Billy Corgan is an outspoken guy. The Smashing Pumpkins frontman turned semi-pro wrestler is known to speak out when he’s got an opinion, especially about politics. And he’s none too happy about what Apple’s been doing with Apple Music.
Responding to the debacle between Taylor Swift and Apple over paying musicians royalties for their catalog during Apple Music’s introductory 3-month free period (a flare-up which resulted in Apple’s uncharacteristic caving, Corgan told CNBC:
I applaud her for taking a stand, but this is going to be played out by the media as ‘Taylor versus Apple,’ and that’s not the real story. The real story is the 10,000 other artists that Apple doesn’t pay attention to past their top 12.
He went on to say this would only end if artists within the industry “wake up.”
Once artists understand the power they have in this marketplace, all heck’s going to break loose. This is a big admission on Apple’s part that they’re afraid of the negative tide that could be beginning, so they want to nip it in the bud.
We’re not being paid commensurate to our value to Apple, Spotify or to anybody. Once the artists wake up, there’s going to be a bloody turf war, and this is a very big sign of what I’ve been predicting.
It’s true, musicians are chronically underpaid by streaming services. According to Spotify, artists earn approximately 7/10ths of a penny every time a song is streamed online. Apple Music probably doesn’t offer artists much more than that, even without taking a free streaming period into account.
So Corgan’s right. It’s time to wake-up. Unless we start paying artists what they’re worth — not just musicians, but writers, film makers, and yes, even photographers — art itself will become unsustainable. But that’s not actually an issue of Apple’s greed. It’s an issue of all of our greed.
Source: CNBC
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
23 responses to “Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan calls Apple Music a big Zero”
How much are the artists asking for? 7/10 of a penny doesn’t seem that outrageous.
They are getting 71.5% of the subscriber fee. If the subscriber streams 10 songs, then that’s $0.715 per song. 100 songs=$0.0715 per song.
This assumes the individual $9.99 plan. Obviously, the $14.99 family plan changes the math.
Also, that goes to the LABEL. What percentage of that amount that actually goes to the artist depends on the artists’ contract with their label.
In Tay Tay’s case, she owns her own label, so she gets a higher percentage than other artists who don’t own their label.
If anyone is that worried about their favorite artist not being paid enough, they can still buy their album outright on iTunes (or other music stores), or just stream 1 song per month from their favorite artist-they’ve then paid them $7.15 for the song.
What’s so wrong with Apple having to keep part of the revenue to cover their overhead for promotion, bandwidth, hosting, server maintenance, etc.?
Furthermore, if the artists don’t like it, they can pull their music from Apple Music completely.
The problem is that for most artists (all except for maybe Taylor Swift right now), they know that by pulling their music from AM they will be left behind. They want to have the promotion and discovery features of AM (and Spotify, et al.), but they don’t want Apple and others to keep their cut.
The “artists” can’t have it both ways.
It can’t be $0.007 per stream, because that’s only around 80 hours of music (at a generous 5 minutes/song) and then Apple would have to start giving up more money. And this money also has to include payments to both the performer and the songwriter.
And if it’s a fixed amount per stream, who keeps the extra money from people who don’t stream that much? I’ll bet the big-three labels have got Apple to give it to them.
So when was the last time Billy Corgan was relevant? Is this just another artist claiming their millions aren’t becoming enough additional millions from streaming music?
What does relevance have to do with the point?
I’m a huge fan of the streaming model and it has done wonders to curtail illegal downloading however Corgan is right that the system is broken, however as the author points out, it’s not Apple nor Spotify at fault, it’s the labels that make awful deals that devalue their roster from the start.
Where I disagree with Corgan is that thanks to streaming services, those thousands of smaller artists now have an easier platform to get their music in front of the public. Much easier than they had 10 years ago.
The biggest thing the music business can do is to look at the album as a promo tool and not use it as a source of income. Let the artists make their money off touring, merch, publishing royalties from sync licenses and other creative means. The real story here is that the tidal wave of profits the music biz saw before 1999 is over and never coming back again. They’re just too stubborn to accept it.
I agree. Streaming is the present and future of digital music whether artists like it or not. And you’re also right in that albums aren’t going to make them millions anymore. Touring is where the money comes from. And probably endorsement deals and royalty checks from having their music on TV shows and movies. Fighting streaming is going to get them nowhere.
Or maybe in a free market that is precisely what the art is worth. If consumers are only willing to pay X amount for a product isn’t that the true value? So, if Apple charges $50/month for Apple Music and paid the artists 10¢ for each play, but only 1/100,000th of their customers purchase it, wouldn’t the artists be worse off with less plays in the economy of scale? The bottom line is that the artists own their product, and if they don’t think they’re being compensated fairly then they can withhold their product from the service, protecting their perceived value and refusing a revenue stream that will in part replace declining physical media sales.
This all comes back to the fact that music, much like video and other digital multimedia, isn’t tangible and can easily be obtained and shared for free (albeit illegal and/or immoral). Since the development of Napster and other utilities that use the internet to share media, the fall of standalone physical records stores, there’s been a fundamental shift in the way the consumer perceives the value of music. The fact that its so easily obtainable and that there are so many options of how to access it, the consumer needs to find extreme value in order to throw another monthly payment on top of the others that the average household is already struggling to support. At the end of the day, the only real way for artists to monetize their music is to perform and license it for commercial use. This “per song streaming model” is merely a last ditch effort to squeeze a last few bucks out of the old music business model ship before it sinks into the future..
It’s not Apples job to pay the artists, its there record label that should be paying them. Just because Apple wasn’t going to pay the labels money doesn’t mean that the labels shouldn’t pay there artists.
Exactly.
The labels are getting a free pass in all of this.
I like streaming because if I like a band and they come to town I will go see them in concert since that is how they make money. It has always been the case most artist dont make money of sales of the song or album.
Art is a hobby, not a career. Do this shit in your spare time and go get a real fucking job.
“Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan calls Apple Music a big Zero”
What more do you need to know than this: “The Smashing Pumpkins frontman turned semi-pro wrestler…”
Apple would probably pay 70% too, it’s their common practice to developers too.
Bogus, click bait headline… Nowhere does he call the new service a “zero.” Sensationalize much?!
All this music stuff is getting annoying. Think I’ll go back to listening to pod casts and radio till this all blows over.
Is it time for the Second Coming of Peter Grant? LOL (FYI he was the manager of Led Zeppelin who historically changed the way artists get paid for live shows, demanding 90% of entrance fees rather than the 60% norm that was.) Yes, they factored around $550,000 PER SHOW back in the early 70s. “There’s no business like show business” LOL
“Once artists understand the power they have in this marketplace”
This is exactly the problem. Taylor Swift or Billy Corgan (15 years ago) have some pull but the little guys rely on Apple, Spotify or their local radio stations to get them recognition. In a world with thousands of artists across every genre, the little guys have no power because people don’t know they exist.
I think that is Apple’s cue to be their voice (assuming they care as much about music as they keep claiming) and stand up for the little guys to support them any way they can.
From a business side, I can see Apple easily saying the same words with a different tone though. They hold all the power and are doing the artist (big or small) a favour by publicizing their music, so why do them even more of a favour by paying them when Apple themselves aren’t getting paid?
Overall I’m just glad they’re paying them in the end. whatever the reason. I love music and I want to see the industry flourish and little guys get recognition.
Or you get your shit together and start making MUSIC worth money or go fucking live shows to earn some. Nothing to see here, move on.
So the record labels always treated artists well? When was it good for artists? My heart just goes out to the poor guy.
Because he’s relevant. 1994 called and you need to check your AOL.
Back at ya Billy.
No one give a shit what you think Billy. Go back to 90’s. You might find some relevance back there.