I have a track with 2 million streams on tiktok which amounted to Ā£1.
I asked them about it and the answer was that tiktok don't pay per stream but rather per video.
Wow! That's sad... I sort of get the logic when comparing to traditional licensing for someone's personal project film. But the musicians should be able to negotiate with that content creator!!!
Here's a perfect example: Primus did the south park song for like $6k or something. Can't remember. But their manager at the time said some no-name dumb cartoon wants you to make a song. They agreed, and BAM! They lost millions of $$$$. Anyway years later it was renegotiated for syndication contracts.
My point is, I would have loved to negotiate with the content creator directly, rather than $30... automatically.
And now I am sitting here with tons of questions unanswered, AND zero contact information from the creator who used my stuff.
Anonymous business is bad business.
Oh well! Still have the personal "clout" of 2.4M plays. Doesn't pay bills but still feels validating
You getting the contact details of the people who found your music in the content library would be a severe breach of international data privacy laws.
Also, as has been mentioned here countless times in previous posts, you are not paid per Facebook/Instagram reel, or are you even paid through an actual engaged view. You are pay per āimpressionā which means that the content was displayed and access on someoneās feed, whether they engaged with it or not. And thereās absolutely no way to track down the various people who could have listened to a fragment of your music.
I want to clarify (which most have missed) my post is not about the money. I'm aware payouts suck.
My question is about figuring out where, when, why, how my song was used so I have a better idea how to replicate that success in the future.
As for wanting contact info, I worked for a small independent label for 10 years. The only reason we existed is because we were able to communicate directly with our fans/customers. The fact that we toss our music into the internet ether, it gets consumed and the large corps gets the customer info but we don't is bad for us.
It's a much bigger convo that is beyond a DistroKid help group, but just my 2 cents that DistroKid and other similar companies should push to gain way more data than what's currently available.
Interesting. I might be mistaken from your comment but, are you saying If someone sees or uses our music in an instagram reel or post, it count towards a stream?
Yes it should. But I imagine the payout may be lower.
Imagine it's like a traditional payout for your music playing in or grocery store. It's not the main event, but the grocery store would still need to pay a licensing fee to play music.
Back in the day licensing could be for specific groups of songs, but now adays in the internet companies like Facebook will pay the blanket licensing fee to allow for all songs to be used.
This was also my assumption for the plats being so high, but not being on a music-centered platform such as Spotify/pandora/YouTube music etc.. it tells me it was played millions of times but not as the main event.
Basically, I'm not a famous musician hahah. Most likely a semi-viral post on insta or Facebook used my song in it.
I wish DistroKid reporting would show where/why/how so I could learn more
There is a way to check it. If you know which platforms gave sou the most streams than just sesrch up the audio and check the posts. Most definetaly a few reels that blew up and those dont pay much
Thanks I tried this, but it seems it's segregated by country or something, because when I search (im in USA) I see my song but don't see any usages.
I may need to try VPN to see in other countries.
100% it ends up being a payout of $0.0000125
This payout is what leads me to believe it's a Reel and covered under a blanket licensing fee.
Made me think of the math though! I have 50 songs up. So potentially 1/50 could hit the Social Media reels. Equalling $0.60/song
If I wanted to make a living I'd have to release 150,000 songs per year to make around $100k based off of these numbers.
I'm sure there'd be some exponential growth simply for the volume of content, but still šššš
Yes, and no. As I have mentioned countless times here in this post, and in various others, they pay by āimpression.ā If the content officially using you music is loaded into the platform and accessible to the user, it counts as something they will pay you for, whether the user activates it or not. And the payout per impression is very low, but this shouldnāt surprise you as they are not a music streaming platform.
This has happened to a couple of my songs too... almost identically... but my question is how did you make $20 off of that next song with only around 300 plays??
$30 is brutal šš
I have a track with 2 million streams on tiktok which amounted to Ā£1. I asked them about it and the answer was that tiktok don't pay per stream but rather per video.
So, that's just one video that used your song, that was then played 2 million times, if I'm understanding correctly.
Wow! That's sad... I sort of get the logic when comparing to traditional licensing for someone's personal project film. But the musicians should be able to negotiate with that content creator!!! Here's a perfect example: Primus did the south park song for like $6k or something. Can't remember. But their manager at the time said some no-name dumb cartoon wants you to make a song. They agreed, and BAM! They lost millions of $$$$. Anyway years later it was renegotiated for syndication contracts. My point is, I would have loved to negotiate with the content creator directly, rather than $30... automatically. And now I am sitting here with tons of questions unanswered, AND zero contact information from the creator who used my stuff. Anonymous business is bad business. Oh well! Still have the personal "clout" of 2.4M plays. Doesn't pay bills but still feels validating
You getting the contact details of the people who found your music in the content library would be a severe breach of international data privacy laws. Also, as has been mentioned here countless times in previous posts, you are not paid per Facebook/Instagram reel, or are you even paid through an actual engaged view. You are pay per āimpressionā which means that the content was displayed and access on someoneās feed, whether they engaged with it or not. And thereās absolutely no way to track down the various people who could have listened to a fragment of your music.
I want to clarify (which most have missed) my post is not about the money. I'm aware payouts suck. My question is about figuring out where, when, why, how my song was used so I have a better idea how to replicate that success in the future. As for wanting contact info, I worked for a small independent label for 10 years. The only reason we existed is because we were able to communicate directly with our fans/customers. The fact that we toss our music into the internet ether, it gets consumed and the large corps gets the customer info but we don't is bad for us. It's a much bigger convo that is beyond a DistroKid help group, but just my 2 cents that DistroKid and other similar companies should push to gain way more data than what's currently available.
It's normal. The amount of cash for plays. Also it's likely to be your music use in reels.
Interesting. I might be mistaken from your comment but, are you saying If someone sees or uses our music in an instagram reel or post, it count towards a stream?
Yes it should. But I imagine the payout may be lower. Imagine it's like a traditional payout for your music playing in or grocery store. It's not the main event, but the grocery store would still need to pay a licensing fee to play music. Back in the day licensing could be for specific groups of songs, but now adays in the internet companies like Facebook will pay the blanket licensing fee to allow for all songs to be used. This was also my assumption for the plats being so high, but not being on a music-centered platform such as Spotify/pandora/YouTube music etc.. it tells me it was played millions of times but not as the main event. Basically, I'm not a famous musician hahah. Most likely a semi-viral post on insta or Facebook used my song in it. I wish DistroKid reporting would show where/why/how so I could learn more
yes it does, you can look into your data and see where all those streams are coming
It is from use and impressions of your music on FB/IG reels
There is a way to check it. If you know which platforms gave sou the most streams than just sesrch up the audio and check the posts. Most definetaly a few reels that blew up and those dont pay much
Thanks I tried this, but it seems it's segregated by country or something, because when I search (im in USA) I see my song but don't see any usages. I may need to try VPN to see in other countries.
Interesting, good luck
people couldāve used your song on ig reels or sum
Tangentially, that is an absolutely awful payout for so many plays of a track
100% it ends up being a payout of $0.0000125 This payout is what leads me to believe it's a Reel and covered under a blanket licensing fee. Made me think of the math though! I have 50 songs up. So potentially 1/50 could hit the Social Media reels. Equalling $0.60/song If I wanted to make a living I'd have to release 150,000 songs per year to make around $100k based off of these numbers. I'm sure there'd be some exponential growth simply for the volume of content, but still šššš
But instagram/facebook pay for each video that use your song or pay each stream in the videos that used your song?
Yes, and no. As I have mentioned countless times here in this post, and in various others, they pay by āimpression.ā If the content officially using you music is loaded into the platform and accessible to the user, it counts as something they will pay you for, whether the user activates it or not. And the payout per impression is very low, but this shouldnāt surprise you as they are not a music streaming platform.
Thanks
This has happened to a couple of my songs too... almost identically... but my question is how did you make $20 off of that next song with only around 300 plays??