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275 points starkparker | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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cortesoft ◴[] No.45133347[source]
So the author talks about how little money per stream artists make... but how much SHOULD they be making? What is fair compensation for writing a song?

In the old days, artists would join a label and put out an album. The artist would earn about 10% of sales or so (varies of course, but on average). So a $15 CD would earn an artist $1.50.

The article lists the 'price per stream' as about $0.005. So it would take about 300 streams of a song to earn the same amount as selling a CD used to make.

I feel like that isn't categorically less money than artists used to make per song listen? There are many albums I own that I have listened to way more than 30 times, which is what it would take for a 10 song album to get 300 song 'streams'

Is that a fair compensation? Why or why not?

I think artists should be able to earn money from creating music, but I don't know how we decide how much they actually deserve if we aren't just going based on the price the market sets.

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al_borland ◴[] No.45133409[source]
It is also implied that the author is now pirating their music, so now instead of the artist getting some money from the author, they get none.
replies(2): >>45133419 #>>45133493 #
1. lacy_tinpot ◴[] No.45133493[source]
Artists no longer make money from selling music. They make money from live performances, or niche products like vinyl records/merch. But from streaming services? Not really.

Live performances also have the added benefit of shielding artists from AI music.