The age of the electronic media and social platforms have created new spaces for creators such musicians, who may be not attached to a traditional record company, creating a more autonomous model.
However, nowadays, the road to stardom and a living wage is a steep one.
Over the past decade, the way of making money in the music business by selling recorded albums has become obsolete and the technology of the streaming services has completely disrupted the industry. The musicians and composers have been impacted dramatically.
The rates per stream for diverse music services fluctuates from .01900 to .00069 dollars per dowloaded song, which make earning money through music and social media platforms very challenging.
In other terms, the total plays needed to earn the US Minimum Monthly Wage is as follow for some of the most common platforms:
Napster -77,474 times
Google Play Music -217,752 times
Spotify – 336,842 times
YouTube– 2,133,333
Reality is that it takes a lot of downloads or views to make a little money, a steep road for most musicians.
How do musicians make money? By creative hustle.
For example, U2, the highest-paid musical act of 2017, made $54.4 million according to Billboard‘s annual Money Makers report. Of their total earnings, about 95%, came from touring, while less than 4% came from streaming and album sales.
Attorney Marcos E. Garciaacosta can guide you in many aspects of the music industry and many other artistic
Call us for an appointment at (480) 324-6378.