Quiz: how much money has Stairway to Heaven made in royalty payments?

[Rain Man]

It's the honor system. Make your guess and then check out the number from this article about the Taurus lawsuit: http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/15/medi...ial/index.html

Spoiler!

Condé Nast Portfolio estimated in 2008 that "Stairway to Heaven" had earned more than $562 million in publishing royalties and record sales since it's 1971 release.

And recognize that that number is nine years old. The song was released in 1971, so $562 million only covers 37 years of its 45 year history.

[LoneWolf]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Wrong


You can Google all you want but the real numbers are far different

I don't work in the industry, but I did call Logan Mize who is married to my first cousin and he confirmed that your numbers are off. Not that I give a huge shit, but 1/10,000 of a cent sounded pretty far fetched.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

I don't work in the industry, but I did call Logan Mize who is married to my first cousin and he confirmed that your numbers are off. Not that I give a huge shit, but 1/10,000 of a cent sounded pretty far fetched.

I'm sorry, that's the correct number. Each streaming company has a different agreement but Spotify pays 1/10,000th of a cent. They claim that they pay an average of .0007 cents but that figure is extremely rare.

James Blunt claims that he's paid 0.0004499368 per stream. There are artists that have had millions of streams, only to be paid less than $20.00 dollars.

I had a statement in which I was paid $16.35 for 59,990 streams via Netflix. That's .0002 cents, which is higher than Spotify, proving that all streaming sources aren't paid evenly.

It's a mess.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Simply Red

which version, Neil Sedaka's?

[Tombstone RJ]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Streaming pays 1/10,000th of a cent per play currently on Spotify. Pandora and other services pay less.

I'm sure there will be tens of millions earned in the next 100 years but I seriously doubt it'll match what it's earned previously.

That's hard to believe. I know that I pay spotify $9.99 a month for as much music I want (and can download). That's not much to pay but I've also noticed that spotify doesn't have the full catalog of music from many of the artists I listen too. I just don't see how spotify can pay an artist just 1/10,000th of a cent to an artist to stream their song. Even if 1 million people a day streamed one particular song, that only pays the artist, what, $100? I can't even do the math, lol!

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Tombstone RJ

That's hard to believe. I know that I pay spotify $9.99 a month for as much music I want (and can download). That's not much to pay but I've also noticed that spotify doesn't have the full catalog of music from many of the artists I listen too. I just don't see how spotify can pay an artist just 1/10,000th of a cent to an artist to stream their song. Even if 1 million people a day streamed one particular song, that only pays the artist, what, $100? I can't even do the math, lol!

My Song Got Played On Pandora 1 Million Times and All I Got Was $16.89, Less Than What I Make From a Single T-Shirt Sale!

https://thetrichordist.com/2013/06/2...-t-shirt-sale/

There are plenty of examples on the internet of people who earn peanuts from millions of streams. As I linked earlier, James Blunt earned 0.0004499368 per stream.

The crazy thing is that companies like Spotify are valued in the billions yet they own nothing. They don't own the music or the rights to the music and they use a loophole in the law that musicians, composers and artists have been trying to get closed.

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

WTF? So a band has to have its music streamed 60 million times to earn one ****ing $?

Is that math correct?

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Yes

But WE are the thieves because we used sites like Napster.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Bowser

But WE are the thieves because we used sites like Napster.

Don't even get me started on the stupidity of the music business.

I warned ASCAP, publisher and record companies in 1997 about the impending situation and was ignored (promoted within, but ignored). While Napster was killing the industry, Apple "saved" it, while all of the labels and publishers stood around thinking it was going to go away.

Well, it did, but not the way they expected. And we're all worse off because of it.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Streaming pays 1/10,000th of a cent per play currently on Spotify. Pandora and other services pay less.

I'm sure there will be tens of millions earned in the next 100 years but I seriously doubt it'll match what it's earned previously.

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

FYP

Originally Posted by Third Eye

If you just googled it, then you mean 60/100 to 84/100.

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Wrong


You can Google all you want but the real numbers are far different

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Yes

I hesitate to weigh in on this because it's a subject I know nothing about, but I will say this.

Spotify says they paid out $300 million in royalties in teh first three months of 2015.

http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/

If the price was 1/10,000 of a cent ($0.0001) per stream, and they paid out $300 million, that means that in the first three months of 2015 their members (or whatever) streamed three TRILLION songs in just three months.

With 75 million active users (as of November 2015), that means each user streamed 40,000 songs EACH during that timeframe.

And that seems pretty darn unlikely.

Though, again, maybe you're distinguishing between what Spotify pays in royalties and what the actual artists get. Maybe there are 20 middlemen in between those two ends of the spectrum that each get their cut.

[Bowser]

And to the OP - I guessed 50-75 mil. Wow.

[Donger]

Does that include illegal downloads?

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

The crazy thing is that companies like Spotify are valued in the billions yet they own nothing. They don't own the music or the rights to the music and they use a loophole in the law that musicians, composers and artists have been trying to get closed.

For what it's worth, content PROVIDERS are crushing, absolutely crushing, content CREATORS in all spectrums of media.

Newspapers are dying, but Google, etc. are killing it.

Books and authors are limping, but Amazon rules the world.

TV networks are struggling, while cable and internet companies, and Netflix, conquer all.

The pipelines that get eyes on site are all that matters now. The people that create the stuff that people want to see (or hear) are getting raped.

[DaneMcCloud]

Okay, as to the original question posed, I can't fathom how they got to the $575 million dollar number, unless they included the actual album sale as a complete number. On a side note, Led Zeppelin opened their catalog up to the streaming services in mid 2013, so those figures, as low as they may be, weren't included in the reported number.

Led Zeppelin IV, at least according to the RIAA (which is unreliable, as they only counted shipping, not Point of Sale) sold 23 million copies in the United States and about another 7 million worldwide.

Stairway To Heaven was one of 8 songs to appear on the album. Prior to 1972, the Mechanical Statutory Rate was 2 cents, meaning that the songwriter(s) earned 2 cents for each album and single sold. All songwriter(s) of that era were subject to a Publishing or Co-Publishing deal. Led Zeppelin had a Co-Publishing deal which mean that 75% of the income from mechanical sales and air play (Performance) went to the songwriters and 25% of mechanical and performance went to the Publisher.

So, at 30 million copies, divided by eight songs, multiplied by 2 cents, multiplied by .75 equals $56,250.00 in publishing. The total of all 8 songs would be $450,000 dollars.

The price of albums varied in the 1970's but for this example, I'll use $4.99 as a median cost of an album. So, $4.99 times 30 million, which equals $147,700.00 dollars for the entire album and $18,712,500 dollars for Stairway To Heaven.

The average record deal back then paid the Artist 14% of the total sales of an album or single, which wasn't payable until the Artist recouped the advance money given for the production budget (Producer, engineers, studio cost, etc.). Back in the day, those costs were in the millions. Anyway, 14% of $147,700 dollars is $20,958,000, which would have been paid to the band.

So here's where were at:

Publishing: $450,000.00 dollars
Unit Sales: $147,700.00 dollars

At this point, we're only at $150 million dollars generated by the sale of Led Zeppelin IV, which is far shy of the $575 million that Stairway To Heaven allegedly earned on its own. $10 million was estimated for Synchronization (use in Film, TV and commercials) but even then, we're only at $160 million for the entire album.

Could the additional $400 million come from radio airplay? I'll need to open some old databases but it's very possible that Stairway to Heaven earned an average of $10,800,000 per year in Performance Royalties (Radio Play) over that 37 year period.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

The pipelines that get eyes on site are all that matters now. The people that create the stuff that people want to see (or hear) are getting raped.

I know this all too well, unfortunately.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Though, again, maybe you're distinguishing between what Spotify pays in royalties and what the actual artists get. Maybe there are 20 middlemen in between those two ends of the spectrum that each get their cut.

Here's the real deal about Spotify: They don't pay artists equally. More importantly (and something that is mostly unknown) is that the Major Labels own 20% of Spotify.

Now, while Spotify may state that they paid out $300 million, that figure includes the Master License Fee, which could be anywhere from $100 dollars per song to $100,000 per song. Artists and songwriters don't see that money from streaming services. That goes directly to the record label, as they own the Master Recordings.

That's just another reason why people like Tom Petty have long lobbied for the reversion of the Master Recordings to the Artist after a period of 15 years.

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

So here's where were at:

Publishing: $450,000.00 dollars
Unit Sales: $147,700.00 dollars

At this point, we're only at $150 million dollars generated by the sale of Led Zeppelin IV, which is far shy of the $575 million that Stairway To Heaven allegedly earned on its own. $10 million was estimated for Synchronization (use in Film, TV and commercials) but even then, we're only at $160 million for the entire album.

Could the additional $400 million come from radio airplay? I'll need to open some old databases but it's very possible that Stairway to Heaven earned an average of $10,800,000 per year in Performance Royalties (Radio Play) over that 37 year period.

I wonder if some of the money they are claiming Stairway made comes from the Song Remains the Same film and soundtrack? The film been released a couple of times to theaters and also DVD and Blu-Ray. The soundtrack is probably in most Zep fans' collections, too.