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