Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Songwriters Finally To Be Paid On Videos

Vevo Logo image from Bobby Owsinski's Music 3.0 blog
Ever wonder how much a songwriter makes from a video that has 100+ million views on Vevo? You'd think it's would be a small fortune, but the answer is actually zero. That may be changing as of yesterday as Universal Music Group signed a deal with the National Music Publishers Group to finally pay royalties to both songwriters and publishers going forward.

Vevo is owned by Universal, Sony Music and Abu Dhabi Media and takes in about $150 million a year in ad revenue, none of which was passed along to songwriters or publishers. With the new agreement, Universal agrees to not only some retroactive compensation, but also to provide a royalty for other UMG offerings like ringtones, dual discs, multi-session audio and locked content products.

There are two things interesting here. First, only UMG is parcel to the agreement. Sony has not signed on. And the agreement specifies that UMG admits no wrongdoing, which stifles and lawsuits on this going forward.

That's one small step for songwriters. Let's see if another happens soon.

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2 comments:

VIOZ said...

What is a publisher?

Rob Christensen said...

I hate sitting through those ads while waiting for a Vevo artists' video on YouTube. The only reason I watch the ad is because I want to watch the artists' video. So Vevo (or whoever they're affiliated with) BETTER be paying those artists some of that ad revenue or I'm going to think twice about watching and especially sharing (thus bringing in more ad views) Vevo videos.

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