Leading the way with 11 total nominations is Kendrick Lamar and his album To Pimp A Butterfly. But Taylor Swift racked up seven nominations, including three out of the four biggest categories — Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year. But R&B singer, songwriter and producer The Weeknd matched Swift’s total tally.

For those looking for a “Swift vs. Lamar” narrative, however, things aren’t so simple: the Best Pop Group/Duo Performance and Best Music Video nominees include their collaboration “Bad Blood.” (Lamar also has another nominated video in the latter category, for his anthemic “Alright.”)

Especially among the four major categories — Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist — many of the nominees were nearly a forgone conclusion, considering the rapturous response they’ve already received from critics and fans alike.

Nominees for Album of the Year are Alabama Shakes‘ Sound & Color; Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly; Traveller, by Chris Stapleton; Taylor Swift’s 1989; and The Weeknd‘s Beauty Behind the Madness.

The Song of the Year prize is a songwriting award. This year’s nominated songs are Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” Little Big Town‘s “Girl Crush,” Wiz Khalifa‘s “See You Again” and Ed Sheeran‘s “Thinking Out Loud.”

The Record of the Year award is what fans are likely to think of as the vote for the year’s best single. This year’s nominees: D’Angelo and the Vanguard’s “Really Love”; “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars; Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”; Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”; and The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face.”

The Best New Artist category was a little more of a stylistic grab bag, with the nominees including Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett, English singer-songwriter James Bay, country artist Sam Hunt, former American Idol contestant Tori Kelly and pop star Meghan Trainor.

Even so, certain artists may be surprised by their omission from this year’s roster altogether. For example, Rihanna‘s single “FourFiveSeconds,” featuring Paul McCartney and Kanye West, would have seemed tailor-made for Grammy judges who generally love cross-genre — and perhaps even more importantly, trans-generational — collaborations. In fact, the trio even performed the song at last year’s televised Grammy ceremony. However, Rihanna failed to receive any nominations at all this year.

The odd timing of the Grammy schedule also means that this year’s monster-hit album — Adele‘s freshly issued 25 — won’t be eligible for nomination until the awards’ 2017 edition. In order to qualify for the 58th annual awards, recordings must have been released between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2015.

The Grammy Awards are voted on by members of NARAS, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The full list of nominees, across all 83 categories, is available on NARAS’ website.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

A new report released today by the Berklee College of Music’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship details what it repeatedly calls a “lack of transparency” in the music business. Titled “Transparency and Money Flows,” the 28-page report also gives recommendations that highlight the labyrinthine complexity of the current system.

The output of a year-long study, the report cites estimates “that anywhere from 20-50 percent of music payments don’t make it to their rightful owners.” Proposed fixes include better behind-the-scenes technologies, a “Creator’s Bill of Rights,” a “Fair Music” seal and education campaigns.

Those approximated percentages for music payouts lost in limbo are “based on multiple conversations with many different folks involved in payments,” acknowledges Allen Bargfrede, an associate professor at Berklee who spearheaded the report. “I personally believe the number is closer to 20%, especially in Europe and North America, but probably can be as high as 50% when you start to look at streaming payments in other languages that have different character sets.”

The reasons so much revenue might fail to trickle down are as baroquely varied as the services and royalty types that generate music income in the first place. Musicians (or anyone to whom they sell their rights) can earn fractions of pennies or thousands of dollars from streaming services, from licenses for films, TV or commercials and from whatever lawyers deem “public performances” of their works, all without anyone ever buying a CD or mp3. A growing layer of middlemen that collect the money and theoretically pass it on to the rights holders presents another opportunity for some of that revenue to lose its way.

One focus of the report is the so-called “black box,” a phrase that refers to where money ends up when, for instance, royalty revenue from a stream can’t be linked back to a songwriter.

Or take “breakage,” the difference between the advance a streaming service pays to a label and the royalties. If each streaming service were to pay each of the three major labels the $42.5 million advance for which Sony Music was eligible under a leaked Spotify contract published by The Verge this past spring, the potential pool of breakage revenues to labels would total hundreds of million dollars, the report says. Since the leak, the major labels have all said they share advance payments with artists.

Another source of funds for the black box stems from differences in international copyright law, which results in license fees being collected abroad for what’s known as the “performance” of U.S. sound recordings. According to the report, this revenue usually ends up with foreign sources, which pass the money along to local artists.

“The biggest message out of the report is just the lack of technology adoption for the back end of the music industry,” Berklee’s Bargfrede says. “Streaming is now becoming the dominant method of music consumption. We need to figure out how to work with the streaming services in a way that makes sense to creators.”

More specifically, the report calls for an industry-standard format for up-to-date information about the various types of music revenues, so artists could in effect monitor their royalties online the way consumers track their bank accounts. The authors also propose creating “a decentralized, feasible” database of global copyright ownership details.

The “Creator’s Bill of Rights” would lay out a set of foundational principles for artists, from the right to be fairly compensated to the right to know which parties are taking a cut out of their payments streams. The “Fair Music” certification would allow digital services and labels to show they meet certain standards, similar to fair-trade coffee or organic vegetables.

Beyond that, the Berklee researchers suggest lobbying Congress to enact a sweeping overhaul of the music copyright system proposed earlier this year by the U.S. Copyright Office. Finally, the report urges education programs to inform musicians about these issues affecting their revenue streams.

(Editor’s Note: NPR’s Policy and Representation division is a member of the MIC Coalition, a consortium made up of organizations including Google, Pandora and the National Association of Broadcasters concerned about the potential for rising royalty rates. The Policy and Representation division is separate from NPR’s newsroom. NPR journalists and music curators have no role or involvement in the coalition. UPDATE at 12:40 p.m. ET, July 15: NPR’s Policy and Representation division confirmed today that it has left the MIC Coalition. It has not yet given give a reason. As Billboard reports, “Amazon dropped out of the coalition early last month because it believed the group was focusing too much on music rates and not enough on transparency.”)

The recommendations arrive as the issue of transparency in the music industry has been increasingly drawing more attention. A recent Financial Times op-ed suggested Swift should use her industry leverage to push for “a baseline set of contractual terms for digital, backed by more transparency about who is paying what to whom.” Bringing further scrutiny to the issue was a June lawsuit by a group of American Idol winners that includes Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, claiming Sony’s deal with Spotify cheats artists, given the label’s ownership stake in the streaming service.

Also significantly, Kobalt Music Group — a company that tracks and collects royalties — was the subject of a glowing May cover story in Wired UK featuring Skrillex. Kobalt is an underwriter of Berklee’s Rethink Music program, of which this report is a part. Bargfrede says the work remains objective.

Some industry observers agree that transparency is a problem for the music industry, though not all fully support the report’s proposed solutions.

Transparency is “the next big fight,” says Casey Rae, CEO of the artists’ advocacy nonprofit Future of Music Coalition, in an email.

“The current environment has too many ‘black boxes,'” he explains. “It’s simply too easy for big companies to sit on money because they can’t find out who to pay, or don’t care to know. It’s time to demand more accountability and transparency, and artists can play a crucial role in that push.”

Mark Mulligan, co-founder of digital-music market research firm MiDiA Research, says that while transparency is “certainly important,” increasing it isn’t going to fundamentally change the state of the industry.

“That’s essentially putting on a different coat of paint,” he tells NPR. “It’s still the same engine.”

To Mulligan, the biggest shift in the industry remains the transition from an “ownership model” to a “rental model,” and the differing payout methods that entails.

Jeff Price, founder of Tunecore and CEO of Audiam, a company that helps track down royalties from digital services, says between 15 percent and 30 percent of tracks on streaming services globally go unmatched with a songwriter. He says Audiam has collected more than $600,000 in the past 12 months from streaming services in so-called mechanical royalties for its client list, which includes the publishing catalogues of Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jason Mraz. More than 40% of that revenue, which is only from U.S. streams, predates the launch of his current business.

“For every single client we represent we have discovered they are just not getting paid for most recordings of their songs,” Price says.

Price lays much of the blame at the feet at what’s known as a “compulsory license.” That’s the system allowing any musician to copy another’s song without asking permission, so long as she pays a federally mandated fee. It’s a system that dates to a 1908 Supreme Court decision that also gave rise to the idea of “mechanical” royalties, which apply to all mechanical reproductions of songs; the machines in question, back then, were player pianos.

Price also expresses skepticism about the report’s proposal of a global rights database.

“Do you think Sony or Warner or even the kid down the street would want the condition of being paid to be some third-party database?” he asks. “Abso-f******-lutely not. I would never want that. I would want to go directly to the place that owes me money and tell the my name.”

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) declined to comment on the recommendations without seeing the full report. “We support efforts to ensure all music creators are paid fairly and efficiently for their work, and we look forward to reading the report,” says RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth in an email response.

The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), which represents independent labels, welcomes the discussion.

“A2IM is extremely supportive of all industry efforts that would result in greater accuracy in reporting on intellectual property usage and the resulting revenue streams for creators,” says Molly Neuman, acting president of A2IM, in an emailed statement. “The independent label community currently represents 35.1% of market share and we believe that with more accurate reporting, that share would be significantly larger.

“We look forward to working with our industry colleagues on efforts to adopt practices to ensure all rights holders are paid precisely what they are due.”

Ben Swank, a co-founder of indie label Third Man Records along with Jack White, also cautiously cheers the growing dialogue. (White is a prominent Tidal backer.)

“Transparency is paramount right now,” Swank tells NPR. “Artists want to be compensated fairly for their work and their art, but I think the communication is really important to artists, and making sure that they get their statements every six months. They like to work with us because they know someone’s actually going to respond to their emails.”

That said, while Swank doesn’t oppose the idea of some industry-wide standards around payouts, he says the accounting on digital streams might take more time than the “Creator’s Bill of Rights” would allow. And he’s similarly ambivalent about the idea of a “Fair Music” seal.

“I like that, but honestly think that labels’ reputations should be able to bear them out without having that official certification,” he says. “It feels weird to have to have some kind of certified thing to prove that you’re not f****** over your artists.”

As for streaming services, Spotify tells NPR it’s focused on transparency, too.

“We’re big believers in transparency and think it’s key to building a new music economy that pays artists and songwriters fairly,” says Jonathan Prince, global head of public policy and communications at Spotify, in an emailed statement. “We’re committed to working with everyone in the business to increase transparency because it will only work if everyone in the value chain — from creators to rights holders to platforms and distributors — does it together.”

Artists, fans, labels, streaming services and others with a stake in the music industry’s future will have more chances to weigh in on the report’s proposals. Berklee’s Rethink Music initiative has scheduled a public event on the subject in Boston on October 2. “We welcome anyone to please participate,” Bargfrede says. The floor for the music industry’s transparency debate is open.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

For more than 25 years, Tuesday has been the standard release day for new albums in America — a tradition Keith Caulfield, co-director of charts at Billboard, says had a lot to do with shipping in the pre-digital era.

“One particular retailer might get that album on, say, Monday morning before they open,” Caulfield says. “And they can have it on their shelf. Boom, great! So, if you walk in and you want Michael Jackson’s new Bad album, they will have it.”

“However,” he continues, “a store a couple blocks down the road may have not got their shipment.” That store couldn’t do anything but wait until it showed up.

In 1989, the recording industry settled on Tuesday as the day every retailer could start selling new releases at the same time — but that was just in the U.S. Albums came out on Mondays in the U.K. and Canada, Fridays in Australia and Germany. Recently, the industry decided it needed a global standard.

“In the digital world, you can’t make consumers wait,” says Adrian Strain, head of communications for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a trade group representing over 1,300 record labels worldwide.

Under the old system, Strain says, a fan in Britain could buy a new album on Monday and upload it — so her friend in Australia could listen before it came out there on Friday.

Strain says “New Music Fridays,” the nickname for the new global release schedule, “should give less reason for those people who can’t get the new release legally to go to illegal sites.”

The new release date isn’t just popular with industry officials. The IFPI asked consumers across eight countries when they would like to get new music. Of those who expressed an opinion, 68 percent said Friday or Saturday.

Still, album sales have been declining for years. Nielsen SoundScan just released its midyear report, and total album sales are down 4 percent over the same period last year. Total album consumption was up, thanks in part to the growth in music streaming services.

So, it might not seem to really matter when albums come out. But it does to the people who still sell them, like those at Amoeba Music in Hollywood, which calls itself the world’s largest independent record store. Co-founder Marc Weinstein says he was not consulted about the new global album release day.

“It’s not something we would choose to have happen,” Weinstein says. “I mean, it’s a logistic nightmare on a lot of levels.”

Weinstein explains that Amoeba now has to change its ad schedule, weekend staffing and live in-store performances, which were typically held when albums came out on Tuesdays.

“It gave us an opportunity to get a bump in the middle of the week when a lot of people would come in on a Tuesday, which normally wouldn’t be a busy day,” he says.

With many stores already struggling to survive, “this is gonna be perceived as kind of another nail in the coffin for brick-and-mortar retail, and it’s kind of sad that no one takes any of that into account when they make these kind of fundamental changes in the way things work,” Weinstein says.

Adrian Strain says not everyone will be happy with such a big change — but that the industry can only follow what it thinks the music fan wants.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

But while the service, which includes a high-quality option for listeners willing to pay $19.99 per month, made a splash Monday, many of the details are still unclear. How much artists will be compensated for their music; whether that will be more than what competitors like Spotify pay out; how, if at all, the revenue sharing for Tidal is anything new; and whether the service will offer products other than music and videos — these questions remain unanswered. But one thing is clear — Tidal’s launch has been a highly choreographed, and often dramatic, multiplatform affair.

For days now, Tidal has blanketed social media, with artists like Rihanna and Madonna turning their Twitter profile photos blue to hype the launch. The company promoted a #TIDALforALL hashtag on Twitter as well. And the language around the service’s promotion seems to herald it as something much more than just a streaming music service. In a video posted to Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, and aired as a commercial during NBC’s The Voice, Kanye West said of the service, “This is like the beginning of a new world.” Jay Z proclaimed that it would “change the course of history.” Beyonce seemed to liken it to the civil rights movement or the Revolutionary War, saying, “Every great movement started with a group of people being able to get together and really just make a stand.”

In an interview with NPR’s Audie Cornish, Pitchfork contributor and Weber State University assistant professor of communication Eric Harvey said, “The video that came along with the announcement almost looked like these 16 artists at a Davos economic summit deciding the future of music in some form or fashion.”

A Manhattan press conference Monday was just as dramatic. Jay Z was flanked by a who’s who of recording stars: West, Rihanna, Madonna, J. Cole, Nicki Minaj, Jack White, Alicia Keys, Jason Aldean and even Daft Punk, wearing their signature space helmets. (The Guardian reported that the artists who have lined up behind Tidal have an estimated collective worth of $2.5 billion.) Keys came to the podium and told the gathered crowd, “If there is something to be changed in the world, it can only be done through music.” She called Tidal the first ever artist-owned streaming service and said that it would be a “moment that would forever change the course of music history.”

Will it? In an interview with the New York Times last week, Jay Z said the biggest difference between Tidal and competitors like Spotify will be how much of it belongs to actual artists. “This is a platform that’s owned by artists,” he said. “We are treating these people that really care about the music with the utmost respect.”

The exact details of that ownership have not been revealed, but Jay Z says under this ownership scheme artists will make more money than they would with Spotify. A Tidal executive told The Times that a majority of shares in the service “would be set aside for artists.”

Billboard magazine asked Jay Z specifically whether artists would make more money streaming their music on Tidal than on Spotify. He answered, “Will artists make more money? Even if it means less profit for our bottom line? Absolutely. That’s easy for us. We can do that. Less profit for our bottom line, more money for the artist; fantastic. Let’s do that today.”

Tidal’s website says the service currently has 25 million tracks, 75,000 music videos and “expert editorial from experienced music journalists.” It claims to be the “first high fidelity, lossless music streaming service.” There will be no free version of Tidal. Subscriptions come in either a $9.99 per month standard subscription or a $19.99 per month premium subscription that features higher quality audio. Tidal is also offering 30-day free trials of the service. And Jay Z says the service is urging artists to put content in Tidal “in any format they like.”

Harvey wonders if the high-quality audio will really be a draw for listeners. “Whether the average music consumer is actually able to tell the difference between a high-quality compressed file versus an uncompressed file is a very dubious proposition to bet the farm on,” he says. “But I think that Jay Z has at least initially established sort of a niche market based on a prestige sort of streaming music service.”

As we reported last month, Jay Z acquired Tidal and its parent company, Aspiro, for $56.2 million this February. The company’s streaming services had about half a million users at the time they were acquired by Jay Z, many fewer than Spotify’s 15 million paying customers or its 60 million total subscribers. And Harvey tells NPR that Jay Z and company are entering “a very crowded field, and it’s only going to get more crowded in the upcoming months and years,” with competitors like Beats Music, which was recently acquired by Apple, and Google, which already has YouTube and is planning a streaming service for launch sometime soon.

Jay Z told Billboard that he was actually open to partnering with other streaming services before he acquired his own. “We talked to every single service and we explored all the options, including creating a white label with a service,” Jay Z says. “But at the end of the day we figured if we’re going to shape this thing the way we see it then we need to have independence. And that became a better proposition for us — not an easier one, mind you.”

And even though many of the artists behind Tidal’s big PR push are already well-established (and very wealthy), Jay Z said Tidal is really for people in the music industry that might actually be lower down the food chain. “For someone like me, I can go on tour,” Jay Z tells Billboard. “But what about the people working on the record, the content creators and not just the artists? If they’re not being compensated properly, then I think we’ll lose some writers and producers and people like that who depend on fair trade. Some would probably have to take another job, and I think we’ll lose some great writers in the process.”

Harvey tells NPR that even if Tidal offers benefits to that type of artist, it will be driven by the big-name performers who were at that Manhattan press conference. “The important thing I think with Tidal, as with a lot of these upstart services — most recently Beats music — is the branding and the celebrity aura they can bring to the service and use to sort of try and draw music fans and music consumers to use it.”

And he says the music industry they work in is not like the music industry everyone else does. “These are the 1 percent of pop music in the world right now,” Harvey says. “These are artists who do not answer to record labels, do not answer to corporations. While technically they are performing the same sorts of labor as independent musicians are, they’re doing so at a fairly radically different scale. So it would not surprise me at all if smaller up-and-coming musicians looked at Tidal, yawned and waited for the next thing to come along.”

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

But many people say they are leaving iTunes simply because it isn’t that easy to use. When the late Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs introduced iTunes almost exactly 14 years ago, on Jan. 9, 2001, he made fun of the other software-based music players like Real Jukebox and Windows Media Player. “They are too complex,” Jobs declared. “They’re really difficult to learn and use.” Jobs unveiled the first version of iTunes software from a stage in San Francisco, boasting that it was “really clean, really simple” and “far more powerful.”

It charmed a generation of music fans like Alex Newsom, who gets nostalgic talking about the first iTunes purchase she made when she was only 13 years old. “I downloaded this song by Liz Phair where it’s like ‘Why Can’t I Breath Without You,’ ” Newsom says. “I thought I was supercool because it was my first kind of grown-up-sounding song that I’d gone after myself.”

Newsom, who lives outside Seattle, is now 21 and increasingly frustrated with iTunes. For example, a recent update moved the playlist feature around. “You can still kind of go do things the old way but you have to go out of your way to do it,” she says. “And it’s clearly not the way that they expect you to do it.”

Newsom is not alone in her frustration. Jason Mosley, a Web designer who specializes in user experiences, says the last version of iTunes he used — 11 — made him work harder to do what he wanted. For example, instead of being able to create a stream of songs based on a single song he likes with one click, he now has to hover over the song and bring up a temporary menu and then select from different options.

Mosley says he was “shocked to see that they had this all nested within another link.” The Web designer says, “As a rule of thumb, for user experience you want less clicks to get to an action.”

Mosley says part of Apple’s problem is that the basic design is old. “It was built for older things,” he says. “I think it’s just kind of been added onto since then, and that’s just going to make it heavy and slow. Spotify, these new applications, they have the advantage. They are starting fresh.”

Indeed, iTunes has been through a lot of changes over the years. It’s more than a music service — it’s where customers buy and consume movies, TV shows and podcasts. Apple added a streaming radio service similar to Pandora.

Spotify is simpler. It’s all about music. Mosley has switched over, saying he’s willing to pay the $10 monthly subscription fee for the premium, ad-free version of the service because it’s so much easier to use.

James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research, thinks Apple should get credit for breaking open a new model for music with the mix of its software and the iPod — the first easy-to-use MP3 player. “The reason iTunes was adopted so well in the beginning was really not because it was great software,” he says. “It was because it was connected to this hardware that was unlocking your music access and letting you take it with you on the go and that was such a novel sensation.”

But McQuivey thinks Apple got a little over-confident. “They dominated digital music for so long, and maybe they thought, ‘Well, this is good enough. Look, it’s working for people. It’s going to replace the CD. We might as well just sit on it.’ ”

Meanwhile, services like Spotify, Pandora and Soundcloud were perfecting a new model — one dependent less on hardware and more on increasingly ubiquitous and fast wireless and cellular networks and a simple, single function: Connect to the Internet and stream millions of songs.

The story may not be over for Apple’s music service. iTunes still has some 800 million registered users. This past year Apple purchased Beats, which, along with its popular headphones, has a streaming service, which many think will be added to iTunes this year. But it’s clear that even if Apple adds streaming, users will still have to deal with a fairly complex set of options.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

“U.S.-only hit songs — when I say ‘hit’ I mean like top five, not like No. 20 — can generate anywhere from one to two million dollars in ASCAP monies,” Wattenberg says.

Today marks the 100^th anniversary of The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, an organization that keeps track of “performances” of songs by its members and then tries to make certain those members get paid. Alongside its younger competitor, BMI, ASCAP works on behalf of hundreds of thousands of songwriters and music publishers by going into clubs, restaurants and sports arenas and tracking radio playlists, TV broadcasts and even hold music on telephone calls — any public venue that plays live or recorded music — and charging a fee for each song played. The rate changes depending on variables like the size of the venue, the time of day the song is played and the popularity of the song.

“ASCAP tracks all those plays, gives a credit to your name and says, ‘OK, you had X amount of credits,” Wattenberg explains. “‘A credit with the stadium people is worth X per play. A credit with CBS is a different credit.’ And it sums it all up and you get a statement, and you get a check.”

When a song goes to the top of the charts, those play counts can skyrocket, and the checks follow. Wattenberg had one of those money-making top five hits in 2007 with another American Idol alum, Chris Daughtry. He co-wrote “It’s Not Over,” the lead single from Daughtry’s debut album. The song went to No. 4 on the Hot 100.

As Jeff Lunden reported today on Morning Edition, ASCAP’s original purpose when it was created in 1914 was to ensure restaurants and dance halls that played music paid the songwriters for the privilege. But ASCAP’s 100 years have included litigation to make sure every new outlet where songs are played pays songwriters and publishers. Most recently, it’s been in court fighting with the streaming service Pandora, which has been trying to lower its royalty rates.

In 2008, ASCAP published a position paper called “Music Copyright In The Digital Age,” advocating for artists rights on the Internet, and warning, “While the growing ease of copying, storing and sharing music in digital formats offers tremendous opportunity to music creators, it also imperils their livelihood.”

Songwriter Paul Williams was elected as ASCAP’s president in 2009. Williams wrote the songs “Rainbow Connection” and “We’ve Only Just Begun” in the 1970s, and appeared on Daft Punk’s 2013 album Random Access Memories (that was him accepting the Grammy for Album of the Year last month on behalf of the French duo, who spent the ceremony mute behind their customary robot helmets). Williams says that even though the Internet has already been reshaping the music industry for over a decade, this moment is kind of like the early days of cable television.

“Where we first began to collect from composers for their films that were shown on cable and television shows on cable, there was very, very small royalty involved,” Williams says. “At this point, it’s a very fair royalty. It’s perhaps our largest single source of income to our writers, is cable. It’s the last thing we would have thought of at the time.”

Last year, ASCAP documented more than 250 billion song performances and paid out over $850 million to its members, a $24 million increase from 2012, which is even more remarkable when you consider that record sales have almost continually declined over the last decade.

But for songwriters whose music hasn’t hit the top of the charts, ASCAP’s system can seem less effective. Guitarist and composer Harvey Reid says he makes a full time living from his music, though mostly from performances and album sales, not royalties. He gets radio play on smaller stations, but says the way ASCAP tracks performances on radio is biased.

“They’re more likely to sample radio stations that have higher listenership, so it’s statistically rigged,” Reid says. He was so fed up with ASCAP that he actually switched over to BMI, but he says they both seem to distribute the money the same way. “I’ve made 30-some recordings that have been played on the radio in this country for over 30 years and I’ve probably made a couple thousand dollars from the performing rights organizations, which is probably not accurate. And there’s lots of people like me who are on the fringes of the whole industry. We don’t get a voice much. But I guess that’s life.”

Both Reid and Wattenberg say they’ve seen the newest category of royalties — the money that comes from online streaming services like Pandora and Spotify — grow a little in the past few years. The ease of tracking this kind of play has some ASCAP members wondering if they even need the organization. A number of music publishers, including Sony and BMG, tried to pull out of ASCAP when it came to licensing rights for digital streaming. But a judge ruled that the blanket licensing agreement ASCAP has negotiated with music publishers covers ALL media — traditional and digital — and cannot be divided up.

That makes sense, says Casey Rae, the interim Executive Director of the Future of Music Coalition, a non-profit that lobbies on behalf of musicians. He says ASCAP has a distinct advantage when it comes to negotiating the hundreds of separate deals with venues, radio, TV, cable and streaming services. “I, for one, think it would be very, very difficult to create an institution to go around to every venue in the United States of American and then establish reciprocal agreements overseas and so on and so forth,” Rae says. “I think that that’s probably alone a case for their continued existence.”

Rae agrees that lesser-known songwriters like Harvey Reid have had good reason to be frustrated with ASCAP’s accounting and ways of tracking plays. But in the digital era, when it’s possible to track a listener’s every click, ASCAP is trying to adapt.

“We’re not at 100 percent yet, but we’re moving in that direction where we can track … and properly pay for every performance,” Williams says.

In a world where more artists are recording, publishing and distributing their music without labels, Williams thinks ASCAP and other performance rights organizations will only become more important.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Daft Punk, whose last album, Human After All, came out in 2005, won four awards in all, including Best Dance/Electronica Album and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. The two musicians behind the group, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, appeared behind their trademark “robot” helmets and didn’t speak a word into a microphone all night, letting their collaborators, including the two performers featured on “Get Lucky,” Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, accept awards on their behalf. (Random Access Memories won a fifth award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical)

Williams, who acted as Daft Punk’s main spokesman for most of the night, was nominated for seven awards and won four, including Producer of the Year, Non-Classical. The three he lost (for producing Robin Thicke’s Record and Pop Duo/Group nominee “Blurred Lines” and Kendrick Lamar’s Album nominee good kid m.A.A.d city) were also awards he won.

The chart-topping Seattle-based hip-hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis also won four Grammys, including Best New Artist and three rap awards. New Zealand’s Lorde won the other major award, Song of the Year, as well as Best Pop Solo Performance, for “Royals,” which dominated the singles chart for two months in the fall.

Other multiple award winners included country newcomer Kacey Musgraves, R&B and rap collaborators Justin Timberlake and Jay Z, gospel singer Ty Tribbett and classical composer Maria Schneider.

Schneider was among the winners announced at a ceremony before the night’s main event, where, as NPR’s Mandalit Del Barco reported on Morning Edition, most of this year’s 82 awards were handed out. That spotlight, however comparably dim, still meant something huge to those who picked up Grammys.

“Most of us who are coming through here that you’re seeing this afternoon, we’re funding our own records,” Schneider said back stage.

Listen to Mandalit Del Barco’s report at the audio link on this page. The complete list of Grammy winners is below.

• Record of the Year – “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers
• Album of the Year – Random Access Memories by Daft Punk
• Song of the Year – “Royals” by Joel Little & Ella Yelich O’Connor, songwriters (Lorde)
• Best New Artist – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
• Best Pop Solo Performance – “Royals” by Lorde
• Best Pop Duo/Group Performance – “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk Featuring Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers
• Best Pop Instrumental Album – Steppin’ Out by Herb Alpert
• Best Pop Vocal Album – Unorthodox Jukebox by Bruno Mars
• Best Dance Recording – “Clarity” by Zedd featuring Foxes
• Best Dance/Electronica Album – Random Access Memories by Daft Punk
• Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album – To Be Loved by Michael Bublé
• Best Rock Performance – “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons
• Best Metal Performance – “God Is Dead?” by Black Sabbath
• Best Rock Song – “Cut Me Some Slack” by Dave Grohl, Paul McCartney, Krist Novoselic & Pat Smear, songwriters (Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, Pat Smear)
• Best Rock Album – Celebration Day by Led Zeppelin
• Best Alternative Music Album – Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend
• Best R&B Performance – “Something” by Snarky Puppy with Lalah Hathaway
• Best Traditional R&B Performance – “Please Come Home” by Gary Clark Jr.
• Best R&B Song – “Pusher Love Girl” by James Fauntleroy, Jerome Harmon, Timothy Mosley & Justin Timberlake, songwriters (Justin Timberlake)
• Best Urban Contemporary Album – Unapologetic by Rihanna
• Best R&B Album – Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys
• Best Rap Performance – “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Featuring Wanz
• Best Rap/Sung Collaboration – “Holy Grail” by Jay Z featuring Justin Timberlake
• Best Rap Song – “Thrift Shop” by Ben Haggerty & Ryan Lewis, songwriters (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Featuring Wanz)
• Best Rap Album – The Heist by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
• Best Country Solo Performance – “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker
• Best Country Duo/Group Performance – “From This Valley” by The Civil Wars
• Best Country Song – “Merry Go Round” by Shane McAnally, Kacey Musgraves & Josh Osborne, songwriters (Kacey Musgraves)
• Best Country Album – Same Trailer Different Park by Kacey Musgraves
• Best New Age Album – Love’s River by Laura Sullivan
• Best Improvised Jazz Solo – “Orbits” by Wayne Shorter, soloist
• Best Jazz Vocal Album – Liquid Spirit by Gregory Porter
• Best Jazz Instrumental Album – Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue by Terri Lyne Carrington
• Best large Jazz Ensemble Album – Night in Calisia by Randy Brecker, Włodek Pawlik Trio & Kalisz Philharmonic
• Best Latin Jazz Album – Song for Maura by Paquito D’Rivera And Trio Corrente
• Best Gospel/Contemporary Christian Music Performance – “Break Every Chain [Live]” by Tasha Cobbs
• Best Gospel Song – “If He Did It Before … Same God [Live]” by Tye Tribbett, songwriter (Tye Tribbett)
• Best Contemporary Christian Music Song – “Overcomer” by David Garcia, Ben Glover & Christopher Stevens, songwriters (Mandisa)
• Best Gospel Album – Greater Than [Live] by Tye Tribbett
• Best Contemporary Christian Music Album – Overcomer by Mandisa
• Best Latin Pop Album – Vida by Draco Rosa
• Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album – Treinta Dias by La Santa Cecilia
• Best Regional Mexican Music Album (Including Tejano) – A Mi Manera by Mariachi Divas De Cindy Shea
• Best Tropical Latin Album – Pacific Mambo Orchestra by Pacific Mambo Orchestra
• Best American Roots Song – “Love Has Come for You” by Edie Brickell & Steve Martin, songwriters (Steve Martin & Edie Brickell)
• Best Americana Album – Old Yellow Moon by Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell
• Best Bluegrass Album – The Streets of Baltimore by Del McCoury Band
• Best Blues Album – Get Up! by Ben Harper with Charlie Musselwhite
• Best Folk Album – My Favorite Picture of You by Guy Clark
• Best Regional Roots Music Album – Dockside Sessions by Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience
• Best Reggae Album – Ziggy Marley in Concert by Ziggy Marley
• Best World Music Album (TIE) – Savor Flamenco by Gipsy Kings AND Live: Singing for Peace Around the World by Ladysmith Black Mambazo
• Best Children’s Album – Throw a Penny in the Wishing Well by Jennifer Gasoi
• Best Spoken Word Album – America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t by Stephen Colbert
• Best Comedy Album – Calm Down Gurrl by Kathy Griffin
• Best Musical Theater Album – Kinky Boots by Billy Porter & Stark Sands, principal soloists; Sammy James Jr., Cyndi Lauper, Stephen Oremus & William Wittman, producers; Cyndi Lauper, composer & lyricist (Original Broadway Cast with Stark Sands, Billy Porter & Others)
• Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media – Sound City: Real to Reel by Butch Vig, compilation producer
• Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media – Skyfall by Thomas Newman, composer
• Best Song Written For Visual Media – “Skyfall” by Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth, songwriters (Adele)
• Best Instrumental Composition – “Pensamientos for Solo Alto Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra” by Clare Fischer, composer (The Clare Fischer Orchestra)
• Best Instrumental Arrangement – “On Green Dolphin Street” by Gordon Goodwin, arranger (Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band)
• Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) – “Swing Low” by Gil Goldstein, arranger (Bobby McFerrin & Esperanza Spalding)
• Best Recording Package – Long Night Moon by Sarah Dodds & Shauna Dodds, art directors (Reckless Kelly)
• Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package – Wings Over America (Deluxe Edition) by Simon Earith & James Musgrave, art directors (Paul McCartney And Wings)
• Best Album Notes – Afro Blue Impressions (Remastered & Expanded) by Neil Tesser, album notes writer (John Coltrane)
• Best Historical Album (TIE) – Charlie Is My Darling – Ireland 1965 by Teri Landi, Andrew Loog Oldham & Steve Rosenthal, compilation producers; Bob Ludwig, mastering engineer (The Rolling Stones) AND The Complete Sussex and Columbia Albums by Leo Sacks, compilation producer; Joseph M. Palmaccio, Tom Ruff & Mark Wilder, mastering engineers (Bill Withers)
• Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical – Random Access Memories by Peter Franco, Mick Guzauski, Florian Lagatta & Daniel Lerner, engineers; Antoine “Chab” Chabert, Bob Ludwig, mastering engineers (Daft Punk)
• Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical – Pharrell Williams
• Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical – “Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais Remix)” by Cedric Gervais, remixer (Lana Del Rey)
• Best Surround Sound Album – Live Kisses by Al Schmitt, surround mix engineer; Tommy LiPuma, surround producer (Paul McCartney)
• Best Engineered Album, Classical – Winter Morning Walks by David Frost, Brian Losch & Tim Martyn, engineers; Tim Martyn, mastering engineer (Dawn Upshaw, Maria Schneider, Australian Chamber Orchestra & St. Paul Chamber Orchestra)
• Producer Of The Year, Classical – David Frost
• Best Orchestral Performance – Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4 by Osmo Vänskä, conductor (Minnesota Orchestra)
• Best Opera Recording – Adés: The Tempest by Thomas Adès, conductor; Simon Keenlyside, Isabel Leonard, Audrey Luna & Alan Oke; Jay David Saks, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus)
• Best Choral Performance – Pärt: Adam’s Lament by Tõnu Kaljuste, conductor (Tui Hirv & Rainer Vilu; Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir; Sinfonietta Riga & Tallinn Chamber Orchestra; Latvian Radio Choir & Vox Clamantis)
• Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance – Roomful of Teeth by Brad Wells & Roomful of Teeth
• Best Classical Instrumental Solo – Corigliano: Conjurer – Concerto For Percussion & String Orchestra by Evelyn Glennie; David Alan Miller, conductor (Albany Symphony)
• Best Classical Vocal Solo – “Winter Morning Walks” by Dawn Upshaw (Maria Schneider; Jay Anderson, Frank Kimbrough & Scott Robinston; Australian Chamber Orchestra & St. Paul Chamber Orchestra)
• Best Classical Compendium – Hindemith: Violinkonzert; Symphonic Metamorphosis; Konzertmusik by Christoph Eschenbach, conductor
• Best Contemporary Classical Composition – “Schneider, Maria: Winter Morning Walks” by Maria Schneider, composer (Dawn Upshaw, Jay Anderson, Frank Kimbrough, Scott Robinson & Australian Chamber Orchestra)
• Best Music Video – “Suit & Tie” by Justin Timberlake Featuring Jay Z (David Fincher, video director; Timory King, video producer)
• Best Music Film – Live Kisses by Paul McCartney (Jonas Åkerlund, video director; Violaine Etienne, Aron Levine & Scott Rodger, video producers)

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