[DivisionSol]

I've been thinking about this a bit. Compare a 1million view YouTube video (arbitrary $3/CPM(1000 views), so $3000), take the 16% cut in the article and you get $480. So Gary Numan's work is roughly valued one less magnitude than a YouTube video. I think that's a shame, but, it's not that far off.

Now you could argue Music isn't the same as a Video, but in my mind Videos can be just as timeless and classic as a tune.

Streaming/advertising creates that nice race to the bottom which evens the playing field (a view is a view is a view, a listen is a listen is a listen, 100 or 100000 it's all the same,) but people who are used to entrenched interests keeping prices high will be shocked.

[intricatedetail]

It's race to the bottom for payouts. The owners are still rolling in Bentleys and sip champagne.

[DivisionSol]

30% distribution fee is standard across so many things. Steam, AppStore, and it looks like Spotify as well.

Seems like the ones losing out are those that are signing record deals, giving over 41% (or 54%? The %s don't add up to 100 in the article,) to a label who... Just puts them on Spotify?

Spotify is in a good position to cut out record labels by working with artists directly.

[intricatedetail]

I think anti competition bodies should look into it. It sounds like a market fixing if everyone charges the same.

[friendlybus]

The most viewed youtube videos are songs. Bruno Mars Uptown Funk is sitting on 4 billion views [0].

Music has way more impact than video.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-viewed_YouTube_vi...

[svantana]

The 16% is an estimated industry average. Older contracts don't have any streaming clause so lots of legacy acts are getting screwed. Payouts are $4k-10k per million streams, depending on service and label.

[BorisTheBrave]

Given videos are usually 10mins and music 3.5 mins, and youtube adverts are both more frequent and more targeted, that might even explain the last factor of 10.