Music creators’ earnings in the digital era
Ground-breaking research into how creators earn money through streaming.
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This is ground-breaking research that investigates the issues impacting upon the ability of creators to earn money since the development of music streaming.
Findings and opinions are those of the researchers, not necessarily the views of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) or the government.
This report was delivered by Professor David Hesmondhalgh, Dr Richard Osborne, Dr Hyojung Sun, and Dr Kenny Barr on behalf of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).
Errata
Chapter 6 of the report estimated, on the basis of our research in Chapter 4, that a typical songwriter would earn £1,238 from a million streams, based on 2020 figures, and that if a typical songwriter earned this amount from one nominal month (four weeks), then multiplied by 13, this would equate to 16,094 pounds. However, this calculation failed to take into account PRS/ICE administration fees, which would reduce revenues by 5%. Reduced by this amount, the true figure for a month (=four weeks) should therefore be £1,176 (£11,000 x 15% publishing rights share (= £1,650) – 5% PRS/ICE fee (= £1567.50) x 75% average typical songwriter rate = £1,176). On this basis, the annual figure if the same level of streams were sustained across a year would be £15,288.
In addition, due to a typing error, our estimated figure for what a typical featured performer would earn from a million 2020 streams was stated as £1,210, leading to an annual estimated figure of £15,730 if the same level were sustained over a year. The true estimated figure should be £1,201 rather than £1,210 (£11,000 x 52% recording rights share x 21% average featured performer royalty rate), and the annual estimated figure for a typical featured performer would be £15,613.