During a recent appearance on the “Pod Scum” podcast hosted by “Reckless” Rexx Ruger, Twisted Sister guitarist and manager Jay Jay French offered a blunt assessment of the music business. Addressing the ongoing debate over Spotify‘s notoriously low royalty rates—which generally pay artists a fraction of a penny per stream—he provided historical context to explain why getting ripped off is nothing new for musicians.
While acknowledging that streaming payouts are incredibly low, French pointed out that the digital age actually offers more tracking and transparency than the physical era ever did.
“Well, first of all, the artist never made a penny on bootlegging [before music streaming], and that happened like crazy. So when people talk about no one’s getting paid, at least people are getting paid now. Because everybody does pay for a service — everyone does. So money does come in. Back in the old days, you were losing a fortune on bootlegs, you were losing a fortune on record labels ripping you off because there was no guarantee that whatever they were selling, you could actually prove. Now every track is logged by computer,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Despite the improvements in digital tracking, French did not hold back his thoughts on how record labels operate behind the scenes.
“There’s two sides to this situation,” French continued. “There really are two sides. The record industry is a criminal organization. They screw artists left, right and sideways. They always have. And so what?! Artists are gonna get screwed some way, somehow.”
The conversation then shifted to terrestrial radio and public performance royalties. French detailed the long-standing legal loopholes that have historically prevented performers from earning money when their songs are broadcasted or played in massive sports venues, using the heavy metal anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It” as a prime example.
“Trying to figure out a way to divide that penny up so that people get paid is certainly difficult and, sure, the royalty rates need to be improved,” Jay Jay added. “But the fact that artists never get paid for radio play. Let’s talk about that. Terrestrial radio doesn’t pay an artist a cent. There was a story in The New York Times several years ago. It was a headline. We all in the business knew that this was not a secret. It said ‘Aretha Franklin‘s “Respect” played seven million times on radio. Aretha Franklin‘s income from those seven million: zero.’ Well, that’s because performing rights societies, ASCAP and BMI, and the publishers colluded with Congress 70 years ago and said, ‘Performing rights societies, we shouldn’t pay the artists. The artists can go and tour and sell records. We’re promoting them by playing it on the radio. We’re helping them. We shouldn’t pay them.’ And so terrestrial radio has never paid a cent. And then n, on top of that, when you go to an arena to watch a hockey game, baseball game, football game, and you hear a song like [Twisted Sister‘s] “We’re Not Gonna Take It“, a friend of mine goes, ‘Yo, dude, Giants Stadium, “We’re Not Gonna Take It“. Ka-Ching.’ I go, ‘Yo, dude, “We’re Not Gonna Take It“. Zero.’ ‘ What do you mean?’ I said, ‘They pay ASCAP [and] BMI fees to play a billion songs, and they don’t have to pay us a penny.’ The publisher gets paid. The publisher gets paid. The artist gets paid nothing. That’s just the way it works. Now, SoundExchange has flipped that around, and online has flipped that around. Now all that gets logged, and now we get paid. But for the longest time, the artist never got paid — just the writer got paid. Yeah. Now, with SoundExchange, the artist gets paid, the label gets paid, and the publisher and the writer get paid zero. So that’s the attempt at trying to reconcile it. And I’m not telling you anything is perfect, because nothing is perfect, and it can always be better. But just remember — in those days you made money selling records and you lost money touring. Now you make money touring and you give your music away for free, which is why tickets cost so much. Because in the old days the record sales, theoretically, were buoying the whole business and helping you out.”
