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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

A Tuesday copyright roundtable discussion, hosted by Nashville's Belmont University and led by the House Judiciary Committee, opened with one of the past year's most successful songwriters announcing just how little money he'd made [arstechnica.com] from more than 178 million streams of a song he co-wrote: $5,679.

That means Nashville songwriter Kevin Kadish, the co-writer of the hit 2014 Meghan Trainor song "All About That Bass," made close to $31.90 for every million streams. According to a report by The Tennessean, Kadish didn't clarify to the roundtable's five members of the House of Representatives exactly how the songwriting proceeds were split between himself and Trainor (who shared songwriting credits on "Bass"), but he did allege that the average streaming-service payout for a song's songwriting team is roughly $90 per million streams.

"That's as big a song as a songwriter can have in their career, and number one in 78 countries," Kadish said. "But you're making $5,600. How do you feed your family?"

Tour? Licensing? Merchandise?

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