Social media pushes stars’ royalties to record highs
CHART-TOPPING pop stars’ repeated complaints of losing income because of music streaming have played for years like a stuck record.
However, Facebook and Instagram payouts have now helped push income from music royalties to record levels, according to the UK’S largest music rights management organisation.
Changes introduced last year by the tech giants saw artists earn money every time a song was streamed through their app and website for the first time. It meant users could add music over photos they shared online.
As a result, last year, British artists were able to share £746million in licencing income, up 4 per cent on the year before, according to PRS for Music, which represents artists including Ed Sheeran, U2 and the Rolling Stones.
Facebook confirmed it had signed deals with the world’s three biggest music labels to allow its more than two billion users to add music to videos they make on its social network and messaging apps.
Royalties were also earned thanks to streaming sites Spotify and Apple Music, as well as on websites like Youtube.
PRS for Music said streaming income for its 140,000 artists experienced the most significant uplift, of 17 per cent. Unlike CD sales, online music streaming offers a small payout per play for songs to their label and artists.
Spotify pays out around $0.005 (£0.003) per play to the artist and their label, of which an artist may typically get around one tenth of one cent.
Analysis by The Daily Telegraph showed that Ed Sheeran, who is the top streamed UK artist on Spotify with nine billion plays, has made in the region of $9million (£7million) from the app, including £2 million from just one song, although earnings would vary depending on the agreement with his record label.
It was not just young artists who were benefiting from the streaming bonanza, as estimates showed Sixties and Seventies icons such as the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters have earned almost £250,000 from their most-played song on Spotify.
The figures showed artists still generated a significant chunk of their income from radio plays and concert performances. Streaming still made up only around 20 per cent of all income from PRS for Music’s members.
“The way in which we all consume music has changed dramatically, switching from ownership to access,” said Robert Ashcroft, the chief executive of PRS for Music.
Despite concerns that streaming would destroy record labels, digital music rights have gradually become the main driving force behind the industry’s return to growth.
During the mid 2000s, it fell into a steep decline as physical record sales plunged and websites enabling the pirating of music and illegal downloads proliferated.
But the industry has since seen revenues rebound. Global revenues from the industry have increased to around £15billion, close to the amount the industry made in 2006.
In the space of 10 years, music streaming has gone from being worth a few tens of millions of pounds to record labels to accounting for roughly £7 billion in revenues.
US rapper Drake, who is the topstreamed artist across Spotify and Apple Music, was estimated by industry magazine Music Business Worldwide to have generated $145 million (£112million) from streaming.