# How much do cover artists get on Youtube?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-cover-artists-get-on-youtube/836146>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 27, 2019, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-cover-artists-get-on-youtube/836146 "2019-06-27T10:47:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-cover-artists-get-on-youtube/836146/1 "2019-06-27T10:47:27Z")

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I occasionally watch a channel with over 2 million subscribers that does song covers and the posters recently put up a plea for people to join their Patreon. In the vid, they explain that while they have a lot of subscribers and an article recently said they make about $500k a year, the bulk of that goes to the artists whose songs they cover.

My first thought was “Even if they’re taking half, you’re still doing pretty well, guys.” But given their description of their circumstances (working McJobs to pay the bills), it must be more than that. Anyone know how _much_ more? What’s the straight dope?

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**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-cover-artists-get-on-youtube/836146/2 "2019-06-27T18:07:13Z")

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I suspect that in many cases whoever owns the rights to the song they are covering has copyright claimed all the ad revenue from the video.