bt21 merch outsold. 
what's a peanut? im a little bit confused rn 
what's a peanut? im a little bit confused rn
In this context it means unimportant, non-significant.
bt21 merch outsold.
Ya and it’s very sad. Small artists would be the ones really really suffering from this
Always has been. That's part of the reason Taylor Swift pulled her albums from Spotify and other streaming sites for a long time.
For big artists, it's not that big of a deal because they are also able to make money from digital sales, some physical sales, touring, merch, endorsements, commercial use... but for small artists it's a huge bummer. It's not sustainable to make money for them and a lot of independent artists it's a necessary evil to make their music accessible and discoverable which can then attract people to live shows.
I did some research and:
"Every contract is different, but the average high-end, record company royalty deal pays musicians $1 for every $10 retail album sale.
And it can be a lot worse than that: A low-end royalty deal only pays $.30 per album sale. That’s an amazingly small profit for a CD purchase, especially considering that bands may have to divide that among several members."
"If a customer downloads a $9.99 album, the iTunes percentage to artists would likely be a modest $.94 cents – less than a 10% cut. The record company might take $5.35 and Apple would keep the remaining $3.70.
On average, artists receive approximately $.09 for each individual song downloaded on iTunes. To put that into perspective, musicians would need to sell around 12,400 songs every month to earn a minimum wage salary."
Feels like going to their concerts is the only way to support artists at this point. And maybe royalties.
If you all want to know more, he explains the distribution quite well. I don't know the time stamp maybe you'll find it in comments
Display MoreI did some research and:
"Every contract is different, but the average high-end, record company royalty deal pays musicians $1 for every $10 retail album sale.
And it can be a lot worse than that: A low-end royalty deal only pays $.30 per album sale. That’s an amazingly small profit for a CD purchase, especially considering that bands may have to divide that among several members."
"If a customer downloads a $9.99 album, the iTunes percentage to artists would likely be a modest $.94 cents – less than a 10% cut. The record company might take $5.35 and Apple would keep the remaining $3.70.
On average, artists receive approximately $.09 for each individual song downloaded on iTunes. To put that into perspective, musicians would need to sell around 12,400 songs every month to earn a minimum wage salary."
Feels like going to their concerts is the only way to support artists at this point. And maybe royalties.
This is very sad tbh.
Tidal pays the most. But very few use that.
I thought everyone knew that touring was the real money maker here and a huge reason there has been a lot of scrambling in the industry to makes ends meet when the pandemic made these impossible.
The thing is: streaming is a necessary evil. The music industry was in a steady decline due to digital piracy. The model is based on mass adoption: it's better to charge less but sell to everyone than to charge the same but sell to no one. It works well for the industry as a whole because their consumer base is massive. But not for small artists because the money is going all to the big artists.
The revenue distribution has a problem: what you pay doesn't go to what you listen to. The distribution is based on total revenue weighted by total streams, not user by user. So, even if you only listen to X, the largest chunk of what you're paying is going to Drake (or whoever is the most streamed artist today), not to X. So small artists get nothing.
And if you want to directly support your artist, buying music isn't the way either. The standard US label contract takes 85% of the sales revenue and only gives "15% - expenses" back to the artist. Unless you are big enough to be able to negotiate your own terms.
Display MoreI did some research and:
"Every contract is different, but the average high-end, record company royalty deal pays musicians $1 for every $10 retail album sale.
And it can be a lot worse than that: A low-end royalty deal only pays $.30 per album sale. That’s an amazingly small profit for a CD purchase, especially considering that bands may have to divide that among several members."
"If a customer downloads a $9.99 album, the iTunes percentage to artists would likely be a modest $.94 cents – less than a 10% cut. The record company might take $5.35 and Apple would keep the remaining $3.70.
On average, artists receive approximately $.09 for each individual song downloaded on iTunes. To put that into perspective, musicians would need to sell around 12,400 songs every month to earn a minimum wage salary."
Feels like going to their concerts is the only way to support artists at this point. And maybe royalties.
this isn't how it looks in kpop especially when you are talking about the split between label and artists
most common in kpop are 70/30 contracts
so it divides, depends on company in the bigger ones, well known artists as group would get 70% of money made by 1 album sale, and company will take 30%
to make it easy
let's say that album price is 15 USD, after taking from it production cost, and taxes one sale results in 5 USD profit,
then group gets 70% of this 5 USD, which is 3.5 USD. And company takes 1.5 USD.
Of course there will be company which splits 60% for group, and 40% for company, there will be some smaller which split 50-50. And there also might be some where company takes 70% of earnings, group gets just 30% but in return they don't have so called 'trainee debt'. etc.
Tidal pays the most. But very few use that.
I wouldn't trust Tidal until their criminal investigation over data fraud is over
Unless they have credits on their songs, artists are not paid well at all.
Concert and merch. When available.
Also, buying digitals on services like bandcamp.
I said it once, I say it again: kpop artists should create patreon accounts, it would resolve all the problems
So there is actually not much difference between Kpop „slave contracts“ from the past and the usual Western contracts when it comes to the earning part?!
Interesting…
Exactly.
I do my fair share of bitching about Kpop slave contracts, they're terrible, but a lot of locals like to act superior about it, saying that Kpop is evil and somehow forgetting the fact that Western pop stars also get treated like shit and exploited by their labels.
Man this is sad... at least big artists get a payout in other ways but what about the smaller guys? I do think it would be interesting if the west tried to rejuvenate the physical market but I don't know what they could do to do that (outside of certain pop artists, most fans wouldn't go for photobooks/cards). The only fanbases that still buy a shit ton of albums is metal and other rock genres I'm pretty sure but that's more due to there being a lot of older fans sticking to their ways
Exactly.
I do my fair share of bitching about Kpop slave contracts, they're terrible, but a lot of locals like to act superior about it, saying that Kpop is evil and somehow forgetting the fact that Western pop stars also get treated like shit and exploited by their labels.t
honestly though, the slave contracts are kind of over these days(in kpop atleast). The only companies that do them are the really small ones.
This paying thing is one of the things YG does right lol and the only thing I will ever appreciate them for. But the fact that streaming pays nothing is so frustrating.
But seriously the western labels are turning into the new BIG BAD LABELS. They are basically putting all the bad things about the kpop industry and putting them all in one place.
We already saw what happened to Meghan. Who knows how many other western artists are treated like this but we just don't know because they can't speak up and the companies hide it really well?
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