out 75% to rights holders. Note the word rightholders. Because just the songwriter can get paid in several ways. A right is split into diffrent sections. There is the master rights, the publishing rights, then a thirdparty rights.

I won't go into how these rights are divided into. But what she is complaining about is the part that is the publishing to make it easy to understand. So Shannon could get a big chunk of money from these other rights. Now she is only going for the services wher you don't have to put so much effort to make people listen, it's more the sevices witch are annoying like elevator music. Sure these should be paid, but like in the old days this is not worth that much. Not like a radio pick or a a Spotify stream where someone has made a choice. Not where you get stuffed with music in the main mass.

Why is that worth more you say? well to get that you need to invest in PR and that is a cost. And it tend to be better music.

Then why is the publishing rights so much lower then the other rights in the streaming world. Yes the master owner is making great money on streams these days. Well when the industry was hit by piracy in the 2000. The publihers laught at the recordlabels and told them that it was thier fault. and they was not up to share anything of what they made to the losing recordlabels. No they where close to the artist and thought radio and the new brandings was their saviour. But the recordindustry started to invest in a company called Spotify ( and others). Of course since it was new they also took all the money for their rightsshare and left crumbs on the table. The publisher was not intrested.

Now almost 10 years later the publisher sees what is happening and starts complain. Now the recordlabels should give away more of their part? Well won't happen and if they take more out of Spotify they will die and no one is getting anything.

So FUCK YOU publishers stop whining. Give the recordlabels some part of all the radio money you have taken with the record companies taking the risk and paying for PR for your songs. Yes even with radio going down you are not willing to share that money.

So songwriters there is a reson for that you won't get paid that good for it. the publisher was old not fair back in the days and you pay for that.