Slipknot are back with a new album, a big tour and some nifty Facebook camera effects (as we reported yesterday). But the band’s Corey Taylor has also been having his say on the topic of music-streaming royalties, in a series of tweets.
He was responding to a tweet from fellow musician Nils Lofgren criticising Spotify over its payouts. “No one points this out. And while Congress has passed legislation to right this wrong, almost all the streaming services are APPEALING, which means we STILL don’t get paid for our work. But please people, by all means- stream away,” wrote Taylor, accompanying that with an eyeroll emoji.
As Music Ally readers will know, that’s not quite right: the MMA legislation passed in the US was supported by the streaming services, but it’s the recently-set CRB royalty rates for songwriters that four streaming services (Spotify, Amazon, Google and Pandora) are appealing against.
Songwriters are still getting paid for their work: the argument is over whether they’ll get the CRB-planned increase in rates or not. But Taylor’s general point is that streaming royalties are too low. “We HAVE to tour. It’s the only way we can make a living. Merch helps, but the merch companies make the lion’s share. Streaming is pricing artists- old AND new- out of careers,” he claimed.
The challenges for an artist like Slipknot are clear though: an eight-strong band (the songwriting credit for their recent tracks is simply ‘Slipknot’ although the splits within that aren’t public) divvying up the royalties from 6.7 million monthly Spotify listeners plus those on other platforms.
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