Songs of the group "Bi-2" can be listened to in Russia, but the musicians don't get paid anything for it. This was told by Leva (Egor Bortnik *) in the podcast "For what", which is available on the portal VotVot.TV .
To the question of the presenter, comedian Garik Oganesyan, who asked if it was possible to listen to the band's songs on the radio, Leva answered in the affirmative.
"Only they don't pay us for it," he added.
According to him, RAO (Russian Copyright Society) also does not pay anything.
"The fact is that when I divorced my ex-wife, she needed to designate some amount of money that I earn in order to cut alimony out of them," the rocker explained.
The RAO requested a report on how much Leva earns per month.
"On paper, they turned out to have about four times more than I received," he stressed.
Bortnik* noted that nothing will be paid for 4 million listens on the Yandex Music service either.
"I had a moment when they started cutting us out of the radio, I kind of freaked out, I collected all this (he pointed to a large shelf with prizes), except for a few important foreign awards for me, put it in a bag and dragged it to the trash. And I say to Asa, my wife, "Asya, and you take it all off,"" the musician shared.
However, his wife dissuaded him from this step, using the argument that "after all, this is history."
As EADaily reported, the group has not liquidated its Russian company, Bi—2 LLC, and continues to accumulate debts. According to the telegram channel Shot, the debt is about 8 million rubles.
At the same time, in 2021, the income of Bi-2 LLC amounted to 23 million rubles.
*An individual performing the functions of a foreign agent