So How Much Will Walk Off the Earth Make from Their Gotye Video?
Since it first appeared online on January 5, Walk Off the Earth’s five-people-one-guitar cover of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” has been seen more than 33,000,000 times.
Tomorrow (Monday, January 23), they’re due to appear on Ellen which will no doubt push the views closer to the 40 million mark.
Now here’s a reasonable question: with that kind of traffic, how much money does the band stand to make from just this video under YouTube’s payment system?
I did some asking around with people in the industry who really know how this stuff works. If what they told me is accurate–and I have no reason to believe that it’s not–here’s how things are shaking out for the band.
- YouTube’s payment rate is apparently approximately $2.50 CPM. That means for every thousand views, $2.50 is paid out.
- YouTube takes 50% of all ad revenue from a video like this. If the artist in question owns the song, they get the other 50%.
- However, in the case of Walk Off the Earth’s video, they get 35%. The remaining 15% goes to the music publisher which owns the copyright to “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
Now let’s do the math.
33,000,000 views divided by 1,000 = 33,000.
33,000 x $2.50 = $82,500
50% of $82,500 = $41,250 to YouTube
15% of $82,500 = $12,375 to the publisher
35% of $82,500 = $28,875 to Walk Off the Earth
$28,875 divided amongst the five members = $5,775 each
That’s not a giant amount of money, but not bad for what amounts to 14 hours work (the amount of time it took them to get the song down in one take.) And consider:
- There’s no overhead or maintenance costs involved. Everything here on in is pure profit.
- This doesn’t include spin-off revenues from gigs or the sales of downloads or albums. Last week, the song moved 93-3 on the Canadian download sales chart, an increase of 430%. They sold 15,000 downloads at 99 cents each. Apple keeps 30% of each sale with the rest going to the band. (They own the master recording, so I assume that the remaining 70% goes to the band–but I may be wrong.) That’s $10,500 right there.
- And when you think about it, how long would the band have to work selling indie CDs, iTunes tracks and gig tickets to make $5,775 each?
All in all, I’d call this a roaring success, no?
What do they get from the itunes sales? It being a cover. 70%?
If I were Gotye I'd be a little bit annoyed that these guys are getting all the attention over my song… although I guess he/they get a cut too.
He'll get a cut through the publishing. The WOtE version has also ignited serious interest in the original recording. He's definitely benefiting.
Think it is great for a local band like WOTE, They are really talented and any attention we can bring to the Ontario Music scene is GREAT, you know you have made it when you get on Ellen..and creativity and talent still counts for something…Good for Goyte, his music speaks to a world.."we walk the plank with our eyes wide open?" we need to look into him further.. and also for the Band WOTE..maybe we should connect the two? :)..Independent music is maybe finally going to make an imprint that will change how we think about marketing and what makes the world go round! Cover Shmover, the vid was cool. good for them! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyVJsg0XIIk
These guys have had their 15 minutes already. And there are now copycat covers of the WOTE cover. Whatever happened to people who can make an impact by performing their OWN stuff?
Oh yeah, that would be Gotye.
One slight problem. WOTE did not participate in the ad sharing revenue because there is no pre-roll ad on the video. This was original problem with Friday (R Black) they took it down and then back up again. With the ad in place the cpm and other other numbers are true… without it… eeeek!
Wow. Pretty, though I've seen this done before a couple of years ago by a band called Little Comments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5TOSpYEIQ4
LOL! @Dave…. "Copycat covers?" I've been in the music business a long time (having sold a few million albums worth of "my own stuff") and I'm pretty blown away by what Walk Off The Earth has accomplished here. They recorded a great version of the right song at the right time, and made a great video for it that 40 million people wanted to watch. It might even be better than the original… (up for debate). But you're going to diss them on the fact that it's not their song!? This business is built on artists covering other artists' works… like Jimi Hendrix's version of "All Along The Watchtower"; Janis Joplin's "Me And Bobby McGee"; Aretha Franklin's "Respect"; Marilyn Manson's "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Tainted Love"; Cream's "Crossroads"; The White Stripes' "Jolene"; The Bangels' "Hazy Shade of Winter"; The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie"; Orgy's "Blue Monday"; Joe Cocker's "A Little Help From My Friends"; The Doors' "Whiskey Bar"; The Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen"; The Byrds "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn Turn Turn"; The Talking Heads "Take Me To The River"; Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U"; Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog"; Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You"; Led Zeppelin's "You Shook Me"; The Clash's "I Fought The Law"; Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah"; Johnny Cash's "Hurt" and "Personal Jesus; Radiohead's "Nobody Does It Better"; Fear Factory "Cars"; Van Halen's "Pretty Woman"; John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things"; Frank Sinatra's (well, just about every song Cole Porter ever wrote…); Green Day's "Working Class Hero"; Manfred Mann's "Blinded By The Light"; Pearl Jam's "Crazy Mary"; Foo Fighters' "Baker Street"; The Beatles' "Twist And Shout"; U2's "Helter Skelter"; Guns and Roses "Live and Let Die"; Cake's "I Will Survive"…. and oh so many more. If you don't like WOTE, fine… but have a little respect for music history.
Cheers,
John Wozniak
Marcy Playground.
To add to this discussion. @Tony . I don't think Gotye is annoyed at all. This is free press for his project. His original of the song has had great reception and he's won awards in Australia for it. Also, I heard Gotye on 102.1 The Edge the other day, this is only due to the fact that it is a viral YouTube hit. His original version of the song on his own Youtube channel also has over 50 Million views now. I don't see any reason he could possibly be annoyed or if you were Gotye why you would be annoyed with those results?
Great to hear from you, John!
The thing I find most people forget is that musicians are perpetually working towards a "success" like this. Hours and hours honing their instrument skills and writing and refining and thinking about every little aspect of any given project. So therefore when something like this happens it's thought to be a major success when really the artists are already thousands of hours invested in the band that they are in or the project they are working on. I only speak for myself as recently I have been compensated around the same dollar figure for a project I worked on years ago via SOCAN. It was a radio single that got added nation-wide on all major rock radio stations. Something most people would consider a massive success and although it was great to finally make a little bit of money from my musical endeavours it's still the first dollar amount I've made in the 15 years. Hardly enough to maintain a suitable quality of living without a crappy day job or multiple combined "success'" like this. I'm not looking for millions. Just enough to put food on the table and a roof over my head. I think I would assume that 30 million people's enjoyment of a music video like this one should garner a little more money for the artist's that performed it, although I'm sure they will have a ton of secondary income as a result. Performance revenue and merchandising has been and probably always will be the artist's main source of revenue and smart musicians who know this have always learned how to maximize this end of the music industry cash flow.
What is the source for a 15% / 35% split? Has WOTE spoken publicly about some agreement with the publisher to do this? Under most circumstances on YouTube, a cover song gets tagged by the publisher and the ad revenue goes directly to them.
I talked to some music publishers. The figures came from them.
WOTE covers are, marketing, not art, they shouldn't receive, much money for it. As far as other covers mentioned above, some artists do cover other songs, but they are artists in their own right. You cannot compare Johnny Cash or any of the other bands mentioned to WOTE. They are a cover band, like you see in a small bar. Fine musicians, not artists, but they obviously can make more money this way, and are not creative enough to create great original work. Marketing poses in so many areas, art, sports, finance, most people are just part of a herd and can be led quite easily.
They have done a great job of writing their own music since you have posted. Red Hands, Gang of Rhythm, Summer Vibe. Actually the entire Revo album is excellent. Listen to it if you get a chance. Went to go see them at the CNE over the long weekend and the show was fantastic, the crowd absolutely ate it up. Sometimes you need to give an ARTIST a chance and some time before judging and labeling them. Cheers!
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