Apple Pays $163.34 Million in Licensing Fees for Songwriters and Publishers

[PJL500]

The Mechanical Licensing Collective today announced (via Variety) that Apple and other digital service providers have paid a total of $424,384,787 in historical unmatched royalty fees.

Of that total, Apple paid $163,338,890 which was the highest fee paid out. Spotify paid $152,226,039, which marked the second highest payment. After that, Amazon paid $42,741,507, and Google paid $32,855,222. Other streaming services like Pandora, iHeart Media, SoundCloud, and Deezer paid smaller amounts.

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) that collected the funding is a nonprofit organization that was created in 2019 by the Music Modernization Act and designated by the U.S. Copyright office.

Starting in January 2021, the MLC began providing blanket licenses to eligible streaming and download services in the United States. It collects royalties due under those licenses and then pays them out to songwriters, music publishers, and others to make sure creators are receiving the proper funds for their work. Prior to now, song-by-song licensing was used, making it difficult for streaming services to deliver the proper royalties to all those involved in a song's creation.

The back fees that were paid by streaming companies in January and February are related to the Music Modernization Act's limitation on liability for past infringement. Songwriters, music publishers, composers, and others have long struggled to be paid by streaming music services, which the MLC is meant to address. Music streaming providers also sent data linking royalties to creators, and the MLC's job will be to review and analyze the data provided by the streaming music companies to find and pay the proper copyright holders.

Songwriters, composers, music publishers, and others will be able to register with the MLC to receive the payments that they're owed. The MLC will begin sending out payments in April.
Going forward, music providers like Apple are required to send the MLC monthly usage data on streaming content along with the corresponding royalties, which the MLC will dole out. For unmatched royalties, the MLC maintains a database that creators can search to see if they're due missing money.

Article Link: Apple Pays $163.34 Million in Licensing Fees for Songwriters and Publishers

With the amount of singers (hundred of thousands? millions?), it doesn't seem like a lot of money.

Thing is, it would be interesting to see the list of artists that shared 80% of that total? 'Probably not very many on that list.

 

[the7th1]

As a songwriter, I can only say that even if it sounds like a lot of money, it’s literally pennies per streaming, and nobody buys anything anymore... I’m not in the music business for money, nobody should be, but it’s hard to watch tech CEO’s getting wealthy on the back of artists making almost nothing! The music industry is broken beyond repair, and that is such a shame, because I assume most people like music...?

 

[skitidetdu]

You'd like to think the bulk of that cash went to the artists, realistically they'll be lucky to see any of it.

As long as the artist also is listed as a writer/lyricist of the song then yes he/she takes a part of the cash. But unless you’re involved in major productions you’re splitting pennies. The only people making a good living from Spotify are the people working at Spotify, not the ones that creates the content for their platform. (and every other steaming service).

 

[Colonel Blimp]

It's fine. I don't see any reason that because someone is a musician they are entitled to more money than the rest of us.

Well, for that matter, I don’t see why anyone - at least not anyone who works no harder than the rest of us - should be entitled to more money than the rest of us.

As for musicians, very few of us are earning more money than the rest of you, I assure you. We do it for love, and if we can at least feed, clothe, and house ourselves at the same time, we’re happy.

 

[xyz01]

No Tidal does not pay more than Apple. Try reading the article.

The context was that "Spotify is scummy, because they have more subscribers than Apple Music and pay less total - so the ARPU is lower". The post you replied to asked the rhetorical question if Apple is scummy, as he presumes Tidal's ARPU is higher than Apple's (which is likely, among other things because of their lossless tier).

Note that higher ARPU does not map into higher total revenue, as Tidal has far fewer users. A bit sad, really, the music quality is better and their curated playlists are top notch.

 

[code-m]

Apple Music has less paying subscribers, yet paying more royalties than Spotify.

Spotify is scummy.

Maybe I am missing something in the number, however are exclusive deals and conditions counted towards this. What if I am Taylor Swift and X amount of users are streaming my songs/albums X amount of times a second compared to some indie artist or long forgotten artist who's song(s)/album(s) are played a couple dozen times more or less. We are pretending that all things are equal, just like all actors pay is equal. Reality is not so clear.

Not even sure what is the point of reporting this, yeah I guess for the artists who are getting paid when most make their revenue via concerts and other promotions deals. Maybe this is one of the Apple Music is good because of XYZ and Spotify is bad because of XYZ. Just use whatever service suits your needs.

 

[code-m]

Well, for that matter, I don’t see why anyone - at least not anyone who works no harder than the rest of us - should be entitled to more money than the rest of us.

As for musicians, very few of us are earning more money than the rest of you, I assure you. We do it for love, and if we can at least feed, clothe, and house ourselves at the same time, we’re happy.

Cool, Hollywood would like to have a word with you (yes, I am aware you mentioned you are a music artist).

 

[code-m]

$163 millions may sounds like a lot but since Apple has billions and billions it’s a chump change. If Tim Cook walking on the street and he sees 1 million dollars CASH on the ground he will just keep walking. His time is too valuable. He has no time for mere one million dollars😊

Your example depends on an individual vice a group. Warren Buffet penny pinch and eats breakfast at McDonalds while counting how much to spend for that day or week depending on the performance of his company, I am sure even with the wealth he has, if he saw a million dollars (maybe in an open suitcase) on the street, he would stop and report it to the police and if its free and clear probably donate it.

 

[840quadra]

Baffled how google got away with paying so little. Considering so many people have and do listen to music on YouTube, and when YouTube supposedly places ads on videos that use copyrighted music to help fund the owners, I was expecting a much higher number.

Like others have stated, I’d love something like this for digital images. Have had to battle stock photo sites in the past who had rogue users who took and resold my work (among others) from legitimate customers. It’s not a fun process, and sadly image theft is far too accepted among the meme / Instagram generation.

On the social media side, It’s sad how popular leech / repost accounts are compared to legitimate photographer / videographers. Instagram / Facebook almost endorse such behavior, and make it a chore for small content owners to have our work removed from such accounts.


Why? They can track your phone to what stores you walk into, and serve you ads associated to with that data, and websites you visited recently, but they can’t search within their servers for your exact image across multiple accounts? Come on!

At least Music has good systems in place, but I am sure systems like the one in this article can’t catch it all.

 

[Ramchi]

$163 millions from a Trillion Dollars company vs $157 millions from a $30 billion company makes lots of difference. For me Spotify & Amazon Music provides perfect collections. Apple Music has very very limited numbers in the genres that I listen to. Still Spotify & Amazon can improve their collections. Besides, my Apple Music purchases keep disappearing from my collection.

 

[Fishing Rick]

It's cool that they are paying so much, but doesn't justify how janky the product itself and it's UX is.

 

[wanha]

While I'm glad that the total amount of money paid is going up and that Apple is paying more royalties per stream, this is still pathetically low.

Not even half a billion for all the music in the world per year?! When did we decide that music is worth so little?

My heart hurts for all the amazing artists struggling to earn a living from their craft.

 

[davidec]

I’m excited. I got $37 for half a million plays of one of my tracks.

 

[ani4ani]

While I'm glad that the total amount of money paid is going up and that Apple is paying more royalties per stream, this is still pathetically low.

Not even half a billion for all the music in the world per year?! When did we decide that music is worth so little?

My heart hurts for all the amazing artists struggling to earn a living from their craft.

No, this is not for all the music in the world, it is for streamed music with unmatched royalties, i.e. the streaming providers do not know who the royalties should go to; Taylor Switft is not missing out on her royalties.

Nonetheless, to your main point is, the real number for royalties, which is a much bigger number than this, but is anyway very low and is not comensurate with the effort made and the pleasure acquired from music.

 

[phenste]

When an artists gets a DIRECT payment from CUSTOMER TO ARTIST of e.g. $ 100 after processing fees and taxes she can be lucky to net $ 60 or $ 70. For these umbrella deals with the big managers and houses and management fees and what not I guess that crumbles down to merely a few dollars after taxes, even for the biggest musicians.

We customers are getting screwed over too. When I send money to an artist I want my hard earned cash to go to the artist, not to some ultra-rich man-in-the-middle attackers.

Agreed completely. I think this is why Bandcamp Friday has seen such booming success, especially as the live entertainment industry has been suffocating in the pandemic—and Bandcamp seems to be setting up to keep it in place forever. (Context: Bandcamp is a popular website for artists to self-publish, but Bandcamp still needs commissions to keep the site running; on Bandcamp Friday, every Friday, they waive these fees entirely—every single penny you pay is going directly to the artist.)

It pleases me greatly to see Apple paying more royalties when they have a fraction of the subscribers Spotify does and no free tier (read: no ability to listen without paying). Streaming as a whole is still a shameful model of business for artists and I hope we see genuine improvement over the years. It’s also been an inevitable evolution of the Internet age, given people started torrenting music as early as it was physically possible.

I’m excited. I got $37 for half a million plays of one of my tracks.

Annnnnd…I’m just gonna tack this onto my post. Thank you for making my entire point in less than three sentences.

 

[robjulo]

The article needs to be more clear, as 90% of the people posting seem not to realize that the royalties written about are just a fraction of the overall royalties being paid. Theses are just the amounts for unmatched royalties.

 

[m00f]

It's fine. I don't see any reason that because someone is a musician they are entitled to more money than the rest of us.

Most the musicians I know live at or below the federal poverty line

 

[williambloke]

As a songwriter, there are many instances where royalties should be paid, but slip through the cracks and are never doled out. It is usually up to record companies, unions, and or other third party organizations to help make sure the proper songwriting credits are being received by these services and royalties being paid. I am just glad that someone like the MLC is watching dogging to help musicians.

The most egregious thing is just how little services actually pay artists per stream. It is about $0.004 per stream, so it would take about 250 streams just to reach one dollar. A song streamed one million times might garner a bit over $4000 for all parties involved (record company, songwriters). In stark contrast, if one million people bought a song on iTunes, the recording artist might make about $100,000.00.

 

[robjulo]

As a songwriter, there are many instances where royalties should be paid, but slip through the cracks and are never doled out. It is usually up to record companies, unions, and or other third party organizations to help make sure the proper songwriting credits are being received by these services and royalties being paid. I am just glad that someone like the MLC is watching dogging to help musicians.

The most egregious thing is just how little services actually pay artists per stream. It is about $0.004 per stream, so it would take about 250 streams just to reach one dollar. A song streamed one million times might garner a bit over $4000 for all parties involved (record company, songwriters). In stark contrast, if one million people bought a song on iTunes, the recording artist might make about $100,000.00.

Interesting info. Doing that math, if only the artist was getting paid, the $10 a month I'm paying, that should buy me 2500 streams. In reality, I probably (and this is a huge rough estimate) stream maybe 200-300 songs a month. Who is getting the bulk of that pie?

edit: my math was wrong

 

[koruki]

When an artists gets a DIRECT payment from CUSTOMER TO ARTIST of e.g. $ 100 after processing fees and taxes she can be lucky to net $ 60 or $ 70. For these umbrella deals with the big managers and houses and management fees and what not I guess that crumbles down to merely a few dollars after taxes, even for the biggest musicians.

We customers are getting screwed over too. When I send money to an artist I want my hard earned cash to go to the artist, not to some ultra-rich man-in-the-middle attackers.

Then call the artist and ask when you can drop a $100 cash off lol... good luck

 

[BrianBaughn]

As has been stated this is only "unmatched" royalties for songwriters and publishers. This is not all of the royalties for songwriters and publishers they owe…just a small percentage I'd say.

Also, those aren't "artist" royalties. If you didn't write the song or own the publishing for the song you don't get these. Artist royalties are a different subsection of total royalties.

There's a lot of crap on the streaming services and I would imagine the creators/uploaders that put the stuff up there that results in "unmatched" royalties just haven't done the proper work to attribute the songs to the rightful copyright owners…be it themselves or someone else.

 

[peneaux]

I prefer Apple Music interface but Spotify has better discovery/recommendations.

Apple Music tries to push Teen Pop (cRap music). Would be nice to be able to outright block that genre.

 

[wanha]

I prefer Apple Music interface but Spotify has better discovery/recommendations.

Apple Music tries to push Teen Pop (cRap music). Would be nice to be able to outright block that genre.

Agree. The lack of customization in Apple Music (such as the inability to follow artists - like seriously??) is very disappointing.

 

[wanha]

As a songwriter, there are many instances where royalties should be paid, but slip through the cracks and are never doled out. It is usually up to record companies, unions, and or other third party organizations to help make sure the proper songwriting credits are being received by these services and royalties being paid. I am just glad that someone like the MLC is watching dogging to help musicians.

The most egregious thing is just how little services actually pay artists per stream. It is about $0.004 per stream, so it would take about 250 streams just to reach one dollar. A song streamed one million times might garner a bit over $4000 for all parties involved (record company, songwriters). In stark contrast, if one million people bought a song on iTunes, the recording artist might make about $100,000.00.

Agree 100%. Streaming is not a good deal for most artists.

 

[wanha]

No, this is not for all the music in the world, it is for streamed music with unmatched royalties, i.e. the streaming providers do not know who the royalties should go to; Taylor Switft is not missing out on her royalties.

Nonetheless, to your main point is, the real number for royalties, which is a much bigger number than this, but is anyway very low and is not comensurate with the effort made and the pleasure acquired from music.

Thanks for the clarification, friend.