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?

[HomerMcvie]

I have a small explanation, from Bob Welch, not of the entire process, but when Sentimental Lady was used for a commercial, a couple of years ago. I saved it from Bob's site, just as a Word doc. If I knew it was okay with Bob, I'd repost it. Although the best thing might be, for someone to ask Bob to explain the whole process to us. I'll bet he'd do it. I too, have always found the royalty process extremely confusing...