Songwriting being murdered by streaming services: Time to act?

Songwriters have seen their struggle and have gone through a fight that gained them the recognition they deserve, The battle was not easy and it didn’t happen in a short period of time. But the recent trend of streaming services is leaving the songwriters in a glitch. American Music industry was known for righteously honoring the artists and musicians involved in the making of a song. The system believed in rewarding talents and assuring them a secured earning.

Big players and twisted rules hampered earning prospects

But with the advent of digital age, the scenario has changed. The albums have been replaced by digital downloads and this whole streaming scenario has been a big blow to songwriter’s mechanical royalty income. During the album era, even a throwback track on a bestselling LP earned a songwriter an equivalent amount of hits that compelled people to purchase albums. Songwriters were respected and there art was honored, monetarily too. Songwriters command extremely low performance rates from the streaming services including Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Apple Music. The amount has highly steeped down when compared to what they received from terrestrial plays.

The math here is simple but highly skewed and disproportionate. The terms that have been decided between record labels and streaming services leave songwriters financially bruised. Under these terms that have been signed off by the Federal Courts, on every streaming of song, sixty per cent of the income goes to the owners of the sound recording, thirty per cent goes to the service itself, and ten per cent goes to songwriters and publishers. To be precise and stating in percentage terms, every time a song is streamed on am Internet radio site, the songwriters receive a thousandth of a cent per stream.

As low rates persist with streaming services, songwriters suffer the worse

Another question that still remains though is the disparity in rates. Streams are paid at an extremely low rate when compared to radio spins. The standard reason provided by the companies is that streams are generally a one-on-one transaction. On the other hand, a radio spin reaches to a million people at a time. The record labels have managed to keep a huge chunk of guaranteed income for themselves. And the scenario is getting worse for the songwriters. A lot of professionals know the science and theory and dread the consequences that will hover around in coming years.

Savan Kotecha, songwriter for Grammy nominated ‘Love me like you do’ agrees completely. He knows what all is at stake and how difficult the situations will get. “It affects how you plan for the future and whether you invest in new talent, because in the streaming world you won’t necessarily see any return on your investment. For now, terrestrial radio is holding out. But radio could go away, because everyone has phones. And once streaming gets into cars in a big way, it’s over”, said Savan. The solution to this seems nowhere because songwriters cannot go against the streaming industry. That would mar their own future because music listeners will continue to embrace the streaming services. Albums are becoming a thing of passé and are at a consistent decline in terms of numbers. Songwriters need a savior or else the art will deplete.