Slipknot‘s Corey Taylor has called out streaming services for paying “less than pennies” when it comes to royalties.
Speaking in a new interview, the frontman took aim at exploitive royalty rates and revealed just how little the band receives.
“You are being paid less than pennies,” he told the Irish Times. “In the United States, they have passed the legislation [the Music Modernization Act 2018] but it is being appealed. I am hoping that it will be struck down.”
Continuing, he shared that YouTube pay the least out of the music streaming platforms. “A million streams on YouTube is 0.04 per cent of a penny,” he said. “On a million streams you get $400 and that’s just me doing shitty math in my head.
“People can’t live on that and there’s not a lot of people who get these numbers. The majority of this goes to the record label anyway. The streaming services are not willing to pay the talents who write the songs and makes the music and yet they are sitting on billions of dollars.
“They are buying whole blocks of buildings and then taking over floors in there and yet they don’t want to pay the people who made the money for them. It’s insane. It’s tough all over in a lot of ways. Something has to change. I don’t know what that will be.”
Taylor also shared that some of his friends, who were in popular bands, have had to retire because they were unable to make good money from streaming.
“If the streaming systems paid more online with how publishing in radio pays – people could make a living,” he said. “I have had friends of mine who have had to retire and they are popular bands because they can’t make a living. Mid-card bands and lower, it is hard for them. It almost pays better to play the local pub and do the door deal. You make more money doing that than making an album. Labels don’t take the same chances but they are taking the lion’s share of the money because of the way it is set up.”
He added: “Until the artist is paid fairly, it is going to be a constant fucking battle. I saw this coming years ago. I haven’t got a problem with streaming. I have got a problem with how these streaming services rip off the artist and I’ll say that until the day I die.”
Slipknot are currently on their UK and European tour, the remaining UK dates are as follows:
January
17 – Newcastle, Utilita Arena
18 – Glasgow, The SSE Hydro
20 – Sheffield, Flydsa Arena
21 – Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena
22 – Cardiff, Motorpoint Arena
24 – Birmingham, Birmingham Arena
25 – London, The O2
Watch the band kick off first night of the tour in Dublin.
The Slipknot frontman’s stark warning came as he was asked if the divisive US President was likely to win a second term at the upcoming 2020 election.
