Am curious - How exactly do song royalties work?

[greendaze5]

Anyone ever work in a radio station or in the entertainment biz and knows how royalties are paid out?

Let’s say a radio station plays ‘Stand Back’ one day - around how much does Stevie earn? And when ‘Rhiannon’ is played, is the royalty given to Stevie only as the songwriter or is it divided amongst the other 4 members of FM who helped record it back in 1975?

On that same note, if Stevie sells a CD retailing at $12 for example, how much of the $12 do you think actually goes into her pocket?

And say if someone sings a Stevie song on ‘American Idol’ (as has been done recently) I assume she gets paid – is that correct?

That said, does Dave Mathews make $$ every time Stevie does ‘Crash’ on stage?