Snoop Dogg is not holding back when it comes to his thoughts on streaming residuals and the lack of money in Hollywood due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes. He fully supports the WGA and SAG-AFTRA in their fight against the studios, and he made that clear during a passionate speech at the Milken Institute.
“The streaming industry needs to get their act together because I can’t wrap my head around how they’re making money off of it,” the rapper exclaimed. “I mean, can someone please explain to me how you can have a billion streams and not earn a million dollars? That just doesn’t make any sense to me. Whoever is running the streaming industry, you better come forward and give us some answers on how to track down this money. Because right now, the math just isn’t adding up.”
Snoop Dogg emphasized that artists who are achieving huge numbers on streaming platforms are not seeing the financial results they deserve. He reminisced about the old days when it was much simpler to calculate earnings based on physical album sales. But now, with streaming, it’s a whole different story.
“If you sold a million copies, you knew you were getting a certain percentage of the profits. It was straightforward,” he explained. “But now, with streaming, it’s not being translated into fair compensation for the artists. We need to figure this out, just like the writers are doing with their strike. They’re not getting paid for their work on streaming platforms. It’s not like the box office, where if a movie performs well, you get a bonus. But with streaming, even if your movie gets hundreds of thousands of hours of views, where’s the money? Sorry for going off-script, but this is a serious business matter.”
Snoop Dogg expressed his hope that someone in the room, filled with business people, would be able to find a solution to this issue. He wants to ensure that future artists don’t have to struggle or cry over their earnings. He pointed out that many artists have millions and millions of streams, yet they don’t have a million dollars in their pockets.
Check out the video below to see Snoop Dogg’s passionate speech.
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