Streaming Royalties And Song Replayability

It’s funny to think that music royalties were once made essentially through the sale of polycarbonate plastic. Gobs were flatten as discs with a long audio laser groove. If you sold about 50 metric tons of the stuff you’d receive a gold plated one from the music industry.

But more importantly for artists, royalties were made essentially upfront on those plastic sales. Once purchased fans could play the CD all they wanted; the royalties on that CD were paid in full for a lifetime. There were no further recurrent costs or middlemen to worry about.

Artists royalties depended on a single, one-time buying decision by fans.

In this article we’ll explore the fundamental differences with the streaming model when it comes to generating royalties. That switch has important consequences for artistic expression as well.

Streaming royalties are about playcounts. Each play earns only a tiny fraction of the royalties an artist used to get upfront from a CD sale. Roughly speaking, now each fan needs to play dutifully a song hundreds of times (thousands on Youtube) to generate for artists the same royalties as upfront ownership used to. Of course, this depends on artist contracts. But that’s a tall order by any measure.

Artists royalties now depend on fans making hundreds of repeated decisions to play theirs songs again.

So now it’s crucial to keep fans coming back. But that’s easier said than done. That rental business can be brutal to say the least. Artists now find themselves in a “repeat business” with music streaming.

Every day artists have to wrestle those play decisions away from millions of other competing songs.

This makes it nearly impossible for artists to generate royalties on par with the past model, flawed as it was. Even as millions more listeners are transitioning to streaming, platforms like to divert users elsewhere with listening suggestions. And the industry tends to treat songs as commodities, moving on when a song is burned.

It would be truly awesome if artists were provided the means to keep infusing their published songs with renewed creativity, interpretations and ideas. That’s what artists do long after a song is released, on stage or even at home. Songs would be transformed into something like long-running shows with fascinating histories. That would keep fans engaged and coming back to see what’s new. This would create entirely novel monetization possibilities for artists as well.

“Songs are not disposable commodities, used up when going off the charts. I see them as bodies of work. Life should be continuously breathed into them.” — Sting

Back to today’s realities, things seem to have changed already in the way artists have released songs lately. In the streaming royalties game, it’s all about the elusive concept of Song Replayability.

All or nothing

On most platforms a listener must stream a song for at least 30 seconds for a royalty payment to be triggered. Less than that, the artist gets nothing. The ostensible purpose of this rule is to promote browsing and discovery. So it literally pays to put your best stuff upfront with a strong, hooky song beginning.

Songs are getting shorter

Many new songs are well under 3 minutes. Some artists purposely do it because a shorter song has more replayability. Also, a shorter song is less expensive to produce. In terms of royalties, a short song played twice makes more money than a long song played once. This seems unfair to artists who thoughtfully produce long-running songs of great quality.

On the other hand, listeners typically give only a few seconds of attention to any new song. So it might be beneficial for everyone if songs could be published by artists in variable lengths on streaming platforms. The first play for new listeners would be the shorter, hooky version to improve its chances. Listeners could decide later which version they prefer, perhaps even shuffle between them.

Songs are using more repetition

Many songs repeat copiously certain sounds or lyrics snippets so that casual listeners can recognize the song quickly. This buzz can generate large number of plays in the short term. But there is an obvious downside to this. Repetition makes a song tiresome to listen to eventually. As industry insiders say, it burns the song faster. Once burned, the industry will switch its marketing focus to another song from someone else.

But for you as an artist, letting a producer abuse repetition in your song will likely hurt your long term ability to generate royalties. Artists may trust the judgement of the producers up to a point. But it’d be wise to offer listeners alternate versions and musical options to sustain long term enjoyment.

Songs are simpler in subject and structure

This likely helps search engines and taste-matching algorithms. Song structures certainly have been optimized in the past for greater appeal. But now instrumental bridges, long intros, or even intros are fast disappearing. Many songs now start straight into the catchiest part, usually the chorus. Releasing a simplified song this way is another tough call to make for artists. It may be sensible short term because most artists only get one chance in a saturated market after all. But this trade-off will likely hurt royalty earnings in the long run.

Does simplicity increase the risk of song disposability?

Interestingly, recent studies have revealed that people tend to stick with the music they’ve grown to like up until the age of 24. This means that young people who enjoy a song will likely keep playing it later in life. This can be really good news for an artist future livelihood. However this will certainly hinge on the song continuing to be enjoyable by the older, more sophisticated adults they’ll become. If the song is too simplistic it might not have that staying power.

Great songs seem to have this timeless transcendence. It’s not just in music. We’ve all experienced the gleeful discovery that old movies, tv shows and books we enjoyed as kids actually had deeper themes, veiled meanings, innuendos, etc. This is often artistry of the highest order.

Infusing your song with layered depth will help generate royalties handsomely for years to come.

Polycarbonate no more

So why artists and listeners are being subjected to these difficult trade-offs? Because that’s how music products are planned, made, distributed and marketed by the industry. In many ways, it is still operating on the basis that physical products need to be manufactured and put on store shelves. Once issued no one wants to make changes and recall the inventory.

But we’re fast moving away from this plastic business. This is an online world where things can be changed and updated instantly. It’s now becoming possible for artists to escape the commoditization model of the past. Artists can put their boundless creativity to good use and bring back the fans to their songs with new features and interpretation ideas. Artists can now transform their songs into evolving, internet-fueled content. That’s how modern online media operate and sustain interest in their titles. Artists should have this option too.

In the streaming age artists can continuously infuse their songs with creative power to produce a lifetime of enjoyment for listeners.

The Serenader Project is an interactive streaming experiment exploring the future of music in the streaming age. Artists can publish their songs as different versions and add more later. Listeners can customize songs to their tastes from musical options offered by artists.