I found an interesting thread in Miwa Magic as posted by HTMSD


(pics credit to RiP70R)

アーティスト (Artist) : 9 yen (0.9%)
作詞家 (Lyricist) : 17 yen (1.7%)
作曲家 (Composer) : 17 yen (1.7%)
レコード会社 (Record Label) : 546 yen (54.6%)
原盤制作者 (Master Creator)* : 90 yen (9%)
音楽出版社 (Music Publisher)** : 17 yen (1.7%)
JASRAC*** : 4 yen (0.4%)
小売店 (Retail store) : 300 yen (30%)

*I found out in google that it could be translated as (レコード製作者) aka. Record / CD Production Cost
**Music publisher The company that responsible for promotion, etc.
*** Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (http://www.jasrac.or.jp)
source: http://w11.zetaboards.com/Miwa_Magic/topic/8309184/1/#new

So basically Scandal being a four piece band will have to divide the 0.9% artist share among themselves

In a four song single if one of the members is a Lyricist she will have a cut at the 1.7% of the Lyricist share that is 0.425% ( 1.7%/4).

In a four song single if one of the members is a Composer she will have a cut at the 1.7% of the Composer share that is 0.425% ( 1.7%/4).


For further illustration Let's use the Oricon week 1 sales of Taiyou Scandalous and only assuming that all of it are from the Regular Edition and a Dollor Exchange Rate of
1.00 JPY = 0.0112576 USD


According to the wiki page the

Composer / Music is NAOTO,
Lyrics by HARUNA/ NAOTO

Week 1 sales

31,583 units x ¥1,020 = ¥32,214,660 ($362,598.92)

Artist Share

¥32,214,660 x 0.9% = ¥289,934.94 ($3,264.95) Scandal's Share for week 1
divided by four, each member will receive ¥72,483.74 ($816.16)

Naoto will receive ¥547,649.22 ($6,166.75) as being the composer (¥32,214,660 x 1.7%)
plus ¥273,824.61 for being co Lyricist ((1.8%/2)x(¥32,214,660)). His total earnings ¥821,473.83 ($9,242.8430)

and Haruna will receive ¥273,824.61 aside form her artist share of ¥72,483.74 with a total of ¥346,307.61 ($3,897.084).

While Epic Records earned ¥17,589,204.36 ($197,917.02) more or less

The figures are in a case to case basis may be some record labels have higher rates for their artist and also relatively known artist can also demand a higher rate. This sample computation is only meant to give us a general idea of how much artists do earn from sales in comparison to those who are also involve in production.

1.)My area of concern is how much is the share of Scandal's management team? do they get a portion of the artist earnings (.09%)? hopefully not.

2.) Do artist get some regular salary / allowance from record labels while still in contract with them?

3.) I'm really curious with the guesting, and participation in music shows do they get paid or it's almost for free since they are promoting their materials?

4.) Do record labels get percentage shares with earning from live shows while the artist are still in contract with them?

5.) How much is the percentage share of TEAM SCANDAL (Eisuke and co.) in live shows, cd sales, etc?


So can't blame the girls when they loaded their schedule with live shows and tours because earnings from CD sales alone is relatively insufficient.

note: please do delete if already posted and also please notify me if there are big discrepancy in the figures really sleepy it's 5am

@alrick13

That is really interesting, I will see if I can compare that to what Japanese idols earn !
It cannot be much for AKB48 if the money has to be split 48 times.

Thank you so much! I've been wondering for a while how much the girls would earn and it does turn out as a very small portion of the whole amount.

I think the touring is a different aspect. Yes it will give a better boost on the earnings but I'm sure the touring has mainly got to do with their contract with Sony; the quota that they need to fulfill that year.

Some thoughts:

alrick13 wrote:
1.)My area of concern is how much is the share of Scandal's management team? do they get a portion of the artist earnings (.09%)? hopefully not.

Well, far as I know(or at least here in Brasil) the management team only get the portion of the Live shows' earning.

alrick13 wrote:
2.) Do artist get some regular salary / allowance from record labels while still in contract with them?

Maybe
Some artists have a contract of exclusivity with the record company, and the company pays them for this contract
Ex: SCANDAL signed a US$:1,000,000 for 3 year with Sony (Just an example!!!)
But some artists only signs a contract for 1 CD, and in this case they only get portion of the sales
To me seems that SCANDAL has an exclusivity contract, I don't know for how long, but everywhere we look at we will see "Sony" attached to SCANDAL's image
I know some artists that only sign with the record label for 1 CD, they aren't that famous, but without this exclusivity they seems more independent

alrick13 wrote:
4.) Do record labels get percentage shares with earning from live shows while the artist are still in contract with them?

I don't know much about overseas, but here in Brasil the record labels don't get any percentage of the live shows, but now with the internet and the CD sales plummeting the record labels are forcing the artists to share the earning from live shows
This is one of the reasons why here in Brasil the artists saw the record labels as "evil"
The other is this minimal percentage of the Sales earnigns

There's this great 4-part series I read some time ago regarding the Japanese entertainment industry. Apparently, everything is filtered through the jimusho ("office"), which is pretty much the driving force behind everything mass media related in Japan.

The first of the four articles can be found here: The Jimusho System Part 1(neojaponisme)

I would highly recommend reading this to anyone who is interested in the Japanese entertainment industry. I think you'll be able to come to some educated guesstimates regarding Scandal after reading this, especially if you know their history and have a sense of how a business operates. You'll see the connection between Scandal and the jimusho system while reading through.

Very informative, sir.
The life of an artist requires a lot of hard work. .hot.

They definitely have to diversify activities to earn more.
After reading this, I'm more decided to purchase original stuff...from video games, cds, etc.
First, to support the artists(my priority), makers, promoters, all who collaborated. Thanks for giving us good stuff! .clap.

All I know is that. Sometimes they get sponsored for wearing stuff or have stuff on items. Example Nike... More income is if they are asked to come on a show as guest or what not. Doing tours is also a plus. Going over seas is a plus as well. And for others I question as well.

1.)My area of concern is how much is the share of Scandal's management team? do they get a portion of the artist earnings (.09%)? hopefully not.
Nope, Epic pays them per events they work in like Scandal's live house tours, ect. how high their pay for that event also depends whether it's overseas, outside the kanto region, or inside kanto region. They also get paid for doing office works and they also get extra if they help other artists i.e if Aquatimez was short in staffs and Mari-san volunteers to help, Epic will pay her instead of the absent staff. The salary of all non-artist employees from Epic's shares for how much do they get in that $197,917.02 I don't know.

2.) Do artist get some regular salary / allowance from record labels while still in contract with them?
As long as they work they're company will pay them, example Scandal can live through a year without releasing a single or an album provided they do live tours and concerts, they can also get paid for that monthly KERA page they do I'm not sure if they also get paid for appearing in other magazines like Cutie or music magazines.... Theres also that as long as someone's buying their album(s) they'll get something from it

3.) I'm really curious with the guesting, and participation in music shows do they get paid or it's almost for free since they are promoting their materials?
Like what I said earlier they get paid for all the work they do, their pay for works like appearing on tv and radio shows comes from the broadcasting stations and instead for paying the company as well all the salary they'll give will be given to the members who will guest i.e if Rina only appears in the said show she gets paid alone. In this matter the broadcasting station doesn't pay the staffs, Epic pays the staffs.

4.) Do record labels get percentage shares with earning from live shows while the artist are still in contract with them?Yes.


5.) How much is the percentage share of TEAM SCANDAL (Eisuke and co.) in live shows, cd sales, etc?

Idk.

tonymiller wrote:@alrick13

That is really interesting, I will see if I can compare that to what Japanese idols earn !
It cannot be much for AKB48 if the money has to be split 48 times.

My guess with AKB is that it is not divided into equal parts since some members are much popular than the rest. Just my guess I think it's really complicated when we take about income

very interesting points .uhuh.
But is it actually possible that if (and only 'if') scandal was to lose its popularity, stop releasing songs and not do any lives and performances however still within the contract of Epic Records to survive? Do i make any sense? .deli.

Nice topic. I often wonder too if SCANDAL's deal with Epic is a multi album/single one or a or something else.

sealion wrote:very interesting points
But is it actually possible that if (and only 'if') scandal was to lose its popularity, stop releasing songs and not do any lives and performances however still within the contract of Epic Records to survive? Do i make any sense?

If their CD's continue to sell, however small the amount, the girls would probably get the royalties due to them as outlined in their contract. However, the amount they'll get will probably be too small to live off.

In my opinion, these days it's virtually impossible to live off album/singles/CD sales alone unless if you can sell millions upon millions of them all the time.

For a band like SCANDAL, the meat and bread is touring and all the related revenue streams (like merchandise). That's when the artist and/or their representatives get the lion's share of the take.

The band tours A LOT so I expect the girls to live quite comfortably, maybe not rolling in dough but enough to afford some luxuries (like regular trips to the salon)

As for their staff, to my knowledge these girls/guys technically work for either the label (Sony/Epic) or their reps (Kitty Records) so those companies will probably be the ones paying their salaries.

macdyne73 wrote:Nice topic. I often wonder too if SCANDAL's deal with Epic is a multi album/single one or a or something else.

sealion wrote:very interesting points
But is it actually possible that if (and only 'if') scandal was to lose its popularity, stop releasing songs and not do any lives and performances however still within the contract of Epic Records to survive? Do i make any sense?

If their CD's continue to sell, however small the amount, the girls would probably get the royalties due to them as outlined in their contract. However, the amount they'll get will probably be too small to live off.

In my opinion, these days it's virtually impossible to live off album/singles/CD sales alone unless if you can sell millions upon millions of them all the time.

For a band like SCANDAL, the meat and bread is touring and all the related revenue streams (like merchandise). That's when the artist and/or their representatives get the lion's share of the take.

The band tours A LOT so I expect the girls to live quite comfortably, maybe not rolling in dough but enough to afford some luxuries (like regular trips to the salon)

As for their staff, to my knowledge these girls/guys technically work for either the label (Sony/Epic) or their reps (Kitty Records) so those companies will probably be the ones paying their salaries.

thanks good to know they're doing pretty well .love.

@alrick13

With reference to Japanese idol's income a friend in Akihabara gave me these figures for AKB.
They are estimates for the tax year April 2010 to April 2011.

Atsuko Maeda 20 Million yen
Mariko Shinoda 20 million yen
Yuko Oshima 18 million yen
Haruna Kojima 16 million yen
Tomomi Itano 16 million yen

So you are quite right, what they earn is based on how popular they are plus they get extra for handshake events and special appearances at places like shopping malls.

This thread is really informative :3 now everyone can understand why the Girls need to release almost every month and why the prices of their Cd's are the way they are and why they need to have all those reg and limited items.lol

reading this thread makes me want to support them more by buying their singles and albums. if only i have the money. .wew.

thanks for the useful information. this question have been buzzing around my head for a number of times too.

Scandal's unofficial total physical CD (+DVD and BD) sales (2012): 58 900 000 000 yen

Kudos to FrozenSoul @ jpopcentral (<-- PLEASE READ HER POST!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wonder how much money they make from digital sales (they have 2 golden record for digital sales (100.000 copies sold) and non for physical sales)

sillentdx wrote:Scandal's unofficial total physical CD (+DVD and BD) sales (2012): 58 900 000 000 yen

Kudos to FrozenSoul @ jpopcentral (<-- PLEASE READ HER POST!)

Wonder how much money they make from digital sales (the have 2 golden record for digital sales (100.000 copies sold) and non for physical sales)

cant access the link but can you elaborate on what song they got two Golden Record? thanks

That's why they keep doing live performance and show for bigger share.
Anyway glad Tomomi keep writing some lyrics.
Hope Scandal Team Staff don't try to sell their merchandise too expensive to get more profit.

alrick13 wrote:can you elaborate on what song they got two Golden Record? thanks

Um, I meant that they got that two golden record for two separate songs, Shōjo S and Shunkan Sentimental (both for Chaku-Uta Full downloads)

sillentdx wrote:

alrick13 wrote:can you elaborate on what song they got two Golden Record? thanks

Um, I meant that they got that two golden record for two separate songs, Shōjo S and Shunkan Sentimental (both for Chaku-Uta Full downloads)

Hope they receive some plaque or something as a recognition for it, cause here in the Philippines they give artist a Gold Record Plaque for selling 7,500 units

They should (if I remeber correctly then I saw at least one shiny golden disky thing in the room where Timo and Mami raps (but not in Scandal Summit vol. 2)

7,500 units? ...in Hungary the threshold for a golden record is 1000 unit...lol

Record labels are there to make money. As was the case a few years ago with Australian Idol, it was announced everywhere the winner got a $1 million contract. All that meant was the record label would spend $1 million for recording, distributing and promoting the CD. The winner got zilch until the record made that million back in sales (Or when they sold a few t-shirts at the shopping centre appearances, did magazine interviews etc..).

There's many successful bands/singers/artists running their own labels, which ensures they get most of the money (Only have to pay the recording studio, producers and distribution companies etc). Those above-mentioned bands/singers/artists are free to do their kind of music and not be told what to record. And it's pretty good too!

Thankfully, Sony has been kind to Scandal (and us fans) and allowed them to consistently record fun, high-energy music that's not full of filler.

@alrick13
Finally found it: