Bette Midler (you remember her from the Oscars this year, right?) posted this on Twitter at the beginning of this month:
“@Spotify and @Pandora have made it impossible for songwriters to earn a living: three months streaming on Pandora, 4,175,149 plays=$114.11.”
Recently, there’s been a growing outcry from songwriters and musicians, including Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, who say that Pandora and Spotify pay unfair royalty rates. Bette now claims that, while her songs have streamed on Pandora for the previous three months and been played more than 4 million times, the online radio station paid her barely enough to cover a cell phone bill for a month. In 2013, Pandora’s publicly traded stock sold for $368 per share and they had revenues of $638 million — but paid out $342.9 million in royalties to artists –more than half of its income. Including other expenses that adds up, according to Pandora, to a $40.7 million loss for the year. Pandora responded to the accusation in a correspondence with Billboard just two days after Midler posted her tweet, saying that she got her math wrong.
“Pandora paid more than $6,400 for those 4+ million plays, based on our 2014 rates which are published publicly. In terms of compensation to the creative community Pandora remains by far the highest paying form of radio. Pandora pays songwriters a greater percentage of revenue than terrestrial radio. And Pandora paid 48% of our revenue in performance royalties to rights-holders in 2013 – more than $300 million — while terrestrial radio was required to pay nothing.”
So far, Bette hasn’t responded to those revised numbers. I’m really curious what the real deal is – $6400 is a LOT different than $114. (Photo, Pacific Coast News; via inquisitor) 
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