Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike33
I've always heard that artists make pennies on the dollar for every album sold, but that they make most of their money on royalties. Like if it's used in a commercial, the ad agency pays the artists directly; same for whenever the song is played on radio, etc.
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Many artist do make pennies on the dollar for albums sold. The average artist makes around $1 per album in royalties, but most of them don't see much of that money because the record companies make them responsible for almost all costs in make the record. The cost of recording, promotion, videos, travel and just about everything comes out of the artists royalties.
How much they make with radio play and licensing for commercials depends on who wrote the song and who holds the publishing rights. Many big labels make younger unknown artists sign away most of their publishing rights and since they are desperate for a deal and they don't realize how much it could cost them down the road they do it. Springsteen did this at a young age and sued to get out of the contract.
If you are the person that wrote the song an performed the song and you hold the publishing rights you can make some very good money licensing it.