5 ms·

Yea... I think the system is rubbish, but I don't really feel very sorry for someone earning $149k from lyrics they wrote 3 years ago. Edit: helped write - per

Yea... I think the system is rubbish, but I don't really feel very sorry for someone earning $149k from lyrics they wrote 3 years ago. Edit: helped write - per wgj there were 5 authors on that song - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15419567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15419567

bm1362 9y ago
I believe that was a total? I didn't read it as just for this year.
- nfriedly 9y ago
  That could be, but it seems like he's being well compensated for his effort either way.
  - JustSomeNobody 9y ago
    Is he? Is he being compensated well when looked at relative to what others have made off of it? It would be interesting to see those numbers.
    - pwinnski 9y ago
      Just consider it flat out: Pick something you did three years ago. Let's say it took you a day, or a week, or a a good chunk of a month, off and on. With no followup work after that, what's a "reasonable" rate of return for that effort? I make a good hourly rate, but at the end of each hour, my earning from that hour is done, and none of my hours have every billed at $149k.
    - kelnos 9y ago
      You can make that argument about any kind of job. Is the CEO who makes $10M a year really worth 100x the marketer who makes $100k a year? It's all in what you value, and who has the most leverage to get more money for whatever value they may provide. You may not think it's fair that the record company made some large multiplier of what the artist made, but that's just how the business works. If you want to change it by cutting out the record company, it's a lot easier to do that than it was 20 years ago, so I'd say the situation for artists in that regard is better, not worse. In the end it absolutely does not matter what anyone thinks is "fair". Absent some form of regulation, people are going to extract as much wealth as they can out of a series of transactions, and some people are going to be more advantaged at doing so than others, whether because of talent or for structural reasons.
comboy 9y ago
It's a good amount for the time spent. But you guys need to remember that with creations like this it's probably 1/100 at best when it becomes a hit with that many spins. If you take out prob of already working with somebody really famous that's more like 1 in thousands. So it's like comparing what founder have earned per hour in some unicorn startup. Yes it's not bad, but when you think about EV of the work it doesn't look all that great.
- kelnos 9y ago
  Sure, but even with those (or worse) odds, I don't think it's that bad. I personally don't think writing a 3-4 minute melody with lyrics to go over it is worth all that much, at least in general. In that 1/100 case where it blows up and you make $150k for that time, I think that should be an exceptional case. But of course that's just my value system at work: other people might value creative work of that sort much more highly; if a creator can get that person to pay them, great. There's no intrinsic worth or value in a particular instance of creative output; it's just up to how much demand you can create based on how well you can promote/market it.

bm1362 9y ago

I believe that was a total? I didn't read it as just for this year.

nfriedly 9y ago
That could be, but it seems like he's being well compensated for his effort either way.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Is he? Is he being compensated well when looked at relative to what others have made off of it? It would be interesting to see those numbers.
  - pwinnski 9y ago
    Just consider it flat out: Pick something you did three years ago. Let's say it took you a day, or a week, or a a good chunk of a month, off and on. With no followup work after that, what's a "reasonable" rate of return for that effort? I make a good hourly rate, but at the end of each hour, my earning from that hour is done, and none of my hours have every billed at $149k.
  - kelnos 9y ago
    You can make that argument about any kind of job. Is the CEO who makes $10M a year really worth 100x the marketer who makes $100k a year? It's all in what you value, and who has the most leverage to get more money for whatever value they may provide. You may not think it's fair that the record company made some large multiplier of what the artist made, but that's just how the business works. If you want to change it by cutting out the record company, it's a lot easier to do that than it was 20 years ago, so I'd say the situation for artists in that regard is better, not worse. In the end it absolutely does not matter what anyone thinks is "fair". Absent some form of regulation, people are going to extract as much wealth as they can out of a series of transactions, and some people are going to be more advantaged at doing so than others, whether because of talent or for structural reasons.

comboy 9y ago

It's a good amount for the time spent. But you guys need to remember that with creations like this it's probably 1/100 at best when it becomes a hit with that many spins. If you take out prob of already working with somebody really famous that's more like 1 in thousands. So it's like comparing what founder have earned per hour in some unicorn startup. Yes it's not bad, but when you think about EV of the work it doesn't look all that great.

kelnos 9y ago
Sure, but even with those (or worse) odds, I don't think it's that bad. I personally don't think writing a 3-4 minute melody with lyrics to go over it is worth all that much, at least in general. In that 1/100 case where it blows up and you make $150k for that time, I think that should be an exceptional case. But of course that's just my value system at work: other people might value creative work of that sort much more highly; if a creator can get that person to pay them, great. There's no intrinsic worth or value in a particular instance of creative output; it's just up to how much demand you can create based on how well you can promote/market it.