Worked example · Music · Year 8
DCF: Citizenship → Digital rights, licensing and ownership
A secure Year 8 response, annotated so you can see which success criterion each part meets. It is also your answer key. One stream = £0.0022 recording + £0.0006 song = £0.0028. The band's month: £2,200 recording + £600 song = £2,800. Label £1,760, publisher £150, Elin £346.25, Tomos £323.75, Siôn £110, Lowri £110. D1: about 9.1 million streams. D2: £467.50 each. D3: 42p pro-rata, £5.25 user-centric.
| Who | Paid from | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Elin | Both | She co-owns the songs as a writer, and gets a royalty on the recordings as a performer. |
| 2. Lowri | Recording side | She is on the recordings, but did not write the songs. |
| 3. The publisher | Song side | It looks after the songs for the writers and keeps 25%. |
| 4. The label | Recording side | It paid for the recordings, so it owns them. |
| 5. PRS for Music | Song side | It collects song money and passes it to writers and publishers. It collects, it does not own. |
| 6. Tonfedd | Neither | It pays for a licence to both copyrights. Its 30% is for running the service, not a royalty. |
| 7. The choir's cover | Recording side (their own recording) | They own their new recording, but the song is still Elin and Tomos's, so song money goes to them. |
| 8. Mali | Neither | She pays for a licence to listen. She owns nothing. |
Every row is right, and the reasons use the two-copyright idea precisely: the cover version and PRS are the hard ones and both are explained. Evidences criterion 1.
Recording pot: 55% of £10,000,000 = £5,500,000. £5,500,000 ÷ 2,500,000,000 = £0.0022 per stream.
Song pot: 15% of £10,000,000 = £1,500,000. £1,500,000 ÷ 2,500,000,000 = £0.0006 per stream.
Total: £0.0022 + £0.0006 = £0.0028, which is 0.28p. You need about 357 streams to make £1 between everyone who made the track.
Both pots worked out before dividing, the decimals kept in full, and a sense check (357 streams for £1) that makes the number mean something. Evidences criterion 2.
| Track | Streams | Recording money (£) | Song money (£) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golau'r Harbwr | 420,000 | 924.00 | 252.00 |
| Traeth Tanybwlch | 260,000 | 572.00 | 156.00 |
| Dim Signal | 180,000 | 396.00 | 108.00 |
| Hiraeth yn y Glaw | 90,000 | 198.00 | 54.00 |
| Cân i Mam | 50,000 | 110.00 | 30.00 |
| Total | 1,000,000 | 2,200.00 | 600.00 |
| Who | From recordings (£) | From songs (£) | Total (£) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Label Cefn Gwlad | 80% of 2,200 = 1,760.00 | — | 1,760.00 |
| Cyhoeddiadau Glas | — | 25% of 600 = 150.00 | 150.00 |
| Elin | 440 ÷ 4 = 110.00 | 213.75 + 22.50 = 236.25 | 346.25 |
| Tomos | 110.00 | 213.75 | 323.75 |
| Siôn | 110.00 | — | 110.00 |
| Lowri | 110.00 | — | 110.00 |
Working for the songs: the writers' 75% of the four shared songs is 75% of (252 + 156 + 108 + 54) = 75% of 570 = 427.50, split 50/50 = 213.75 each. Cân i Mam is Elin's alone: 75% of 30 = 22.50.
Check: 1,760 + 150 + 346.25 + 323.75 + 110 + 110 = 2,800 = 2,200 + 600. The four band members get £890 of the £2,800 their music earned, which is about 32%.
Every figure is right, the one song with a different writer split is handled separately, and the check is done and shown. Evidences criterion 3.
D1. One stream gives £0.0022 of recording money. The band gets 20% of that, £0.00044, and Lowri gets a quarter of the band's share: £0.00011 per stream. £1,000 ÷ £0.00011 = 9,090,909.1, so she needs about 9.1 million streams in one month — more than nine times what the band actually got.
D2. 85% of £2,200 = £1,870, ÷ 4 = £467.50 each, more than four times the £110 they get now. But the label paid for the studio and the promotion, and may have paid them an advance; without that, the band would have to pay for everything themselves and might get far fewer than a million streams.
D3. Pro-rata: 150 × £0.0028 = £0.42. User-centric: Mali's £10 minus Tonfedd's 30% leaves £7, and 150 out of her 200 streams is 75%, so 75% of £7 = £5.25. The difference is because under pro-rata her £7 goes into the national pot and is shared by everyone's streams. Her 200 streams are only “worth” 200 × £0.0028 = 56p of the pot, so most of her money pays for music played by people who stream far more than she does.
All three answers are calculated correctly with working, and each one draws a conclusion about fairness from the numbers instead of opinion alone. D2 gives a real reason for the label deal. Evidences criterion 4.
E1. No. Mali has a licence to listen to those songs while she keeps paying and while Tonfedd keeps its licences with the labels and publishers. If she stops paying, or a licence ends, or a label takes an album off the service, the song vanishes from her library. She owns none of the songs or the recordings, and she does not even own a copy.
E2. “Your track is really two things. The song — tune and words — belongs to whoever wrote it. The recording belongs to whoever paid for it; if that is you, it is yours. Agree the songwriting split in writing now, before anyone gets famous, and join PRS for Music so you are paid for the song. Before signing any deal ask: ‘Who will own our recordings, and for how long?’” (68 words)
E1 uses “licence” correctly and names three ways a song can disappear. E2 is under 80 words, names both copyrights and asks the single most important question about any record deal. Evidences criteria 1 and 5.