I suppose an interesting comparison is the Gangnam Style video on Youtube, which has 2 billion views. If he had 2bn plays rather than 15,000 he'd have made $560,000, which doesn't really sound like that much to me considering Gangnam Style's the most viewed video on Youtube of all time. (I realise the revenue you'd get from the Youtube video is different).
views != plays anyways. Some viewers probably played Gangnam Style dozens of times. It's possible those 15,000 plays came from only 1000 people listening to it 15 times each, thus being comparable to only 1000 youtube views.
Basically, it's an apples-oranges comparison in more ways than just youtube ad revenue != royalties. The metric is different as well.
Of course, your basic point that 15,000 is big number, which should probably be worth much more than 5 bucks, still stands.
That sounds like a ton of money given that it doesn't even begin to represent the amount an artist could make when you combine that with live performances and rights for it's use in movie or TV.
