How the Hell Do Musicians Make Any Money from Streaming Services?

I've been doing some research for an article on streaming services and it just baffles my mind how little musicians are paid by services like Pandora, Spotify, Rdio, and the upcoming iTunes Radio from Apple:

During iTunes Radio’s first year, Apple will pay a label 0.13 cents each time a song is played, as well as 15% of net advertising revenue, proportionate to a given label’s share of the music played on iTunes. In the second year, that bumps up to 0.14 cents per listen, plus 19% of ad revenue.

That compares to the 0.12 cents Pandora pays labels per listen on its free service. Apple is also offering music publishers more than twice as much in royalties than Pandora does.

It amazes me that so many artists agree to get paid so little.  I guess this is the way things are trending and that most artists do it because they have to.

Original article source: WSJ