Why Musicians Can’t Live off Music Royalties
Artists Deserve BETTER!
Music is a universal language. Musicians speak to people from all over the world, bring communities together, form relationships, and collectively help people heal. So, why are music artists struggling to make a living? Why do record labels squeeze all the creativity out of promising musicians and take up to 80% of their earnings? Money can either be a tool to help or a tool to control. In the music industry, it is unfortunately the latter.
How much do musicians really make?
It is a common myth that music artists make a bucket load of money from releasing songs, performing shows, and attending meet and greets; this is simply not the case. Unless you’re talking about Ariana Grande or Skrillex, the typical musician is probably working a second job, performing at shows, marketing themselves, and trying to pursue music full-time. This is not a sustainable lifestyle for a musician’s mental health, nor is it sustainable for a long-term career. Here’s where record labels come in to save the day! (Jks, this is total sarcasm). The typical record label finds an artist that looks profitable and offers them a deal. The deal usually goes a little something like this:
Record Label: Hey! We think you could make money for us. We’d like to record your songs, release them under our label, promote you, take most of your money, and have all creative control over your future projects.
Music Artists: Um, okay cool!
Record labels will sugar-coat this a whole lot more but you can expect this to be the end result.
Can Artists Have Creative Control & Make Money?
Independent artists can become successful, there is no doubt about this. Chance the Rapper & Frank Ocean for example are award-winning musicians that released music without a record label. If you can market yourself, afford the costs of music production, and gain traction on your songs, go for it! However, we need a movement to combat the cycle that is occurring in the music industry. We need a record label that values art, creativity and gives music artists what they deserve.
Moonwalker FM: Where the World of NFT’s and Music Collide Moonwalker FM is an NFT record label that will have musicians finally getting the revenue that they deserve and the earnings that they are entitled to. It’s time for old-school record labels to go! We need to embrace the world of NFT’s, use them to our advantage, and change the music industry for the better.
Here’s how it works:
A talented musician collabs with Moonwalker FM and their song is associated with an NFT. Investors buy these NFT’s and earn rewards from both the song streams. These investors want to see their associated song do well, so, musicians will see communities trying to get their song to the top of the charts! It’s literally a win-win for everybody!
Moonwalker FM Earnings and Percentages:
Unlike typical record labels, Moonwalker FM can afford to take a small profit simply because of how the NFT space works. Moonwalker operates on a 10/45/10 split. This means that the artist takes home the entire 45% with no additional costs, being that the label covers all marketing & asset creation.
So, we have 55% left, where is that going? The label is taking 10% & the remaining 45% is going back to the community! The record industry is laughing at us right now because they cannot fathom how a business can sustain itself with such a low percentage of profits. But this is where the power of the NFT ecosystem comes into play.
Moonwalker FM is taking a 7.5% resell fee from all sales made. This enables us to build, support artists & reinvest into the music, which will further increase the value of the collection. We have some more good news! 5% of all mints will be donated directly to pro artist foundations such as “Support Act” where 100% of the proceeds go to artists in need. We’ll be hosting artist discovery projects with great prizes to not only incentivize artists but bring amazing new music to our community & of course, hosting competitions for all of our members. We don’t need to bleed artists dry just to keep our pockets full and the company running. Moonwalker FM is a space for artists, musicians, and investors to work together to build a better future for the music industry and a better future for people that live to create.
