Most musicians make most of their money by touring and playing live. Unless you're a big name, recording alone isn't going to put food on the table. Waiting for royalties to come in from downloads and leasing your music out is an even less stable way to earn a buck. Sting can get by with his earnings from recording, but as a story on CelebrityNetWorth.com shows, the former Police bassist ain't doing bad from royalties either. Specifically, royalties from classic "Every Breath You Take." According to the site, the bassist/vocalist makes nearly $2,000 a day from the single's royalties.
That's upward of $730,000 a year from one song. The performer's business manager said that the song is responsible for more than a quarter of Sting's lifetime publishing income, thanks to its frequent use in other media and commercials.
The trick is that Sting is the only listed songwriter, which means he's making 100 percent of the song's royalties as well. Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, the respective guitarist and drummer of The Police, don't make anything off the song's royalties. The band was not in the mood to be band at the time of Synchronicty's recording, and they were more eager to get away from each other than make sound business decisions. Hence how Summers and Copeland got left out in the cold.
The situation gets extra salty for Summers when looking at the success of Puff Daddy's 1997 hit "I'll Be Missing You," a hip-hop tribute to the Notorious B.I.G. that sampled the song's riff. Puff and his crew forgot to clear the sample, which allowed Sting to call for literally all of the royalties from the track...not just the standard 25 percent. The single sold 7 million copies, and most of that money went to Sting. The bitter catch: "Missing You" didn't use any of his vocals during the song. Only Summers' riff was featured. In sum, Sting got paid a whole lot for doing absolutely nothing.
Old news, but always good to learn something new.
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