3 ms·

Sorry, I am getting confused by all the jargon being used here and in the article. You say you pay artists but then you imply that you pay associations / label

Sorry, I am getting confused by all the jargon being used here and in the article. You say you pay artists but then you imply that you pay associations / labels who then pay artists based on their contract with the association / label. Doesn't that mean that you do not pay artists in the same manner as Pandora? (also, if you have the time, I am not exactly sure what the performer, artist etc. separation is regarding payments, could you clarify?)

adventured 13y ago
Artists get paid based on their contract with publishers for radio plays. Some musicians get paid well by publishers for radio play, others get completely screwed. It depends on what deal they sign. The fact is, and this is a fact: artists get royalty cuts from publishers based on radio play. The details of it varies from one contract to the next (eg what Madonna makes versus Joe Nobody). Also, sometimes artists are the songwriters, that's not uncommon at all in fact. Sometimes artists have very lucrative rights ownership over their own music. That all depends on the choices they make along the way. Radio doesn't pay artists directly (would have been wildly impractical until recently), but that's also not by choice. Radio stations don't get to choose how they license the music, that's dictated by the rights holders of the music (the publishers and companies like Sony ATV hold most of the power).
- rurounijones 13y ago
  Thank you for the clarification. So going back to one of your earlier comments >> "If major market FM stations paid the same rates as Pandora, based on audience, some would be paying thousands of dollars for every song they played. How much do they pay performers right now? Zero." > He's using industry jargon to pretend like FM radio doesn't pay out to artists. The reality is, he's being very deceitful. (Emphasis added by RurouniJones) But based on what you have said above he is correct. You do not pay out to artists, you pay out to associations (I understand this is not by choice and that you are basically screwed by powerful publishing cartels). It may be a small semantic difference but you said he lost credibility and was being deceitful by saying it when he (at least to me the layman) appears to be correct.

adventured 13y ago

Artists get paid based on their contract with publishers for radio plays. Some musicians get paid well by publishers for radio play, others get completely screwed. It depends on what deal they sign. The fact is, and this is a fact: artists get royalty cuts from publishers based on radio play. The details of it varies from one contract to the next (eg what Madonna makes versus Joe Nobody). Also, sometimes artists are the songwriters, that's not uncommon at all in fact. Sometimes artists have very lucrative rights ownership over their own music. That all depends on the choices they make along the way. Radio doesn't pay artists directly (would have been wildly impractical until recently), but that's also not by choice. Radio stations don't get to choose how they license the music, that's dictated by the rights holders of the music (the publishers and companies like Sony ATV hold most of the power).

rurounijones 13y ago
Thank you for the clarification. So going back to one of your earlier comments >> "If major market FM stations paid the same rates as Pandora, based on audience, some would be paying thousands of dollars for every song they played. How much do they pay performers right now? Zero." > He's using industry jargon to pretend like FM radio doesn't pay out to artists. The reality is, he's being very deceitful. (Emphasis added by RurouniJones) But based on what you have said above he is correct. You do not pay out to artists, you pay out to associations (I understand this is not by choice and that you are basically screwed by powerful publishing cartels). It may be a small semantic difference but you said he lost credibility and was being deceitful by saying it when he (at least to me the layman) appears to be correct.