Publishing CEO: There Are Over 900,000 Distinct Royalty Payments For Artists And Songwriters

(Image source: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-06/09/kobalt-buys-amra/viewgallery/345146)

This was written by Kobalt Music CEO, Willard Ahdritz.

Why should music, which is beloved by people in every culture, across every language and corner of the globe, be anything less than an economic powerhouse? Today, live ticket sales have hit an all-time high. Music publishing values and revenues have increased. Tech companies are investing in music by the billions. And, perhaps most importantly, more people have legitimate access and choice, in both platforms and music, than ever before. And for music creators, one global hit can unlock millions of revenue streams from billions of transactions and micro-payments that add up to more demand and music usage than ever before.

We are so close to the golden age of music. But we’re not there yet.

While technology has improved consumers’ access to music, the music industry has not embraced technology to improve royalty tracking, collections and payment to the songwriters creating the music itself.

Yesterday’s antiquated infrastructure, which much of the industry still employs, was not built to handle the enormous volume and complexity of data that digital music requires today.

And with the meteoric growth of streaming platforms, devices and emerging markets, the challenge of managing rights and collecting royalties from around the world is only intensifying.

One hit song today can generate up to 900,000 distinct royalty payments, and just one of those could be from Spotify in the U.S., for billions of individual streams, that then have to be accounted for and paid out to each of the song’s different writers.

7 Tips for Instantly Better Lyrics | by Cliff Goldmacher, BMI

At its best, lyric writing is a magical mixture of creativity and storytelling that can bring your listener into a world you’ve created and hold them there for the length of your song. However, in order to create the perfect, tightly-scripted narrative that great lyrics possess, countless hours of writing and re-writing are often necessary. I’ve found it’s just as important to know how to critically examine and edit a lyric as it is to write one in the first place. To that end, here are seven questions that songwriters can ask themselves during and after a songwriting session to make sure their lyrics are as effective as they can possibly be.

http://ornamentalpeanut.com/category/guides 1. Is everything you’re writing related to the hook/message of the song?

Given the truly limited amount of time you’ve got to make your point in a lyric, it pays to make sure each line serves the message of your hook so that the song’s point is developed and driven home at every opportunity. Lines that just sound or feel good are, unfortunately, a waste of valuable space.

On a related note, if you’re building your lyric around an overall metaphor such as the ocean, for example, stay away from expressions or images that don’t relate. What I mean is that expressions about waves will work better than expressions like “putting on the brakes” which relate to automotive imagery instead. Each image and detail should relate to the overall metaphor in order for the lyric to be at its most powerful. Be careful, though, not to use so many metaphors that your song sounds contrived. Being conversational and not “too clever” is an important step in keeping your song believable.

http://thebeginningfarmer.com/page/49/ 2. Have you used details in your verses?

Verses are the place to tell the story and stories are best told with interesting details. The expression “A picture is worth a thousand words” is never truer than in your verses. To that end, really focus on the kind of imagery that will bring the listener into your song. Instead of saying “a woman gives a man at the bar a cold look,” you could say “his beer was warmer than the look in her eye.”

On the other extreme, be careful not to overdo it in your verses with the kind of minutia that makes a song seem too long or confuses your listener. The keys to great verse writing are being interesting and impactful.

3. Have you already said it?

One of the traps we fall into as songwriters is inadvertently coming up with different ways to say the same thing. Be certain in your verses that each line furthers the story and you’re not simply repeating yourself line after line. Every line of every verse is an opportunity to move your story along with new details/information.

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