New Study Shows Songwriters Can Barely Make a Living From Digital Streaming Profits

A new study titled “Songwriters Take the Stage” has analyzed how much money songwriters make through streaming. Researchers found the amount severely lacking. Relative to how music used to be distributed—in exclusively physical formats—songwriters are making significantly less money for their work than they did before.

Songwriting royalty rates are at the bottom of the ladder of the music industry, even as they’ve increased slightly since Spotify all but took over the digital streaming landscape. Songwriters still get paid the least, as the new study shows, with streaming already paying about $0.004 per play. Additionally, Spotify’s bundling plan will lower royalty payments to everyone by abut $150 million. Songwriters can no longer make a decent living off of writing credits.

MIDIA Research, a London-based marketing intelligence firm, conducted the study. It was led by former Billboard reporter Tatiana Cirisano, and researcher Fernanda Balzaretti, according to the study, which is only proprietarily available. However, the researchers and writers have released enough information provide a sobering look at the reality of digital streaming.

Researchers surveyed more than 300 songwriters for the study. 10% of songwriters earn more than $30,000 annually. Shockingly, 54% earn between $0 and $1,000 annually. According to a report from Variety, 64% of the survey pool cited “lack of meaningful streaming income” as the problem.

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Songwriters Make Less Money Than They Used To Now That Digital Streaming Has Taken Over

There is a distinction to make between artists and songwriters. There are some artists who also write their own songs, and they make significantly more money because they are also the performers. However, the study mostly focused on lower-earning writers whose only role is the songwriting.

On average, songwriters get 9.5% of that earlier mentioned $0.004 per play that streaming generates. Performers, however, receive almost double that, per MIDIA Research. A stream is split into so many different percentages based on labels, artists, distributors, publishing, performing rights organizations, and, finally, songwriters. From there, anywhere from 2 to 12 songwriters then split that single percentage (68% of 14% of $0.004).

There’s a lot of math that goes into deciphering how much money songwriters actually get. However, there’s one universal truth of it that doesn’t need a calculator—songwriters make almost nothing from streaming. Even worse, most of the time they’re paying out of pocket for writing sessions. They will only make up for that spending if a song is recorded and released, which is not guaranteed.

Essentially, songwriters are being done dirty by the music and streaming industries. This new study is an eye-opener for anyone who didn’t realize the desperate reality of songwriting. Hopefully, change will come.

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