Why the world’s most popular musical composer receives no royalties
These days, there are many composers of music for film and TV who can sell out arenas like they are rock stars.
The likes of Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman balance critical respect with millions of streams, making them able to fill any venue in the world. Elfman has even seen the likes of Billie Eilish, Janelle Monae and Phoebe Bridgers appear at his shows, taking the role of Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
With that in mind, how can there be someone who can reasonably argue that they’re on the level of the previously mentioned composers, despite having never seen a cent of royalties for their work? This is an artist whose work the average person on the street has almost certainly heard, but could never hum in a million years. And, someone whose music racks up literal billions of plays on TikTok and YouTube, but is never the focus of those videos.
Dear reader, let me introduce you to Kevin MacLeod. I’d say that I was interesting you to the work of Kevin MacLeod, but if you’ve watched a clip on TikTok, you’ve almost certainly heard his work. This is because MacLeod specialises not in pop music, or even incidental music, but in library music. That’s right, MacLeod manages to have one of the most far-reaching careers in music on the back of music whose whole purpose is to be as anonymous as possible.
What’s more, literally anyone can use it, because MacLeod never, ever takes royalties for his work.
How did Kevin MacLeod begin making music?
MacLeod’s journey makes for a peculiar success story. His background is as much in science as it is in music. He studied piano from an early age but initially went to college to study electrical engineering. However, he switched his major to music education within a month of beginning his degree. After dropping out, MacLeod’s first job was as a software engineer, though he did find time to compose his own music, as did many of his friends.
However, said friends were having trouble releasing their music through traditional means, and thus, MacLeod tried a different route. At first, he uploaded his compositions to YouTube before starting his own website, Incompetech. This was where the journey began, offering royalty free music composed by the man himself, operating at a rate that he still operates by today. $30 buys you one song. $50 buys you two and if you want any more than that, it’s $20 per song.
That cash is the only money MacLeod sees for his work, as once someone has bought the right to that composition, it remains under their ownership forever. When his creation ‘Monkeys Spinning Monkeys’ gets played an astonishing 31 billion times on TikTok, MacLead has only seen $20 from it. That seems to be more than enough for MacLeod, though, who writes tunes at an alarming rate. With well over 2000 pieces of music available on the same website, he has soundtracked everything from NASA to Martin Scorsese to porn films and everything in between.
A reminder, if one was needed, that if you can’t find a niche for yourself in what you do, you can always make one yourself.