Apple Music and Apple Arcade to Earn $8.2 Billion Annual Revenue by 2025, Says JP Morgan Analyst

[dwt2020]

So you are in a much better position than an artist who is contracted to a label. You keep 100% of what Spotify and Apple pays you while a label contracted artist receives perhaps 50% or whatever the contract stipulates.

Yes, but I was simply displaying even with the 100% royalties, just how badly paid artists can be.

 

[Expos of 1969]

Yes, but I was simply displaying even with the 100% royalties, just how badly paid artists can be.

Granted. This is not directed at you personally as I have not heard your music and have no idea if you are talented or not....but as the charts show, talent is not required at all to be successful....but there is a bigger problem as follows...

Music, painting, writing, acting etc. is important to a civilized society and should be encoraged. But to what extent? Should it have to support itself or should some governmental subsidies be part of the equation? I believe some subsidy is beneficial but....just because someone likes playing the guitar or painting, society does not owe them a financially viable career in their desired field. Unfortunately in many cases it is the mass appeal stuff that garners financial support. No easy answers.

 

[Reason077]

I read sometime ago that the Record Labels get a cut from this as well. Is that still true or has the industry changed?

Steaming platforms don't pay artists directly. Rightsholders such as record labels (for recording royalties) and publishers (for songwriting royalties) get the bulk of all streaming revenue. They, in turn, pay the artists. How much the artist gets depends very much on their contract with their record label.

Spotify explains it all here: https://artists.spotify.com/en/help/article/royalties

 

[CarlJ]

Not to single Apple Music out, but streaming music as a whole is a broken business model.

Yes, most consumers love it and the streaming companies rake in billions, but most artists can't afford even a basic standard of living from their life's work.

Agreed. The artists and record labels should have told the early streaming companies to get bent (or offer at least 10x as much money). It's a bad deal for everyone except the streaming services. And the argument in favor of it seems to be, "well, but if we offered it at a price that allowed fair payment to the artists, nobody would have subscribed". If your business model is based on basically charity from other parties involved, then that business model deserves to fail, not be propped up.

Steve Jobs and Apple gave the record companies a way out of the mess that was early digital music, which was, at the time, a combination of weird proprietary (like per-record-company) draconian systems (they way overreached, you couldn't play music on multiple devices, etc.), and rampant piracy. 99 cents per song was a deal everyone could understand, and sold a whole lot of music. Streaming cuts into that, heavily, for a system that's great... for the streaming companies. I get that Apple kind of has to do it to compete, but I'd be happy to see all-you-can-eat streaming go away (or get jacked up in price across the board, with all the additional money going to the artists).

 

[Abazigal]

Maybe we should stop giving so much exposure to multi-billionaire pop "artists" who produce recycled crap with non-sensical lyrics written by a 5 year old, and start pushing more unknown real artists with talent in automated playlists. Just a thought.

Well, everyone’s definition of “talent” is different after all.

 

[svish]

Apple Arcade requires many more good quality games, Without this don’t think it can be a success.

With Apple One, Arcade is available. Otherwise don’t think Arcade has many good games to be worth the individual subscription price.

 

[Hessian]

Not to single Apple Music out, but streaming music as a whole is a broken business model.

Yes, most consumers love it and the streaming companies rake in billions, but most artists can't afford even a basic standard of living from their life's work.

For a musician to earn $1 from Apple Music, they need to have 136 streams (for Spotify, this number is 229... embarrassing).

The deal, as it currently stands, is absurdly unfair and one-sided.

Come on Tim, let's fix this

The music industry failed its talent decades ago, and it is a sad state. Apple is a part of the solution, but they aren't a savior for the deep issues.

 

[wanha]

The music industry failed its talent decades ago, and it is a sad state. Apple is a part of the solution, but they aren't a savior for the deep issues.

Well said, friend. 👊