July 15, 2025 • 29 mins
We examine what streaming looks like now and what it could look like in the future. Walker Lukens explains how Song Confessional has found success with streaming. And Lauren Bruno talks about a possible alternative to streaming that she wants to build called Prosper XO. Learn more about the Living Wage for Musicians Act. Check […]
The post Streaming Sucks: The good, the bad and the future of music platforms appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Miles Bloxson,
(00:01):
And I'm Elizabeth McQueen.
And this is Pause Play thepodcast about live music, why
it matters and what comes next.
This season we're talking all about whatthe future might hold for Austin music.
In episode one, we talked abouthow musicians might make a
living by doing all the things.
In episode two, we explored whethermusicians really need social media
(00:22):
moving forward, and in episodethree we're talking about streaming.
Yeah.
Most musicians use streaming services andalso have their music on them, but when
you ask artists if they make money fromstreaming music, you mostly get a response
like this one from Carrie Rodriguez.
(00:47):
When you're looking at streaming,like, do you count it as any kind of
like noticeable part of your income?
I.
Not at all.
Zero.
No.
Mm-hmm.
Nope.
So let's talk about streamingin this current moment.
First off, a lot of people stream music.
Yeah.
According to the International Federationof the Phonographic Industry, or
(01:10):
IFPI in 2024, streaming made up 69%of worldwide recorded music sales.
According to the Recording IndustryAssociation of America, that number
is even higher in the US wherestreaming makes up 84% of revenue
from just recorded music alone.
In 2014, the global music industrybrought in just under $15 billion.
(01:33):
That a statistic from the IFPI
and in 2024 it was over $29 billion.
But like we said, most musiciansdon't see noticeable income from
streaming and it's not just Carrie.
In some of our earlier episodes,you heard from Tribe Mafia.
They're an Austin group that hasfound a way to make money getting
songs placed in movies and TVshows, also known as Sync licensing.
(01:57):
And they do have one song called Travelthe World that's done well in streaming.
It has over 250,000 streams on Spotifyand they've seen some money from it.
Travel The world, it's impressive.
It's like, okay, little500, that's not bad.
That's not bad.
That's a flight.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
But the other song is the like,what, three bucks, 10 cents bucks.
(02:19):
Like, why'd you even send this?
I don't want this.
You can keep that.
It cost more money to sendthat than for us to get it.
I, I don't need that.
We've talked before about howlittle artists make from streams,
I mean, it's pretty commonknowledge that streams pay a
third to a half a cent per stream.
Yeah.
I mean, we've used those numbers alot in this podcast, but it wasn't
(02:42):
until I started researching things forthis story that I found out that it's
actually way more complicated than that.
Miles streaming is not paidout on a per strain basis.
Instead, streaming is paidout on a prorata basis.
Prota Prorata, what does that even mean?
Okay, so the streaming servicehas take in money, right?
(03:04):
And then they distribute thismoney based on how many song blah.
Okay, so the streamingservices take in money, right?
And then they distribute this moneybased on how many plays a song gets
versus how many songs get played total.
The streaming servicescall this stream share.
So say in one month, all Beyonce'ssongs get 1% of all streams.
(03:26):
On Spotify, her stream share would be 1%.
So they take all the moneythey made in a month and give
the Queen Bee just 1% of it.
Well, not really.
First.
Streaming services taketheir cut of revenue.
This can be anywherebetween 30 to almost 50%.
So Beyonce gets 1% of whateveris left after the streaming
(03:47):
services take their cut?
No.
Oh my goodness.
Okay.
So you may remember from whenwe talked about this in previous
episodes, but every time a song getsplayed, there are two royalties paid.
There's a songwriting royalty paidto whoever wrote the song, and
then there's a mechanical royalty.
This is paid to whoever owns therights to the actual recorded
(04:08):
version of this song streaming.
Streaming services don't payartists directly, like they
don't pay Beyonce directly.
Instead, they pay intermediarieslike labels or distributors or
aggregators for mechanical royalties,and they pay performing rights.
Organizations like BMI, ASCAP orCSAC for songwriting royalties.
And some streaming services likeSpotify have deals with these labels
(04:32):
and distributors that are super secret.
Liz Pelley wrote a great bookabout Spotify called Mood Machine,
the Rise of Spotify, and theCost of the Perfect Playlist.
It goes super deep intoall things Spotify.
I highly recommend it.
And she writes that there are often NDAsin place so that artists on a label don't
really even know what the labels dealwith the streaming services looks like.
(04:56):
But it's widely understood thatmajor labels have really good
deals, at least with Spotify.
So Beyonce's on a major label, andshe may not know how much money
the label is getting for her music.
Totally.
Though I feel like Beyonce may havethe clout to get to see that info,
but mid-level artists on that labelmay not, but it gets more complicated.
(05:18):
Does it?
Oh yeah.
On the mechanical royalty side, theamount that gets paid out can also depend
on the territory, like where in theworld the song is being streamed from.
And it depends on what kindof subscription the song
is getting streamed from.
So if someone streams a song on Spotifyfree, it pays out differently than if
they had a paid subscription to Spotify.
(05:41):
And check this out.
Labels and distributors don't just havedeals in place with streaming services.
They also have deals in place withartists detailing how they're gonna
split the proceeds from any streaming.
So a label may offer an artist inadvance to make a record, and they
take all of the mechanical royaltiesfrom that record until they make
back the advance, and after they makeback the advance, then they split
(06:03):
those royalties with the artist.
They also may ask for a share of theartist's songwriting royalties as well.
What about songwriting royalties?
Well, according to BMI, songwritingroyalties are calculated by a quote,
unique royalty rate for each work, whichis based upon the license fees collected
from the service that performed thework in combination with the number of
(06:23):
times each work streamed on the service.
What does that even mean?
It means it's complicated,
but a lot of artists in Austinare independent, which means they
don't have labels or publishers.
So what do they do?
So in order to get their musicon streaming services and collect
mechanical royalties, they have tomake deals with digital distribution
(06:45):
companies like Tune Core or Distro Kid.
All of those businesses chargesomething for those services,
whether it's a subscription fee or aportion of the mechanical royalties.
And then in order to get paidsongwriting royalties, they have
to register with performing rightsorganizations like BMI, ASCAP or csac.
So if you're an artist before yousee any money, the streaming service
(07:08):
calculates your stream share.
And then after they take theircut, they pay out your royalties
to a label or a distributor.
Or a publisher or aggregator based ona deal they made with that company.
The details of which you may never know,and then the company gets their share of
whatever amount of money you agreed onwith them, and then you get your money.
(07:29):
Yep.
I mean, it's simple to say streams paya third of a penny per share, but the
reality is so much more complicated.
Elizabeth, my brain hurts
mine too.
Do you know how long it took meto write this part of the episode?
I mean, honestly, it's still likesuch an oversimplification of a really
(07:49):
complex system that I bet there arepeople out there who think, I don't
even know what I'm talking about.
But the thing is like the pointis it's super opaque and hard to
understand like by design, andit can get even more complicated.
Miles.
How?
Okay.
So on Spotify, artists can optinto what's called discovery mode.
They can basically trade a lowerroyalty rate for the chance of
(08:13):
their music being more discoverable.
It basically boostsmusic in the algorithm.
And Spotify recently started apolicy where if a track doesn't get a
thousand streams in a 12 month period,then the artist isn't gonna see any
streaming income from that song at all.
That's crazy.
I thought $0 was nothing.
(08:34):
But this sounds a lot worse.
Yeah, I mean, it's wild.
It's like the music industry is growingand it's mostly growing because of
streaming, but because of the waystreaming is monetized, a lot of artists
don't see much income and it's superconfusing to try and figure out how
the money is even being distributed.
(08:54):
Yeah.
And most artists have streamingsubscriptions, so I wonder how many
artists don't even make enough money fromstreaming to cover those subscriptions.
Whoa.
That's actually a very heavy thought.
Miles.
But it's not all doom and gloom.
I mean, some people are making somemoney from streaming like Walker.
My name is Walker Lukins.
(09:15):
I'm a musician, and I, uh,have a podcast as well.
You've heard from Walkeron this podcast before.
And like he said, he has a podcast ofhis own, it's called Song Confessional
and KUT and KUTX studios distributes it.
The song Confessional podcast ispart of a larger song confessional
project that Walker and hisfriend Zach Catanzaro started.
(09:37):
We'll, let Walker tell you about it.
Song confessional.
We collect anonymous stories.
We call them confessions.
We go to like events, music festivals,state fairs, all sorts of stuff.
People hire us, we come, we set up.
People come into our confessionaltrailer and it's all anonymous
(09:58):
and they tell us stories.
Then me and the song ConfessionalCrew, we choose our favorite ones.
We give them to songwriters and bandswho then will write and record a song.
So how many songs hassong confessional put out?
I think like 75.
And do you consider songconfessional, like a label y?
(10:19):
Yeah.
I mean, we didn't setout to start a label.
We just sort of fell into having one.
But yeah, it's, it's, it's a label.
Yeah.
And you've had a couple ofsongs that like really hit.
Mm-hmm.
So could you tell people about that?
Yeah, so we've had four songs kind ofget into the next tier of streaming
(10:44):
where they just have a natural,like, they have their own inertia.
So like they, they get addedto new playlists, not through
any effort of our own.
They're getting streamed by new people.
You know, they're just actuallyfinding new listeners regularly.
How many streams have those songs gotten?
(11:05):
Um,
probably like a hundredmillion streams if Whoa.
Between a hundred.
Like all told, all to all the services,like between a hundred million.
I mean, not each, I'm talkingabout all of them together between
like a hundred and 150 million.
That's still a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a lot.
That's like successful.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's not, it'sfour of 75, it's four different
(11:28):
artists and it's, it's not, yeah,so it's not the traditional thing.
The song Confessional Track that'sGotten the Most Streams is a song
by Wild Child called Going In.
This has over 43 millionstreams on Spotify,
But like Walker said, not everysong gets that amount of streams.
(11:53):
We took some confessionslast March at Schultz Garden.
We chose one, we put it out, and thena bunch of people submitted songs.
So our winner was, we chose thissong to Sunglass Town by Brittany
Binowski, who hadn't reallyreleased any music prior to that.
She's not, she's like.
Has not really done music with anyseriousness for a couple years.
(12:16):
It has, it came out March 1st, Ithink, and it has 8,000 streams.
So song confessional songs getanywhere from 8,000 to 43 million
streams and song confessional.
and song confessional.
The label has a deal with the artistswho write the songs that they put out.
They pay for the recording, sothey take a hundred percent of the
(12:37):
mechanical royalties until theycover the cost of that recording.
Then they split the mechanicalroyalties with the artist 50 50.
The artist keeps 100% ofthe songwriting royalties.
And song confessional also hasa deal with the distributor.
The song confessional label uses acompany called one RPM for distribution.
(12:58):
And basically what that means is, uh,we, they upload our music to all the
streaming platforms and they actuallyeven offer physical distribution too.
One RPM gives songconfessional in advance.
Then one RPM takes a hundred percentof the income from the mechanical
royalties until they recoup or getall the money back from that advance.
(13:21):
After that one RPM takes 20% of theincome from the mechanical royalties
song confessional and the artistget their cut of the remaining 80%.
And if Song, confessional song, andif the song, confessional song does
well, like the Wild Child song,then everyone song Confessional the
Artist and one RPM makes some money.
So there is a way to make money streaming.
(13:44):
Yeah.
Like through streaming y
Yeah, definitely.
Walker told us he also makes streamingincome from his own music and from
music where he has a songwriting credit
Last year I made from Stream mepersonally, so not song confession,
not business, but just me.
I made like probably like 15 grand.
so that's songs that I wrote, songs thatI wrote with other people, and songs
(14:09):
that I released or covers, I released.
So you could buy a car with that.
and Walker.
He sees the issues with streaming,but he also sees the benefits of it.
There's this general sensethat streaming is like.
Not great for artists.
(14:31):
Yeah.
But you and I, you andI have talked about it.
Yeah.
And you have kind of like amore complex, you have more
complex thoughts, I feel like.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think it's fair tosay it's not good for the artists.
Uh, it's, yeah.
I don't, I don't think that's fair.
It's not that simple one, becauseartists are also consumers.
And for consumers streaming rules,we have everything at our fingertips.
(14:59):
And if you're an artist, youare a consumer and you're
inspired by what you hear.
So to say that it's all bad is like,is being a little, it's, there's a
little cognitive dissonance there.
'cause I'm like, I don't know anyonewho doesn't listen to streaming.
I mean, I, I think in thatway, streaming is amazing.
And to say that it's not anincredible resource, it's really wild.
(15:20):
Uh, I also think that.
The music industry has always sucked.
It's always been bad.
We've always been gettingtaken advantage of.
You know, the, my favorite little quoteis, I saw Ian Mackay give a talk from
Fugazi, and he just said, music is water.
Like we're talking about the container,we just sell you the container.
(15:43):
Walker made it clear that he'snot totally pro streaming.
He knows that the way people get paidfor streaming is not great, but he
thinks there's a way to make things.
Right.
I mean, that part, I, it'sthe fix is simple, right?
We have no protections for musiciansand the streaming rate should be higher.
(16:06):
It's just that simple in terms of thefix to, to the streaming services.
Like there should just be anational law and it should go up
to a penny or whatever, you know?
Actually, there was a bill introducedin 2024 by Rashida TB and Jamal Bowman
in the US House of Representatives.
It's called the LivingWage for Musicians Act.
(16:26):
It was developed in collaborationwith the United musicians and allied
workers, and it proposes to payartists a minimum of a penny per stream
According to the United Musicians andAllied Workers website, this would be paid
for by an additional subscription fee anda 10% levy on non-subscription revenue.
We'll have the link in the shownotes if you wanna learn more
(16:47):
about this possible solution.
Coming up after the break, we'll hearfrom one Austin artist who wants to build
an alternative to streaming platforms.
Welcome back to Pause.
Play a podcast about live music,why it matters, and what comes next.
In this episode, we're lookingat the future of streaming.
Before the break, we heard abouta bill that would raise streaming
(17:08):
revenue to a penny per stream.
And now we're gonna hear fromone Austin artist who's hoping
to build an alternative tostreaming services as we know them.
Meet Lauren.
Hi, I am Lauren Bruno.
I am an artist, a nonprofit director of$3 shows and the founder of Prosper xo.
Lauren moved here in 2009 aftergraduating from Berkeley College
(17:31):
of Music, and she came here like somany people do to play live music.
She arrived here with an eight pieceband called Polly Sky, and soon after a
friend of the band suffered a tragedy.
When I moved here, there Was a bandcalled Bankrupt in the Borrowers.
They went through a house fire andtheir trumpet player, John Petti,
(17:55):
passed away in the house fire.
And you know, the band that I waswith, we, we knew at that time we
wanted to start an organizationthat connected the arts community
with the social issues community.
We were just trying to figureout how that was gonna begin.
And then this house fire happened and theyneeded to raise funds for the funeral and
they wanted to support Sims Foundation.
(18:16):
And so it all cametogether and our backyard.
And we had our first, um, $3 show,which is the organization that I have
been directing for a really long time.
$3 shows is a nonprofit that $3shows is a nonprofit that throws
shows where the entry fee is only $3.
Each show raises money for adifferent Austin nonprofit.
(18:40):
Lauren played with Polly Skyfor a while and then she started
another band called Les Rav
I did find some success in performing.
But to be honest, I always found myselfspending more money than making money.
She did find success in sync licensing,
The main way to be honest, thatI, I made money in my career
(19:02):
as a musician, was getting mymusic into film and video games.
but.
I did reach a point whereit was not sustainable.
Right.
Entirely.
When Lauren came to town in 2009,streaming was in its infancy.
Most people made CDs and sold themat shows or through a distributor,
and I was making records in 2009 andmaking money with recorded music.
(19:25):
It was just easier towrap your head around.
Most artists in Austin are independent,meaning they're not signed to labels
and they put out music by themselves.
and the math, it was like simple.
So say it took $10,000 to record arecord, you know, pay for studio time,
pay the band, pay the graphic designerand say each CD costs you $2 to reproduce.
(19:48):
And say you sold your CDs atyour shows for $10, maybe you
got $5 from a distributor.
So you could calculate more orless how many CDs you would need
to sell to make your money back.
It was like kind of easy additionand then division, do a little math
and you knew you had to sell around1500 records to make your money back.
(20:10):
That is so much easier than tryingto figure out this streaming thing.
Yeah, I know.
And to be clear, a lot of times peopledid not make their money back, but
they had a sense of how it all worked.
And you know, now that's not the case.
and there's more,
(20:31):
do either of, you know, how many songs aday are uploaded to streaming services?
Oof.
I maybe like 3000.
We should find that out.
I do know the answer to this, you guys.
I'm so excited.
It's 99,000.
Oh wow.
A day.
Oh my God.
I just got the chills.
I did not know.
That's statistic.
Oh my gosh.
So almost a hundred thousand songs areuploaded to streaming services a day.
(20:56):
So when you put out music,you're competing with a
huge amount of other music.
and like we talked about earlier, whenit's all said and done, artists make about
a third to a half of a penny per stream.
To even make minimum wage,you have to have 800.
Thousand streams a month
And there was something else thatbothered Lauren about how we do streaming,
(21:19):
I started learning aboutstreaming and the reality of data.
So something we didn't touch on yetis that, you know, when an artist
uploads their music to a platform likeSpotify, you know, Spotify owns 95% of
that data and what they use that datafor in, in simple terms, the granular
(21:41):
raw data is to incur more revenue, uh,through sponsorship and add placement.
, And that granular data holds alot of power because that's all
about your audience as an artist.
I mean, down to, you know, locationand emails and just behavior and mood.
And, you know, Spotifyhas most of that on lock.
(22:03):
But artists don't haveaccess to all that data.
Spotify for artists lets themsee some of it in broad strokes,
but the majority of that granulardata isn't available to artists.
So if you're an artist with music on astreaming platform, you are like one small
part of this huge amount of music that'sbeing released and it's hard to make
(22:24):
much money on your music and you don'teven have full access to your own data.
It's understandable that somany artists feel discouraged.
And Lauren, she felt like shewanted to do something about it.
I was led to a place also just in terms ofseeing what the industry was experiencing.
(22:46):
You know, artists giving up, friendsof mine, giving up, uh, friends of
mine, taking their lives, you know,really hearing at the ground level that
this was no longer a sustainable path.
And, and seeing it, youknow, in my friends.
But it just reached a point when I startedlearning more about the realities of
where the industry is at, and then hearingthat statistic that 61% of musicians in
(23:11):
America are living below the poverty line.
I knew enough where it was justlike, I can't not do anything,
There's a lot going on in the industrythat society doesn't really know, but also
artists themselves aren't really aware of.
So for me, it began as inthat mind frame of I, I called
(23:31):
Prosper XO a movement, right?
Because first and foremost whatI feel is most important is,
again, education and listening.
So, you know, and then the whole, thewhole aspect of the technology is we
came to a point where it, we need tobuild tools, solutions, we need to go
towards solutions because we could talkabout this all day long, but if we're
(23:53):
not going towards solutions, you know.
Where were we gonna be left at?
That's why a couple of months ago,the idea of Prosper XO was born.
Lauren said that she sees ProsperXO as an artist centered tool.
And there are a couple ofdifferent things that Lauren wants
to accomplish with Prosper xo.
First off, she wants to lookinto other ways of getting money
(24:16):
into the hands of musicians.
When I was working with the $3shows, what I was seeing that was
really incredible was, sponsorswanting to directly sponsor artists.
So for $3 shows in our sponsorshipdeck, we had that as an option as.
A sponsor just directlysponsoring an artist.
(24:36):
So Prosper XO could be a tool thatconnects artists with local sponsors.
I mean, we all know how supportive andlike loving the local business here in
Austin is of, of supporting artists.
And Prosper XO could also be away for musicians to have more
access to their own data and toreframe how they think of data.
(24:59):
The data is important, butfirst party data is different
from third party data, right?
So all of this data that's onthese platforms, it's called
third party data, right?
And most of it has to do withthe granular, raw numbers,
but first party data.
A lot of it can be about like, anartist likes to work with mental health
(25:21):
organizations or their lyrics, or,there's so much in the world of data
that you can learn about an artist andlook at it in a different perspective.
That is even more valuable than numbers.
And Lauren Envisions legal helpas a part of Prosper XO as well.
The other piece too was withinthis tool that we're building is
(25:42):
we could put everybody together,but if they're not protected,
what is it gonna matter?
So there's a legal aspect to all of it
Prosper is only at the very beginningof their journey and they've done
some things that you can check out.
So we just released open letters to theglobal music industry and the Austin
Music Industry, uh, and to artists.
(26:02):
You can read those on their website.
There's a link in the show notes.
And then we also released our surveys.
They're really about listening andlearning about what artists are
experiencing, not just artists,brands, industry, fans, community.
Um, they're really short, but it's, it.
(26:22):
Again, we wanna start with listening.
We'll have the links to the surveyson the show notes page as well.
And they're gathering peopletogether in real life.
All of this is online, right?
We think it's very importantto remain in person too.
And continue the conversation in that way.
So we started these monthly meetups thatwill be happening at Capital Factory and
(26:46):
those, you know, we want for networking,we want to start conversations with
people that are already really activein building resources or already have
made steps towards solution and change.
Lauren told us she sees ProsperXO being built out in five stages.
You know, phase five, I'd like tobuild an alternative to Spotify.
(27:09):
Spotify, I realize the name.
Let's collaborate.
Let's build a better alternative together.
It's not clear what will happennext, but maybe Lauren and the team
at Prosper XL will make somethingthat works better for artists.
Think for me it was like, theseplatforms have us all in a choke hold.
(27:30):
It's time to create something different,that really gives more empowerment and
equity to the artist, because here'sthe thing, , without the artist,
where would these platforms be?
You know?
And so it really was that momentwhere I was like, okay, like.
It's time to build the solution.
And we're gonna starttaking steps towards that.
(27:52):
we wanna thank Lauren and Walker andCarrie and Tribe Mafia for talking
to us about streaming and after allof this miles, what do you think
about the future of streaming?
Ah, I'm so conflicted, Elizabeth because Iliterally use streaming every single day.
I mean, I pretty much, I think I'm signedup for almost every single platform,
(28:14):
which I need to go check my account forthat, but that's neither here nor there.
But I still feel like as the consumer, I'mgetting the better deal than the artist.
I'm consuming theirmusic on a daily basis.
They're setting my frequency everytime I get in my car when I'm out and
about with my friends, and we're usingour Bluetooth speakers and we can, we
have access to all of this music at ourvery fingertips, but the artist is not
(28:37):
getting paid the amount of money thatthey should for what I'm consuming.
So I just wish that we had somethingout there that was, you know,
better for them to make a livingand to continue making music.
I totally agree.
I mean, like you said, I also usestreaming all the time, and I agree with
Walker that from an artist's perspective,having access to so much music, so
(28:59):
much inspiration is like a great thing.
But yeah, these platforms are just betterfor consumers than they are for creators.
And I also kind of have thishunger for something else.
I think if there was an alternativeout there, I would definitely use it.
Something that treated artists better.
Right now there's really not,you know, other than just like
(29:20):
not using streaming at all.
But I really hope that in the futurethere is a platform that treats artists
a lot better than these platforms do.
In the next episode we'll be talkingabout AI and music and we wanna hear from
you, how do you feel about AI and music?
(29:40):
You can head on over to ourInstagram pauses, play pod
and DM us and let us know.
we'll DM you back and youmay make it in the episode.
I like going to get cds
Deep thoughts.
You know, I see Walker's point.
Having all of recorded music atour fingertips is pretty great
(30:00):
from an artist perspective.
But it's just so much more complicatedto make money from recorded
music now, especially if you're aband or artists that may have an
audience, but it might not be huge.
This system, from my perspectivereally puts mid-level artists
and below at a disadvantage.
And now these streaming services aremaking deals with AI companies, so there's
(30:26):
going to be this flood of AI generatedmusic -- it doesn seem like we're going to
need some kind of fix for the whole thing.
Deep thoughts.
You know, I see Walker's point.
Having all of recorded music atour fingertips is pretty great
from an artist perspective.
But it's just so much more complicatedto make money from recorded
(30:50):
music now, especially if you're aband or artists that may have an
audience, but it might not be huge.
This system, from my perspectivereally puts mid-level artists
and below at a disadvantage.
And now these streaming services aremaking deals with AI companies, so there's
going to be this flood of AI generatedmusic -- it doesn seem like we're going to
(31:15):
need some kind of fix for the whole thing.
In the latest episode of Pause/Play, wedive into the world of streaming — how
artists really feel about it, the benefitsand challenges, and how one austin
artist is trying to build an alternative
I'm Miles Bloxson,
(00:01):
And I'm Elizabeth McQueen.
And this is Pause Play thepodcast about live music, why
it matters and what comes next.
This season we're talking all about whatthe future might hold for Austin music.
In episode one, we talked abouthow musicians might make a
living by doing all the things.
In episode two, we explored whethermusicians really need social media
(00:22):
moving forward, and in episodethree we're talking about streaming.
Yeah.
Most musicians use streaming services andalso have their music on them, but when
you ask artists if they make money fromstreaming music, you mostly get a response
like this one from Carrie Rodriguez.
(00:47):
When you're looking at streaming,like, do you count it as any kind of
like noticeable part of your income?
I.
Not at all.
Zero.
No.
Mm-hmm.
Nope.
So let's talk about streamingin this current moment.
First off, a lot of people stream music.
Yeah.
According to the International Federationof the Phonographic Industry, or
(01:10):
IFPI in 2024, streaming made up 69%of worldwide recorded music sales.
According to the Recording IndustryAssociation of America, that number
is even higher in the US wherestreaming makes up 84% of revenue
from just recorded music alone.
In 2014, the global music industrybrought in just under $15 billion.
(01:33):
That a statistic from the IFPI
and in 2024 it was over $29 billion.
But like we said, most musiciansdon't see noticeable income from
streaming and it's not just Carrie.
In some of our earlier episodes,you heard from Tribe Mafia.
They're an Austin group that hasfound a way to make money getting
songs placed in movies and TVshows, also known as Sync licensing.
(01:57):
And they do have one song called Travelthe World that's done well in streaming.
It has over 250,000 streams on Spotifyand they've seen some money from it.
Travel The world, it's impressive.
It's like, okay, little500, that's not bad.
That's not bad.
That's a flight.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
But the other song is the like,what, three bucks, 10 cents bucks.
(02:19):
Like, why'd you even send this?
I don't want this.
You can keep that.
It cost more money to sendthat than for us to get it.
I, I don't need that.
We've talked before about howlittle artists make from streams,
I mean, it's pretty commonknowledge that streams pay a
third to a half a cent per stream.
Yeah.
I mean, we've used those numbers alot in this podcast, but it wasn't
(02:42):
until I started researching things forthis story that I found out that it's
actually way more complicated than that.
Miles streaming is not paidout on a per strain basis.
Instead, streaming is paidout on a prorata basis.
Prota Prorata, what does that even mean?
Okay, so the streaming servicehas take in money, right?
(03:04):
And then they distribute thismoney based on how many song blah.
Okay, so the streamingservices take in money, right?
And then they distribute this moneybased on how many plays a song gets
versus how many songs get played total.
The streaming servicescall this stream share.
So say in one month, all Beyonce'ssongs get 1% of all streams.
(03:26):
On Spotify, her stream share would be 1%.
So they take all the moneythey made in a month and give
the Queen Bee just 1% of it.
Well, not really.
First.
Streaming services taketheir cut of revenue.
This can be anywherebetween 30 to almost 50%.
So Beyonce gets 1% of whateveris left after the streaming
(03:47):
services take their cut?
No.
Oh my goodness.
Okay.
So you may remember from whenwe talked about this in previous
episodes, but every time a song getsplayed, there are two royalties paid.
There's a songwriting royalty paidto whoever wrote the song, and
then there's a mechanical royalty.
This is paid to whoever owns therights to the actual recorded
(04:08):
version of this song streaming.
Streaming services don't payartists directly, like they
don't pay Beyonce directly.
Instead, they pay intermediarieslike labels or distributors or
aggregators for mechanical royalties,and they pay performing rights.
Organizations like BMI, ASCAP orCSAC for songwriting royalties.
And some streaming services likeSpotify have deals with these labels
(04:32):
and distributors that are super secret.
Liz Pelley wrote a great bookabout Spotify called Mood Machine,
the Rise of Spotify, and theCost of the Perfect Playlist.
It goes super deep intoall things Spotify.
I highly recommend it.
And she writes that there are often NDAsin place so that artists on a label don't
really even know what the labels dealwith the streaming services looks like.
(04:56):
But it's widely understood thatmajor labels have really good
deals, at least with Spotify.
So Beyonce's on a major label, andshe may not know how much money
the label is getting for her music.
Totally.
Though I feel like Beyonce may havethe clout to get to see that info,
but mid-level artists on that labelmay not, but it gets more complicated.
(05:18):
Does it?
Oh yeah.
On the mechanical royalty side, theamount that gets paid out can also depend
on the territory, like where in theworld the song is being streamed from.
And it depends on what kindof subscription the song
is getting streamed from.
So if someone streams a song on Spotifyfree, it pays out differently than if
they had a paid subscription to Spotify.
(05:41):
And check this out.
Labels and distributors don't just havedeals in place with streaming services.
They also have deals in place withartists detailing how they're gonna
split the proceeds from any streaming.
So a label may offer an artist inadvance to make a record, and they
take all of the mechanical royaltiesfrom that record until they make
back the advance, and after they makeback the advance, then they split
(06:03):
those royalties with the artist.
They also may ask for a share of theartist's songwriting royalties as well.
What about songwriting royalties?
Well, according to BMI, songwritingroyalties are calculated by a quote,
unique royalty rate for each work, whichis based upon the license fees collected
from the service that performed thework in combination with the number of
(06:23):
times each work streamed on the service.
What does that even mean?
It means it's complicated,
but a lot of artists in Austinare independent, which means they
don't have labels or publishers.
So what do they do?
So in order to get their musicon streaming services and collect
mechanical royalties, they have tomake deals with digital distribution
(06:45):
companies like Tune Core or Distro Kid.
All of those businesses chargesomething for those services,
whether it's a subscription fee or aportion of the mechanical royalties.
And then in order to get paidsongwriting royalties, they have
to register with performing rightsorganizations like BMI, ASCAP or csac.
So if you're an artist before yousee any money, the streaming service
(07:08):
calculates your stream share.
And then after they take theircut, they pay out your royalties
to a label or a distributor.
Or a publisher or aggregator based ona deal they made with that company.
The details of which you may never know,and then the company gets their share of
whatever amount of money you agreed onwith them, and then you get your money.
(07:29):
Yep.
I mean, it's simple to say streams paya third of a penny per share, but the
reality is so much more complicated.
Elizabeth, my brain hurts
mine too.
Do you know how long it took meto write this part of the episode?
I mean, honestly, it's still likesuch an oversimplification of a really
(07:49):
complex system that I bet there arepeople out there who think, I don't
even know what I'm talking about.
But the thing is like the pointis it's super opaque and hard to
understand like by design, andit can get even more complicated.
Miles.
How?
Okay.
So on Spotify, artists can optinto what's called discovery mode.
They can basically trade a lowerroyalty rate for the chance of
(08:13):
their music being more discoverable.
It basically boostsmusic in the algorithm.
And Spotify recently started apolicy where if a track doesn't get a
thousand streams in a 12 month period,then the artist isn't gonna see any
streaming income from that song at all.
That's crazy.
I thought $0 was nothing.
(08:34):
But this sounds a lot worse.
Yeah, I mean, it's wild.
It's like the music industry is growingand it's mostly growing because of
streaming, but because of the waystreaming is monetized, a lot of artists
don't see much income and it's superconfusing to try and figure out how
the money is even being distributed.
(08:54):
Yeah.
And most artists have streamingsubscriptions, so I wonder how many
artists don't even make enough money fromstreaming to cover those subscriptions.
Whoa.
That's actually a very heavy thought.
Miles.
But it's not all doom and gloom.
I mean, some people are making somemoney from streaming like Walker.
My name is Walker Lukins.
(09:15):
I'm a musician, and I, uh,have a podcast as well.
You've heard from Walkeron this podcast before.
And like he said, he has a podcast ofhis own, it's called Song Confessional
and KUT and KUTX studios distributes it.
The song Confessional podcast ispart of a larger song confessional
project that Walker and hisfriend Zach Catanzaro started.
(09:37):
We'll, let Walker tell you about it.
Song confessional.
We collect anonymous stories.
We call them confessions.
We go to like events, music festivals,state fairs, all sorts of stuff.
People hire us, we come, we set up.
People come into our confessionaltrailer and it's all anonymous
(09:58):
and they tell us stories.
Then me and the song ConfessionalCrew, we choose our favorite ones.
We give them to songwriters and bandswho then will write and record a song.
So how many songs hassong confessional put out?
I think like 75.
And do you consider songconfessional, like a label y?
(10:19):
Yeah.
I mean, we didn't setout to start a label.
We just sort of fell into having one.
But yeah, it's, it's, it's a label.
Yeah.
And you've had a couple ofsongs that like really hit.
Mm-hmm.
So could you tell people about that?
Yeah, so we've had four songs kind ofget into the next tier of streaming
(10:44):
where they just have a natural,like, they have their own inertia.
So like they, they get addedto new playlists, not through
any effort of our own.
They're getting streamed by new people.
You know, they're just actuallyfinding new listeners regularly.
How many streams have those songs gotten?
(11:05):
Um,
probably like a hundredmillion streams if Whoa.
Between a hundred.
Like all told, all to all the services,like between a hundred million.
I mean, not each, I'm talkingabout all of them together between
like a hundred and 150 million.
That's still a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a lot.
That's like successful.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's not, it'sfour of 75, it's four different
(11:28):
artists and it's, it's not, yeah,so it's not the traditional thing.
The song Confessional Track that'sGotten the Most Streams is a song
by Wild Child called Going In.
This has over 43 millionstreams on Spotify,
But like Walker said, not everysong gets that amount of streams.
(11:53):
We took some confessionslast March at Schultz Garden.
We chose one, we put it out, and thena bunch of people submitted songs.
So our winner was, we chose thissong to Sunglass Town by Brittany
Binowski, who hadn't reallyreleased any music prior to that.
She's not, she's like.
Has not really done music with anyseriousness for a couple years.
(12:16):
It has, it came out March 1st, Ithink, and it has 8,000 streams.
So song confessional songs getanywhere from 8,000 to 43 million
streams and song confessional.
and song confessional.
The label has a deal with the artistswho write the songs that they put out.
They pay for the recording, sothey take a hundred percent of the
(12:37):
mechanical royalties until theycover the cost of that recording.
Then they split the mechanicalroyalties with the artist 50 50.
The artist keeps 100% ofthe songwriting royalties.
And song confessional also hasa deal with the distributor.
The song confessional label uses acompany called one RPM for distribution.
(12:58):
And basically what that means is, uh,we, they upload our music to all the
streaming platforms and they actuallyeven offer physical distribution too.
One RPM gives songconfessional in advance.
Then one RPM takes a hundred percentof the income from the mechanical
royalties until they recoup or getall the money back from that advance.
(13:21):
After that one RPM takes 20% of theincome from the mechanical royalties
song confessional and the artistget their cut of the remaining 80%.
And if Song, confessional song, andif the song, confessional song does
well, like the Wild Child song,then everyone song Confessional the
Artist and one RPM makes some money.
So there is a way to make money streaming.
(13:44):
Yeah.
Like through streaming y
Yeah, definitely.
Walker told us he also makes streamingincome from his own music and from
music where he has a songwriting credit
Last year I made from Stream mepersonally, so not song confession,
not business, but just me.
I made like probably like 15 grand.
so that's songs that I wrote, songs thatI wrote with other people, and songs
(14:09):
that I released or covers, I released.
So you could buy a car with that.
and Walker.
He sees the issues with streaming,but he also sees the benefits of it.
There's this general sensethat streaming is like.
Not great for artists.
(14:31):
Yeah.
But you and I, you andI have talked about it.
Yeah.
And you have kind of like amore complex, you have more
complex thoughts, I feel like.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't think it's fair tosay it's not good for the artists.
Uh, it's, yeah.
I don't, I don't think that's fair.
It's not that simple one, becauseartists are also consumers.
And for consumers streaming rules,we have everything at our fingertips.
(14:59):
And if you're an artist, youare a consumer and you're
inspired by what you hear.
So to say that it's all bad is like,is being a little, it's, there's a
little cognitive dissonance there.
'cause I'm like, I don't know anyonewho doesn't listen to streaming.
I mean, I, I think in thatway, streaming is amazing.
And to say that it's not anincredible resource, it's really wild.
(15:20):
Uh, I also think that.
The music industry has always sucked.
It's always been bad.
We've always been gettingtaken advantage of.
You know, the, my favorite little quoteis, I saw Ian Mackay give a talk from
Fugazi, and he just said, music is water.
Like we're talking about the container,we just sell you the container.
(15:43):
Walker made it clear that he'snot totally pro streaming.
He knows that the way people get paidfor streaming is not great, but he
thinks there's a way to make things.
Right.
I mean, that part, I, it'sthe fix is simple, right?
We have no protections for musiciansand the streaming rate should be higher.
(16:06):
It's just that simple in terms of thefix to, to the streaming services.
Like there should just be anational law and it should go up
to a penny or whatever, you know?
Actually, there was a bill introducedin 2024 by Rashida TB and Jamal Bowman
in the US House of Representatives.
It's called the LivingWage for Musicians Act.
(16:26):
It was developed in collaborationwith the United musicians and allied
workers, and it proposes to payartists a minimum of a penny per stream
According to the United Musicians andAllied Workers website, this would be paid
for by an additional subscription fee anda 10% levy on non-subscription revenue.
We'll have the link in the shownotes if you wanna learn more
(16:47):
about this possible solution.
Coming up after the break, we'll hearfrom one Austin artist who wants to build
an alternative to streaming platforms.
Welcome back to Pause.
Play a podcast about live music,why it matters, and what comes next.
In this episode, we're lookingat the future of streaming.
Before the break, we heard abouta bill that would raise streaming
(17:08):
revenue to a penny per stream.
And now we're gonna hear fromone Austin artist who's hoping
to build an alternative tostreaming services as we know them.
Meet Lauren.
Hi, I am Lauren Bruno.
I am an artist, a nonprofit director of$3 shows and the founder of Prosper xo.
Lauren moved here in 2009 aftergraduating from Berkeley College
(17:31):
of Music, and she came here like somany people do to play live music.
She arrived here with an eight pieceband called Polly Sky, and soon after a
friend of the band suffered a tragedy.
When I moved here, there Was a bandcalled Bankrupt in the Borrowers.
They went through a house fire andtheir trumpet player, John Petti,
(17:55):
passed away in the house fire.
And you know, the band that I waswith, we, we knew at that time we
wanted to start an organizationthat connected the arts community
with the social issues community.
We were just trying to figureout how that was gonna begin.
And then this house fire happened and theyneeded to raise funds for the funeral and
they wanted to support Sims Foundation.
(18:16):
And so it all cametogether and our backyard.
And we had our first, um, $3 show,which is the organization that I have
been directing for a really long time.
$3 shows is a nonprofit that $3shows is a nonprofit that throws
shows where the entry fee is only $3.
Each show raises money for adifferent Austin nonprofit.
(18:40):
Lauren played with Polly Skyfor a while and then she started
another band called Les Rav
I did find some success in performing.
But to be honest, I always found myselfspending more money than making money.
She did find success in sync licensing,
The main way to be honest, thatI, I made money in my career
(19:02):
as a musician, was getting mymusic into film and video games.
but.
I did reach a point whereit was not sustainable.
Right.
Entirely.
When Lauren came to town in 2009,streaming was in its infancy.
Most people made CDs and sold themat shows or through a distributor,
and I was making records in 2009 andmaking money with recorded music.
(19:25):
It was just easier towrap your head around.
Most artists in Austin are independent,meaning they're not signed to labels
and they put out music by themselves.
and the math, it was like simple.
So say it took $10,000 to record arecord, you know, pay for studio time,
pay the band, pay the graphic designerand say each CD costs you $2 to reproduce.
(19:48):
And say you sold your CDs atyour shows for $10, maybe you
got $5 from a distributor.
So you could calculate more orless how many CDs you would need
to sell to make your money back.
It was like kind of easy additionand then division, do a little math
and you knew you had to sell around1500 records to make your money back.
(20:10):
That is so much easier than tryingto figure out this streaming thing.
Yeah, I know.
And to be clear, a lot of times peopledid not make their money back, but
they had a sense of how it all worked.
And you know, now that's not the case.
and there's more,
(20:31):
do either of, you know, how many songs aday are uploaded to streaming services?
Oof.
I maybe like 3000.
We should find that out.
I do know the answer to this, you guys.
I'm so excited.
It's 99,000.
Oh wow.
A day.
Oh my God.
I just got the chills.
I did not know.
That's statistic.
Oh my gosh.
So almost a hundred thousand songs areuploaded to streaming services a day.
(20:56):
So when you put out music,you're competing with a
huge amount of other music.
and like we talked about earlier, whenit's all said and done, artists make about
a third to a half of a penny per stream.
To even make minimum wage,you have to have 800.
Thousand streams a month
And there was something else thatbothered Lauren about how we do streaming,
(21:19):
I started learning aboutstreaming and the reality of data.
So something we didn't touch on yetis that, you know, when an artist
uploads their music to a platform likeSpotify, you know, Spotify owns 95% of
that data and what they use that datafor in, in simple terms, the granular
(21:41):
raw data is to incur more revenue, uh,through sponsorship and add placement.
, And that granular data holds alot of power because that's all
about your audience as an artist.
I mean, down to, you know, locationand emails and just behavior and mood.
And, you know, Spotifyhas most of that on lock.
(22:03):
But artists don't haveaccess to all that data.
Spotify for artists lets themsee some of it in broad strokes,
but the majority of that granulardata isn't available to artists.
So if you're an artist with music on astreaming platform, you are like one small
part of this huge amount of music that'sbeing released and it's hard to make
(22:24):
much money on your music and you don'teven have full access to your own data.
It's understandable that somany artists feel discouraged.
And Lauren, she felt like shewanted to do something about it.
I was led to a place also just in terms ofseeing what the industry was experiencing.
(22:46):
You know, artists giving up, friendsof mine, giving up, uh, friends of
mine, taking their lives, you know,really hearing at the ground level that
this was no longer a sustainable path.
And, and seeing it, youknow, in my friends.
But it just reached a point when I startedlearning more about the realities of
where the industry is at, and then hearingthat statistic that 61% of musicians in
(23:11):
America are living below the poverty line.
I knew enough where it was justlike, I can't not do anything,
There's a lot going on in the industrythat society doesn't really know, but also
artists themselves aren't really aware of.
So for me, it began as inthat mind frame of I, I called
(23:31):
Prosper XO a movement, right?
Because first and foremost whatI feel is most important is,
again, education and listening.
So, you know, and then the whole, thewhole aspect of the technology is we
came to a point where it, we need tobuild tools, solutions, we need to go
towards solutions because we could talkabout this all day long, but if we're
(23:53):
not going towards solutions, you know.
Where were we gonna be left at?
That's why a couple of months ago,the idea of Prosper XO was born.
Lauren said that she sees ProsperXO as an artist centered tool.
And there are a couple ofdifferent things that Lauren wants
to accomplish with Prosper xo.
First off, she wants to lookinto other ways of getting money
(24:16):
into the hands of musicians.
When I was working with the $3shows, what I was seeing that was
really incredible was, sponsorswanting to directly sponsor artists.
So for $3 shows in our sponsorshipdeck, we had that as an option as.
A sponsor just directlysponsoring an artist.
(24:36):
So Prosper XO could be a tool thatconnects artists with local sponsors.
I mean, we all know how supportive andlike loving the local business here in
Austin is of, of supporting artists.
And Prosper XO could also be away for musicians to have more
access to their own data and toreframe how they think of data.
(24:59):
The data is important, butfirst party data is different
from third party data, right?
So all of this data that's onthese platforms, it's called
third party data, right?
And most of it has to do withthe granular, raw numbers,
but first party data.
A lot of it can be about like, anartist likes to work with mental health
(25:21):
organizations or their lyrics, or,there's so much in the world of data
that you can learn about an artist andlook at it in a different perspective.
That is even more valuable than numbers.
And Lauren Envisions legal helpas a part of Prosper XO as well.
The other piece too was withinthis tool that we're building is
(25:42):
we could put everybody together,but if they're not protected,
what is it gonna matter?
So there's a legal aspect to all of it
Prosper is only at the very beginningof their journey and they've done
some things that you can check out.
So we just released open letters to theglobal music industry and the Austin
Music Industry, uh, and to artists.
(26:02):
You can read those on their website.
There's a link in the show notes.
And then we also released our surveys.
They're really about listening andlearning about what artists are
experiencing, not just artists,brands, industry, fans, community.
Um, they're really short, but it's, it.
(26:22):
Again, we wanna start with listening.
We'll have the links to the surveyson the show notes page as well.
And they're gathering peopletogether in real life.
All of this is online, right?
We think it's very importantto remain in person too.
And continue the conversation in that way.
So we started these monthly meetups thatwill be happening at Capital Factory and
(26:46):
those, you know, we want for networking,we want to start conversations with
people that are already really activein building resources or already have
made steps towards solution and change.
Lauren told us she sees ProsperXO being built out in five stages.
You know, phase five, I'd like tobuild an alternative to Spotify.
(27:09):
Spotify, I realize the name.
Let's collaborate.
Let's build a better alternative together.
It's not clear what will happennext, but maybe Lauren and the team
at Prosper XL will make somethingthat works better for artists.
Think for me it was like, theseplatforms have us all in a choke hold.
(27:30):
It's time to create something different,that really gives more empowerment and
equity to the artist, because here'sthe thing, , without the artist,
where would these platforms be?
You know?
And so it really was that momentwhere I was like, okay, like.
It's time to build the solution.
And we're gonna starttaking steps towards that.
(27:52):
we wanna thank Lauren and Walker andCarrie and Tribe Mafia for talking
to us about streaming and after allof this miles, what do you think
about the future of streaming?
Ah, I'm so conflicted, Elizabeth because Iliterally use streaming every single day.
I mean, I pretty much, I think I'm signedup for almost every single platform,
(28:14):
which I need to go check my account forthat, but that's neither here nor there.
But I still feel like as the consumer, I'mgetting the better deal than the artist.
I'm consuming theirmusic on a daily basis.
They're setting my frequency everytime I get in my car when I'm out and
about with my friends, and we're usingour Bluetooth speakers and we can, we
have access to all of this music at ourvery fingertips, but the artist is not
(28:37):
getting paid the amount of money thatthey should for what I'm consuming.
So I just wish that we had somethingout there that was, you know,
better for them to make a livingand to continue making music.
I totally agree.
I mean, like you said, I also usestreaming all the time, and I agree with
Walker that from an artist's perspective,having access to so much music, so
(28:59):
much inspiration is like a great thing.
But yeah, these platforms are just betterfor consumers than they are for creators.
And I also kind of have thishunger for something else.
I think if there was an alternativeout there, I would definitely use it.
Something that treated artists better.
Right now there's really not,you know, other than just like
(29:20):
not using streaming at all.
But I really hope that in the futurethere is a platform that treats artists
a lot better than these platforms do.
In the next episode we'll be talkingabout AI and music and we wanna hear from
you, how do you feel about AI and music?
(29:40):
You can head on over to ourInstagram pauses, play pod
and DM us and let us know.
we'll DM you back and youmay make it in the episode.
I like going to get cds
Deep thoughts.
You know, I see Walker's point.
Having all of recorded music atour fingertips is pretty great
(30:00):
from an artist perspective.
But it's just so much more complicatedto make money from recorded
music now, especially if you're aband or artists that may have an
audience, but it might not be huge.
This system, from my perspectivereally puts mid-level artists
and below at a disadvantage.
And now these streaming services aremaking deals with AI companies, so there's
(30:26):
going to be this flood of AI generatedmusic -- it doesn seem like we're going to
need some kind of fix for the whole thing.
Deep thoughts.
You know, I see Walker's point.
Having all of recorded music atour fingertips is pretty great
from an artist perspective.
But it's just so much more complicatedto make money from recorded
(30:50):
music now, especially if you're aband or artists that may have an
audience, but it might not be huge.
This system, from my perspectivereally puts mid-level artists
and below at a disadvantage.
And now these streaming services aremaking deals with AI companies, so there's
going to be this flood of AI generatedmusic -- it doesn seem like we're going to
(31:15):
need some kind of fix for the whole thing.
In the latest episode of Pause/Play, wedive into the world of streaming — how
artists really feel about it, the benefitsand challenges, and how one austin
artist is trying to build an alternative
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