Songwriters: Undervalued, Underpaid, and Underrated

The modern day songwriter is struggling. Despite being the creative genius behind everyone’s favorite hits, songwriters are severely underpaid. While it is easy to blame this all on streaming rates, this is a much more complex issue with many moving parts: issues with the current copyright system and massive changes to how music is consumed are just some factors that contribute to the broken payment system. Here are just a few of the reasons as to why songwriters are unable to make a living in today’s digital landscape.

Low Streaming Royalties 

One of the most contested issues in the music industry revolves around the low payouts from streaming platforms (i.e. Taylor Swift vs. Spotify), but much of the debate has been focused on the musician. However, while musicians have other major sources of income like live performances and merchandise sales, royalties make up the majority of the songwriter’s income. Therefore, the shift to digital streaming is more of a threat to songwriters who rely on royalties for income. 

Most notably, streaming platforms like Spotify typically pay around $0.003 to $0.0084 per stream. The total revenue generated from the song is then split among different entities, with the songwriter being left with a small portion of the cut. Overall, most of the streaming royalties will go to the label and publisher, with little going to the songwriter. This system therefore puts songwriters, who are receiving the ‘leftover money’, at a great disadvantage.

Industrialization of Songwriting

In effort to create the next big hit, it is now a trend for record labels to gather multiple songwriters together to create a single song. Of course this means that the already-small streaming royalties must be split amongst a large pool of songwriters. A notable example of this is Travis Scott and Drake’s Sicko Mode, which had around 30 credited songwriters. Drake’s hit ‘Nice for What’ also had 20 songwriters, meaning that the royalties had to be split 20 ways.

PRO Inefficiencies

PROs, or Performance Rights Organizations, are non-profit organizations that help its members (songwriters) license their music and get paid royalties every time their music is used. However, throughout this complicated process, there are many deductions from the initial amount, with the PRO receiving much of the royalties. Other issues also arise with this process, including issues with unidentified copyright infringement, unorganized music metadata, and the consent decree, which all contribute to little and no payout. Overall, the payment process is one that is subject to many issues, which ultimately cause the songwriter to be underpaid.

The Unbundling of the Album

When the focus was on physical album sales, songwriters would be paid the same mechanical royalty for every song on the album, regardless of how each song was performing. However, we are now in an era where the album is unbundled: users are no longer purchasing entire albums; rather, they are purchasing or streaming specific songs. As album sales are ultimately on the decline, songwriters are no longer receiving as much in mechanical royalties for each album purchase as they used to. 

And there’s more…

This is just a glimpse into the issues that songwriters have to face. In order to help songwriters survive in the modern music world, systematic changes must be implemented to the current payment system that is failing its songwriters. 

Most recently in March of 2021, hundreds of songwriters, producers, and executives have signed an open letter (“Pay Songwriters”) to record labels, urging them to treat songwriters better financially. The #PaySongwriters campaign by Ivors Academy is pushing for more necessary changes in the industry.

While easier said than done, change must occur in order for songwriters to continue to do what they do. Songwriters are a central part of the music industry - without them, what are artists going to perform?