A closer look

Ah, the glamorous life of a songwriter, where your compensation is measured in molecular units. When a song is streamed or physically reproduced, a 'mechanical royalty' is paid to the actual composer, which equates to roughly a microscopic fraction of a single cent. It takes millions of plays just to buy a used car, proving that the music industry loves the people who write the hits so much, they prefer to keep them humble and starving.