The Echo Nest partners with EMI

They try a little too hard to justify their absurd terms - which turns the whole thing into satire.

So you will receive an unspecified (but assumed larger) proportion of the 40% but not 40% .

---From the FAQ---

"How much will a Developer be paid? A developer will be paid the lion's share of 40% of net revenues derived from the sale of the application. Net revenues means after any application store fees, direct technical costs (e.g. streaming and hosting) and sales tax deductions."

"Who else gets a share of that 40%? The Echo Nest will take a small share."

"Who decides what share of the 40% a Developer will get? This will be negotiated between the developer and The Echo Nest, and will depend solely on how much (or little) the application is reliant on The Echo Nest’s tools and APIs. Let’s be clear though – the Developer will be getting most of that 40%."

So you get 40% of the revenue after some unknown and potentially arbitrary fees (remember, EMI will be levy anything they consider "direct technical costs") are taken out, and then Echo Next will take some part (less than "most") of the remaining 40%.

That's a funny definition of a "clear, pre-established revenue split." I guess if you desperately want to use EMI's music catalog in your app, this at least makes it easy to do so.