PMN's Summer Series: Pacific musicians missing out on megabucks in streaming 'black hole'

Welcome to PMN's Summer Series, where we republish some of our best and most popular stories from the last 12 months - in largely their original form.

Pacific artists are racking up millions of views on YouTube, but many of them aren't making the money they're entitled to.

Now a music distribution company is supporting them to get their streaming royalties, and stop others taking advantage.

Precise Digital founder and CEO Michael Giles says he could see some artists weren’t getting paid for their online content, but didn’t have the connections to get in touch with them.

“I saw there all these uploads on YouTube that weren’t being monetised at all, and they had millions of views. For example, someone had uploaded Daniel Rae Costello’s Dark Moon that had nearly 3 million views.”

Giles says having ads on a video is just one of the ways to make money from YouTube, where a portion of the advertising revenue goes back to the artist.

“Let’s say we’ve got an artist that mainly streams in Samoa, USA, Australia - usually a thousand views works out to be about $5 NZ dollars, so a million views would be about $5,000.”

The music industry directly contributed $347 million to New Zealand's GDP in 2020, with $99 million from online streaming and downloads. For the artists who haven’t digitised their work or set up copyright frameworks, it’s bad news.

“YouTube won’t pay you retroactively, it’s only when that content goes up”, says Giles.

“I know a few labels where there was like a 50-million-view video that had never been monetised, and it’s kind of a tough thing to say ‘Yeah, we can’t get you all that money’.”

This is where Samoan musician Mase Josh Mase comes in, who shakes his head as he remembers their first meeting.

“We must have spoke for an hour, and he pretty much showed me there was a black hole in the Polynesian music industry."

Mase is the lead guitarist for Three Houses Down and also plays for artists such as Mr Cowboy, Punialava’a and Ozki. ​

“I thought the only way you can make money was to go out and tour and play shows, because that’s what I was told - for 15 years - and if we weren’t touring, I didn’t have any money.

“So when I sat down with the bro, a one-liner that this guy said and I’ll always remember, he goes ‘Josh, there’s more money in music now than there ever has been’, and I was like ‘wow’.”

He's now working with Giles as Head of Distribution - Polynesian Music, and has made it his mission to connect with Pacific artists, some whom he’s toured with, or sang the soundtrack of his youth.

"Michael just goes, ‘Hey, we need to connect to these people’ and I went ‘Bro, these are my heroes!’.​

“I grew up listening to Zipso and Mr. Tee, and then I found myself remastering their stuff for digital."

Power duo Michael Giles (left) and Mase Josh Mase are working to make sure Pacific artists are paid for their YouTube content. Photo / Supplied​

Songs and sharks

After an agreement is set up with the artist, Mase says the first hurdle is hunting down the original tracks.

“A lot of these guys, they’ll have 20-30 albums in their catalogue, and then they’d only have 10 and we’d have to hit up the aunties and uncles and go to the markets.

“There’s even some bootlegging companies online that sell CDs as MP3, so we had to go and buy it off them, and then distribute it officially.”

Once the music is digitised, Giles says they make sure the ad revenue goes to the artist, even from the non-official videos.

“We allow the re-uploaded content to stay up because we’re able to monetise it on behalf of the artist, so the views will gradually go to the official version that we upload, and then there’s still that old crackly version that people have on their playlist.

“So if it’s just someone who’s uploaded it to YouTube ten years ago, that usually just stays up and then the money - going forward - goes to the artist.”

But Mase says the real challenge is when the royalties are deliberately going somewhere else.

“Some of these people, they’re our own people - Polynesians. I’m not gonna name any names, but people that have been doing it for years, since the cassette and CD days, now they’ve moved on to digital and now - thanks to Michael - we’re able to basically take it away from them and give it back to the musicians and artists that own them.”

It’s impossible to put a figure on it, and Giles says they’re taking legal steps for some artists.

“With a few of our biggest clients, they had people that were stealing from them for years, and the amount we were paying them per month was more than they’d ever made, and I was like ‘Oh man, you got screwed over really badly’.

“It’s sad to see, but that’s the nature of the industry, there’s always been sharks in this space and people that don’t play by the rules.”

​Who's getting the revenue from millions of views on Pacific tracks we all know and love? Photo via Unsplash by Christian Weidiger​

The pay off

Now, they’re representing about 160 Pacific artists including L.A.B, George 'Fiji' Veikoso, Victor J Sefo, Wayno, Boo-Yaa Tribe, and the Katinas, and Giles is proud of what they’re able to do.

“We’re seeing a middle class of artists who are able to make a comfortable living off their music and create a more even playing field with money that’s not all hogged up by big corporations.

“We have some clients that make over $10,000 a month, and we have a lot that make within the $1,000 to $2,000 per month range.”

Their artists are a mix of old school and new, with Pacific Love Band’s song Se’i E Malie Maia currently trending #3 in New Zealand on YouTube.

Mase says the monthly payment is lifechanging for some.

“Mautoatasi - he’s a Samoan artist who got his first payment - and it was a pretty big cheque - and he Facetimes me and Michael, and he was crying.

“He said ‘I can’t believe it…are you sure this is mine?’, and then the next month, we’re paying him again and he’s like ‘Are you sure?’.”

It’s not just the living artists, the royalties can also become part of an artist’s estate, like in the case of Daniel Ray Costello, supporting his widow, Corrina.

“Everytime Precise pays her, she’s always super thankful and very appreciative”, says Mase. “For me and Michael, that’s a blessing and it’s so rewarding to take care of our people like that.”

Giles also sees their work as carefully preserving an artist’s memory, and creating a digital archive for music that could soon be lost.

“I think it’s important, not even from a money perspective, for there to be a complete catalogue of all of this really important traditional music online and recordings, whether it’s from Solomon Islands, French Polynesia, Tonga, Samoa…We’re just trying to track down these lost albums that have been kind of forgotten about, but when they go up, people are like ‘Oh, I remember that song from back when I was a kid’...”

For Mase, it’s a way of giving back to artists whose music has contributed so much to so many.

“In the Polynesian music scene, there’s levels to it. You’ve got your top tier artists who do well in the mainstream scene, and then you’ve got the grassroots guys like Aniseto Falemoe and Mautoatasi - these are all guys that stopped recording like ten years ago and now they’re making mega dollars on YouTube, thanks to this guy.”