Music creator survey, Q4 2021 Redefining success
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20,000 foot view: As the barriers to music creation continue to lower, more creators enter the field, yet it is becoming harder than ever to earn a living through music, with a finite amount of revenue being split ever more ways. The majority of professional music creators do not earn meaningful income through their craft and must cobble together income from a diverse mix of sources to make ends meet. This is resulting in a recalibration of their objectives, with creators deprioritising fame to focus instead on more modest remuneration and recognition. As these goals clash with traditional music business models, existing stakeholders will need to evolve to meet the needs of the new landscape and the new generation of music creators.
Key insights
- Nearly half music creators have never earned from their music making, while quarter are part-time professionals and full-time professionals
- Most professional creators do not earn meaningful from their craft, with part-time earning an average of annually full-time professionals earning an average annually
- Music creators a fragmented mix of revenue to make ends meet, half which come from selling their to other creators, and non-recording is increasingly important
- Age and are not strongly correlated, reflecting lowered barriers to entry for today
- In terms goals and definitions of success, creators overall are divided: want make a living from their while make music only for fun of it – the reflecting the emergence of the
- Full-time professional creators strive for remuneration and as agree that their goal to make a living from alone, and agree that being and recognised in their scene most
- are particularly over-indexing for both seeking fame wanting to make a living music alone
- The shift creators’ objectives is driving many the creator economy model of high revenue from a small of superfans, rather than low from a mass, passive audience
- As creators’ objectives and strategies are nearly those of the traditional music traditional stakeholders, like record labels DSPs, will be forced to if they want to continue value to creators
Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Artiphon, Bandcamp, BeatStars, ByteDance, Epic Games, Fortnite, Internet Money, Juice WRLD, Nick Mira, Orba, Orbacam, Resso, SoundOn, Soundtrap, Splice, Spotify, TikTok, UnitedMasters