Which musician receives the most music royalties today?

Many wives of a musician "rushed" to demand music royalties

Sharing with Dan Viet , musician Dinh Trung Can - General Director of the Vietnam Center for Music Copyright Protection (VCPMC) said that the mechanism for paying music royalties to member authors of the Center is quarterly. Each quarter, royalties will be transferred directly to each person's account, along with a notification email and a detailed list of royalties with full information: Name of work; Field of payment; Name of organization or individual paying, contract/invoice number and Amount. If anyone has any questions, they can contact VCPMC directly, there will be a specialized department to answer.

Musician Dinh Trung Can - General Director of the Vietnam Center for Music Copyright Protection (VCPMC). Photo: TL

VCPMC does not dare to publicly name the musician who received the most because this requires permission from the author or the author's relatives.

"We used to have a headache when dealing with the inheritance of copyrights from authors. A musician had 3-4 wives, so as soon as the copyrights were announced, the wives immediately rushed to ask.

There was a musician whose wife, who lived with him, received royalties from him to support their children while he was alive. But as soon as he passed away, his two ex-wives rushed forward to demand rights for their children. I had to tell the legal and financial departments to stop paying royalties in the old way while waiting for the court's decision on dividing the inheritance rights for the musician's children.

However, unfortunately, the wife's children are very young and depend entirely on the royalties. If we don't pay them, their children will drop out of school. Therefore, we have to "combine plans" to resolve everything smoothly, but every time we face this problem, we have a headache."

According to musician Dinh Trung Can, in 2023, VCPMC collected a total of more than 344 billion VND in royalties (excluding value added tax). VCPMC distributed and paid more than 305 billion VND to copyright owners, an increase of 90% compared to 2022. Previously, in 2021, VCPMC achieved 160 billion VND. Compared to the 78 million VND in the first year of VCPMC's establishment, this is a huge step forward.

The chart shows VCPMC's growth in music royalty collection. Photo: VCPMC

Normally, VCPMC will deduct from 5 to 25% of the total copyright revenue collected for administrative fees, the author will receive from 75% to 95% depending on the field. Meanwhile, according to the investigation of Dan Viet reporter, the percentage of sharing in other units will usually fluctuate from 30% to 50%. That is, the unit authorized to exploit the copyright of musical works or audio-video recordings will receive 30% to 50%; the author will receive from 50% to 70%.

Musician Trinh Cong Son is always in the top musicians receiving the highest music royalties.

VCPMC reports show that in 2016, the top 5 authors receiving the highest music royalties belonged to musicians/authorized persons: musician Trinh Cong Son with 682 million VND; musician Thanh Son (Le Van Thien) 600 million VND; musician Khanh Don 480 million VND; musician Nguyen Hong Thuan 416 million VND and musician Nguyen Van Chung 378 million VND.

Musician Nguyen Van Chung is one of the musicians who receives billions of dollars in music royalties each year. Photo: VCPMC

In 2019, the top 5 music royalty earners were: musicians Khanh Don, Nguyen Ngoc Thien, Thanh Son, Nguyen Van Chung, Thai Thinh. Musicians in the top 5 earned between 200 and 700 million VND/quarter (3 months).

For many years, musician Trinh Cong Son has always been in the top 10 musicians with the highest music royalties. This proves that his music is still very popular and has spread in life. Musician Dinh Trung Can shared with Dan Viet that the music royalties of musician Trinh Cong Son are currently received by the family representative, Mrs. Trinh Vinh Trinh (sister) - Mr. Nguyen Trung Truc (brother-in-law). At times, VCPMC made a statement of the revenues for musician Trinh Cong Son's family to check, but because there were too many and they completely trusted VCPMC, they did not check specifically.

Music royalties help musicians and their families change their lives

Musician Nguyen Van Chung is also one of the musicians who received the highest music royalties in 2021. Accordingly, if in 2006, the amount of music royalties he received was just over 9 million VND, then in 2020, the total amount earned was over 1.2 billion VND; in 2021 it was about 1.2 - 1.4 billion VND; in 2022 it was about 1.2 - 1.5 billion VND. This amount of money proves the vitality and popularity of Nguyen Van Chung's musical works. At the same time, it also reveals that it is true that today's musicians live well and live well thanks to music royalties.

"Music royalties are still my most stable source of income, my passive income. Even if I don't do anything, I still have that source of income. This money comes from coffee shops, karaoke bars using my music, or some singers covering it, or performance production units using my songs in the program. In addition, I also have active income from producing albums, programs, writing songs for brands...", Nguyen Van Chung shared.

Meanwhile, the eldest son of the late musician Chau Ky also revealed that when his father passed away, he left behind about 400 musical works. Previously, his family received an average of 30-40 million VND/quarter in music royalties. In the past 1-2 years, this number has skyrocketed, currently the highest is about 800-900 million VND/quarter.

The eldest son of the late musician Chau Ky explained that previously, the revenue from royalties from music nights, broadcast programs, etc. was not much; later it skyrocketed thanks to additional sources from online applications and platforms. Therefore, each of the musician Chau Ky's children received more than 200 million VND/quarter, equivalent to more than 70 million VND/month.

"This is something no one expected. When we saw our mother receiving 30-40 million VND/quarter, we all thought it was too much, thinking that having a few more million VND each month would be good, we didn't imagine it would be so high now," musician Chau Ky's son confided.

According to the report of the International Confederation of Societies of Composers and Lyricists - CISAC in 2023, from 2019 to 2022, VCPMC is the world's No. 1 unit in terms of growth rate in the market share of music copyright on digital platforms. In 20 years of operation, VCPMC has earned about 1,063 billion VND in music royalties.

Source: https://danviet.vn/nhac-si-nao-nhan-duoc-tien-ban-quyen-am-nhac-nhieu-nhat-hien-nay-20240822102153559.htm