How to earn money with virtual concerts

For many, YouTube is simply the place where they upload their music videos. What they fail to consider is that there is no platform where people listen to as much music as they do on YouTube – around 250 million hours every single day, in fact! YouTube Music is also one of the fastest growing streaming services with about 50 million subscribers currently. In this post, we will show you the different sources of revenue that YouTube offers.

Art Tracks

An Art Track is created when your distributor delivers your music to YouTube Music. It’s a music video with a static image (album cover), the audio file, and the most vital metadata. These art tracks are available to paying customers both of YouTube Music and of YouTube Premium, as well as via the “regular” YouTube for everyone else. On iGroove, you can choose between two delivery options: making your music available for premium users only or for free, as well.

Either way, you will get paid – similar to Spotify: you either receive a portion of the subscription revenues (from the premium listeners) or of the ad revenues (from the listeners who use YouTube for free).

iGroove has recently started offering sales trends for YouTube, as well. These give you the almost daily updated numbers of streams you have generated with your Art Tracks, so you don’t have to wait until the final statement is made available.

YouTube monetization

The second most important source of revenue is the monetization via the Content ID. If you upload your releases onto your Content ID via your distributor, it will regularly scan all the videos YouTube and identify all uploads that contain your music. If it finds any, ads will be added to the videos in question, and the revenues they generate will flow to you. So, you still earn money even when others upload your music to YouTube.

Videos

Of course, you can also generate income with the videos you upload yourself. Provided your channel meets the requirements, you can monetize your uploads yourself. Otherwise monetization is also possible via your distributor and the Content ID (provided the videos contain your music).

Other sources of income

To offer content creators more opportunities to make money, YouTube has introduced various tools over the past few years which may be interesting for musicians, as well. Some of these include channel memberships, merch sales, tickets for virtual events, or the tipping features Super Thanks, Super Chat, and Super Stickers. However, to use these features, you have to fulfill various criteria first.

Conclusion

YouTube has set the goal of becoming the leading revenue generator for the music industry. Even though they have a reputation of paying musicians horribly little, YouTube is already a source of revenue not to be underestimated. If the subscriber numbers and the ad revenues continue to grow this rapidly, they will be indispensable before long.

The last posts showed you how much you get per stream on Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer. Let’s compare the three streaming services to find out which one pays the most, and again, how this differs between countries. As you would expect, Apple Music pays the most however the gap with Deezer is not huge. Spotify has the significantly lowest PPS of the three providers.

Spotify vs. Apple

Unsurprisingly, Apple Music pays significantly more per stream than Spotify, which is mainly due to the fact that Apple Music does not offer an ad-based service. On average, you get 3.5 times as much for a stream on Apple Music as you do for a Spotify stream. This is significantly more than in the last two evaluations, where the figure was 2.63 (2021) and 2.84 (2020).

However, the difference varies enormously across the 59 countries surveyed. In 44 countries, you get at least twice as much for a stream of Apple Music. In Belarus, the Philippines and Macedonia, it is even more than nine times. Other Balkan countries such as Montenegro, Bosnia and Serbia also receive a lot more for Apple Music streams.

The differences are more manageable in Israel, the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Germany.

Spotify vs. Deezer

Spotify and Deezer, which both offer a premium and an ad-based service, are more comparable. But here, too, Spotify is clearly behind; on average, you get 2.85 times as much for a stream on Deezer as for a Spotify stream. The Spotify PPS is higher in only two countries: Israel and Sweden, Spotify’s home country. In about half of the countries surveyed, you get more than twice as much for a stream on Deezer. The differences are again greatest in Belarus and Macedonia, as well as in Montenegro, where Spotify pays out enormously less.

Apple Music vs. Deezer

Despite the different business models, the differences between Apple Music and Deezer are the smallest. On average, you get 1.45 times more for a stream on Apple Music, or 45% more. It’s also only 12 of the 59 countries where you get more than twice as much for an Apple Music stream. In 16 countries, Deezer actually pays out more than Apple Music, including the US, UK, Austria, Belgium, and Denmark.

The English-speaking countries in comparison

For a concrete comparison, we show here how much you get per million streams at the three providers in the six English-speaking countries.

The following table shows how many streams from each country it takes to earn $4,000:

The PPS of 59 countries in comparison

Finally, now the evaluation of 59 countries and for each country the comparison between the different DSPs.

To explain the factor: Let’s take the comparison between Apple Music and Deezer as an example. If the factor is 3, this means that Apple Music pays three times as much per stream. If the factor is 1, the PPS is identical for both providers. If it is less than 1, it means that Deezer pays more than Apple Music in this country.

Spotify regularly emphasizes that it is not possible to give a number that is paid out per stream. This is true in that it changes from month to month, is different for each country and each subscription type. iGroove nevertheless regularly analyzes how high this is per country using the figures available to us to provide guidance. The analysis shows which markets are more lucrative and in which you (still) need more streams to get on a green branch.

As with Apple Music and Deezer, the figures are based on data from iGroove customers over the last 6 months. We calculated an average value for 133 countries; we did not include nearly 50 countries because we did not have enough data. We have the original data in euros, which we have converted into USD (1 euro = 1.054 USD).

If you had exactly the same number of streams from all the countries examined, this would result in 1,686 dollars per million streams. In our last evaluation, this figure was still $2,355, but Spotify has expanded into numerous new markets since then, and many of them are also included in this evaluation. If we only compare the 94 countries that were already included in the last evaluation, the PPS is $2,104. The fact that the PPS is also down here can be explained primarily by the change in the exchange rate.

Only a few countries over $2,000

Of the 133 countries analyzed, 59 receive less than $1,000 per million streams. These include large markets such as India, Argentina, Egypt, the Philippines, Indonesia and Turkey.

Only 33 countries exceed the 2,000 mark, so exactly 100 remain below this threshold, including numerous European and all Latin American and African countries.

Europe dominates the top 10

The top 10 are almost unchanged from last time, but the positions have changed. South Korea, the only non-European country in the top 10, is no longer at the top, but little Iceland is, and with a decent lead. It is followed almost equally by Switzerland, Finland and the UK. These four countries plus Norway, Ireland and Denmark are also the only ones to achieve more than $5,000 per million.

The winners

The PPS grew the most in Kuwait, Brazil, new leader Iceland, Argentina, El Salvador, Jordan, Mongolia and Honduras.

The losers

The PPS fell the most in South Korea, but the figure there was also extremely high at 15,000 in the last evaluation, and it now seems to have settled at a still high $4,960. In contrast, the declines in India (-24%) and Turkey (-20%), whose low PPS falls even further into the bottomless pit due to inflation, are eye-catching.

English-speaking countries in comparison

There were no major shifts among the six English-speaking countries since our last analysis. Australia and New Zealand lost a little, while for the other countries the PPS remained more or less unchanged. The UK and Ireland continue to have by far the highest PPS, while New Zealand, the U.S. and Australia are all roughly in the same range, and Canada is clearly bringing up the rear.

The PPS of 133 countries in comparison

Below you can find the complete list with all 133 evaluated countries. For each country, you can see the PPS and the extrapolation of how much you get per million streams. In addition, you can see how high the amount for one million streams was in our last evaluation and how this has changed in percentage terms since then. The table can be sorted in any order.

As we recently did with Deezer, we have now analyzed Pay Per Stream (PPS) again for Apple Music. The updated numbers are based on iGroove customer data from the last 6 months. In total, we analyzed 84 countries; we had to omit some states due to insufficient available data. The original data is available in Euro, we converted it to USD (1 Euro = 1.054 USD). 

If we had exactly the same number of streams from all countries examined, this would result in $5,461.88 per million streams. The PPS has thus dropped slightly compared to the last evaluation, when it was $5,992.65. If you only take into account the countries that were already evaluated last time, it is $5,278.87. Part of the difference can be explained by the change in the exchange rate. 

Iceland at the top

The clear frontrunner is Iceland, where you get almost $25,000 for a million streams. However, it must be taken into account that only very few streams from this small country were included in the evaluation, which means that falsifications are possible.

Otherwise, the top 10 includes many of the usual suspects, such as the Scandinavian countries Norway, Denmark and Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and Ireland. The various European countries are joined by Kuwait and Oman.

The winners

Significant increases in the PPS occurred primarily in African countries such as Botswana, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya and Uganda. The sharpest increase in PPS occurred in the Philippines, where it more than doubled. Countries such as Lebanon, Azerbaijan and Peru also saw strong growth.

The losers

The PPS fell most sharply in Armenia, Indonesia and Jordan. It also fell sharply in the major markets of India and Turkey.

English-speaking countries in comparison

PPS fell for all six English-speaking countries, least for the U.S. and Canada, which nevertheless remain at the bottom. While Ireland and the UK managed to stay in the top 10 despite quite a drop, the U.S. and Canada are not found in the top 30.

PPS significantly below 0.01

Finally, we wanted to know if Apple Music was paying out the announced $0.01 per stream. Since Apple includes Publishing Rights payouts in this, we factored those in as well. On average, this results in a PPS of $0.0070, which is far from the $0.01. In total, only 15 countries reach this one cent according to our evaluation.

The PPS of 84 countries in comparison

Below you can find the complete list with all 84 evaluated countries. For each country, you can see the PPS and the extrapolation of how much you get per million streams. In addition, you can see how high the amount for one million streams was in our last evaluation and how this has changed in percentage terms since then. The table can be sorted in any order.

Less than a year ago, we analyzed Deezer’s Pay Per Stream (PPS) for the first time. Now we have the updated numbers based on iGroove customer data from the last 6 months. In total we analyzed 93 countries, some states we had to leave out due to not enough available data. We have the original data in Euros, we converted it to USD (1 Euro = 1.054 USD). 

If we had exactly the same number of streams from all the countries analyzed, this would result in 3,787.74 USD per million streams. In the last evaluation, this value was still 4,776 USD, but at that time there were significantly fewer countries. Comparing only these 66 countries, the PPS has decreased slightly less and results in 4,309.45 USD extrapolated to one million streams. Part of the difference can be explained by the change in the exchange rate. 

Bulgaria remains front runner

In our first evaluation, we were extremely surprised to find that Bulgaria has by far the highest PPS. This is now confirmed by the latest figures, with the Eastern European country remaining at the top by far. As last time, three Arab countries – Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia – are in the top 10. As usual, Scandinavian countries, specifically Denmark and Norway, are at the top and the big climbers are Austria and the UK. Rather surprisingly, Belarus and Macedonia are both in the top 10.

The winners

Macedonia is then the biggest winner, with its PPS increasing by 300% compared to the first evaluation. Other Eastern European countries such as Slovenia, Croatia and Slovakia also made significant gains. Other winners are Israel, Italy, Belgium, Turkey and as already mentioned Austria and UK.

The losers

The biggest losers come mostly from South America, namely Ecuador, Paraguay, Chile, Colombia and Peru. Ivory Coast, Greece, Egypt and Hungary also went down.

English-speaking countries in comparison

In our last evaluation, the USA was still at the top of the list of English-speaking countries. Now, however, with the UK up 26% and the US down 24%, the UK now has the clear highest PPS. While Ireland has remained more or less stable, Australia and New Zealand’s numbers have dropped by around 30% and Canada has also lost 15%. Again, some of this can be explained by exchange rate fluctuations.

The PPS of 93 countries in comparison

Below you will find the complete list with all 93 evaluated countries. For each country you can see the PPS as well as the extrapolation of how much you get per million streams. In addition, you can see how high the amount for one million streams was in our last evaluation and how this has changed in percentage terms since then. The table can be sorted in any order.

Those of us who are interested in different sources of revenue for musicians are sure to have stumbled across the term “sync licensing.” But what’s behind the concept exactly? How do you secure a placement? And how do you make money from it? We’re here to shed some light on the matter.

In today’s day and age, musicians have to make use of many different sources of revenue. Most will nevertheless put their focus mainly on streaming services, social media, and perhaps some live shows. The fact that many are not entirely sure what sync licensing is, is precisely the reason why this income idea has often been overlooked. But with some luck, you can actually earn a significant amount of money from syncs.

The basics

Sync licensing (also known as “synchronization rights” or “sync rights”) refers to the licensing of music for various media such as TV, film, series, advertisements, or video games. A connection is essentially formed between a piece of music and visual media, which is known as synchronization. If someone wants to use your music for a film, for instance, they would need the permission of the rights owners, and pay a handsome sum for it, generally. In addition, the placement will widen the song’s and therefore also the artist’s reach.

Or, as our lawyer puts it in slightly more eloquent terms, “The right to couple music with visual media is a stand-alone economic good, which means the rights owner may demand compensation for the coupling process (synchronization) itself. Potential compensation sources therefore include all makers of audiovisual media, e.g., TV, film, series, advertisements, or video games.”

How big is the sync business?

Worldwide revenues from sync licensing currently amount to around 432 million USD per year. This is despite a 9.4% drop due to COVID. While the revenues from ads tend to decline due to advertisers having music specifically made for this purpose instead of licensing it, new opportunities have opened up in other areas of sync licensing. Some of these include fitness, wellness, and e-sports. Streaming providers such as Netflix or Amazon Prime have also shown an increased demand for music. Due to their international market, they are also seeking more and more music from different countries written in different languages. The demand for non-English music seems never to have been as big as now.

Who needs to be asked for permission?

Just like when you want to use a sample of a song, sync licensing, too, requires the permission of all rights owners, meaning the master owners as well as the publishing owners as well as any potential ancillary copyrights owners (especially when the original recording is used). Remember, the publishing rights are in the hands of the composers and lyricists of a song (or the song’s publisher). The master rights, on the other hand, are the rights to the recording and are either owned by the artists themselves or often by the record label. So, in order for a song to able to be used in a film, for instance, all rights owners must first give their permission.

If the song is a cover, then the artist is only in possession of the master rights. That means, in order for the song to be used, the songwriters and composers of the original song must agree to it, as well. That might sound complicated at first, but it is certainly worth a try, since covers are often licensed, especially when it is of a very famous song and the original would simply be too expensive to license.

The situation gets much more complicated, however, when your song contains samples which have not been cleared. Music supervisors pay very close attention to the ownership of the rights so that their clients will not be sued. Therefore, they are not likely to license a song containing uncleared samples. This is also the reason why most supervisors will only work with sync agents.

What does a sync agent do?

Of course, theoretically, it is possible to do the research yourself and find out who the music supervisors are that pick out the music for TV programs, series, or ads. But it will take enormous effort and making direct contact yields fairly slim chances of success. Sync licensing, just like many other areas in the music industry, is a people business, which is where sync agents and their contacts come into play. Sync agents, who can work independently for music publishers, record labels, or distributors, are the contact persons for music supervisors. When the music supervisors are looking for a song for a particular movie scene, for instance, the sync agents will propose different tracks that they think could fit. They will also proactively approach the supervisors and pitch songs from their repertoire. Last but not least, they will negotiate the price and take care of the administrative duties which are not to be underestimated. In exchange, they will, of course, receive a portion of the generated revenues.

Often, sync agents will ask for songs to be “pre-cleared” already. That pretty much means that you give them the right to negotiate deals in your name and that the permissions from all the rights owners are already at hand. This eases the negotiation process, and more importantly, makes it faster and less complicated. This is a factor that should not be underestimated, since today, things often need to get done quickly, and if there are too many issues that still need to be settled, the supervisor might decide to go with another song instead.

If you work with a sync agent, the cooperation doesn’t necessarily have to be exclusive. That means that you can deposit your song with multiple sync agents to increase your chances of getting a placement. But you should be careful, since different agents may offer the same song at different prices. And naturally, the supervisor will then choose the cheapest offer. Additionally, it can be exhausting for music supervisors to have the same song pitched to them multiple times.

Before you sign a contract with a sync agent, it is imperative that you verify them first with an expert (e.g., a music lawyer).

How much do you make from sync licensing?

In general, there are two ways to make money from sync-licensing your songs:

• An individual fee
• Revenues from a copyright collective

Individual fee

The individual, often one-time fee will in many cases be divided proportionately between the owners of the master and publishing rights. If you own all the rights, you will also get all the dough. You can also forego the one-time fee – for instance, if you allow a small film production without a real budget use your song. But even then, you should still receive compensation of equivalent value, such as sufficient exposure.

Copyright collectives

In some countries (for example Germany and Switzerland), producers of audiovisual media have the alternative option of acquiring the sync license directly from the copyright collectives. Examples include SUISA and GEMA, to which artists may hand over their sync rights for collecting purposes. So, as an artist, you need to decide whether you want to negotiate the individual fee yourself (or via a sync agent) or whether you want the copyright collective to handle the process. While the personal negotiation may yield higher monetary gain, licensing through a copyright collective could mean a higher chance of actually getting placed, precisely because of the lower licensing fee, especially when the client represents a smaller production. This decision is therefore very much a personal one. So, take a careful look at what your collection agreement says about sync licensing. Once you have handed over the rights to a copyright collective, in some cases, you may have no more influence over the precise use of your music. That means that a TV channel could use your song for a daily soap that you may not want your music to feature in.

Difference between sync licensing and use licensing

But even if your sync license isn’t handled by a copyright collective, it will still generate revenues. A sync license remunerates artists for the permission to create an audiovisual product in which their music is used. But on top of that, there is also the remuneration for the actual use (e.g., for TV, film, ads, games, etc.).

For example:

A film producer wants to add a specific song to the opening scene of their movie. To be able to do that (=creation), they need to pay a general license fee to the rights owners. This is the sync license.

If the film is picked up by cinemas, the operator must pay for another license to be able to show it (= actual usage). If the film is played on TV, the channels must equally acquire a license for the broadcast (= another actual usage), and so forth and so on.

That means that revenues can still flow via the copyright collectives when your song is broadcast on TV. This is comparable to the revenues generated when your song is aired on the radio, your music video is shown on TV, or your song is played in a bar or club. These revenues will be paid out accordingly by the copyright collective that you are registered with.

In some cases, everything is compensated with a one-time fee and the regular revenues through the copyright collective are dispensed with (however, this only applies if and as long as there is no relevant collection agreement made).

Let’s recap:

How much one effectively earns in a particular case can’t be predicted in exact numbers. In fact, it is always different for each placement and depends on numerous factors, such as:

• Which medium is used (usually, you will get more if your song is used in an ad than in a small film or a video game)
• Which territories the song is licensed for (worldwide or only specific countries)
• Whether the whole song is used or only a small part
• How long you grant the rights for (a specified timeframe or in perpetuity)
• Whether there are any limitations such as noncompetition clauses (for instance, if you hand a sync license to cellphone company A, you can’t then license the same song to cellphone company B)
• The music supervisor’s budget or their client’s
• The artist’s level of popularity
• The purpose for which the song is used – is it only played in the background or is it theme song of the film?
• The negotiation skills of your sync agent

So, it may very well be that the one-time fee only amounts to a few hundred Euros, but it is also not uncommon for Netflix, for instance, to pay a five-figure sum to a rather unknown artist. Ads and blockbuster movies may even spend six figures.

The sync market is known to be unpredictable. Sometimes, songs that you are confident in end up not getting used, while another track that you would never expect is chosen out of nowhere. So, you can’t really plan sync revenues into your budget, but when they do get paid out, you will definitely find yourself with some sweet extra income.

What else do I need to keep in mind?

• You should always keep track of who owns the master and publishing rights to your songs. Are the master rights yours or your label’s? Which songwriters were registered? If this still needs to be figured out, the deal might already be off the table.
• Find out whether your songs are registered with a copyright collective and in what scope it will assume and collect on your rights.
• Make sure that your songs don’t contain any samples that have not yet been cleared.
• Don’t just focus on your newest or most popular tracks. Music supervisors look for the most fitting songs, and these don’t necessarily have to be brand new or extremely well known. Sometimes, they want exactly the opposite. It is therefore best to make your whole catalog available to your sync agent.
• Make sure that you have instrumental versions or even individual audio tracks of your songs ready. Oftentimes, movies and ads will only use the instrumentals, because the lyrics might distract from the dialogue or simply don’t fit the content. Other times, the supervisor just wants the dreamy piano melody or the funky bassline. Having these ready at all times will definitely increase your chances.

Wider reach

Even though the revenues from sync licensing can be very lucrative, they are not the only benefit that come with placements. You know how it goes – you hear a song in a movie or even an ad and you immediately open Shazam afterwards. With the right placements, you have the opportunity to introduce your music to an entirely new audience through a different medium. Ideally, this can open new doors for you, as well. It is therefore only fitting to celebrate a successful placement on all your platforms and let everyone know about it.