What artists are paid for streaming services.

Travis Ballstadt said:

They also treat/pay artists worse than every other platform out there, which is why I avoid them.

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I’ve never seen numbers on what gets paid out… but, I’ve never looked, either. is there a source?



Edit:

This is what AI says:


Just imagine… your song get 1,000,000 plays and, according to these numbers (no idea if these are remotely correct), Apple pays up to $8k

Ouch!

Todd Anderson said:

I’ve never seen numbers on what gets paid out… but, I’ve never looked, either. is there a source?



Edit:

This is what AI says:
View attachment 76898

Just imagine… your song get 1,000,000 plays and, according to these numbers (no idea if these are remotely correct), Apple pays up to $8k

Ouch!

Click to expand...

It’s been awhile but there was a lot of news about it a couple years ago. Even these numbers are misleading because Spotify has a sliding scale that allows them to pay the most popular artists more, which comes directly out of the fund used to distribute to smaller artists. Something about “the large artists bring more listeners to the platform so smaller artists should pay them for maybe helping their stream numbers”.

I suppose it depends on what Google AI you are asking, as this is what mine shows...

Tidal pays artists around $0.013 per stream on average, which is higher than most other streaming services.

As of April 2024, Qobuz pays artists $0.022 per stream, which is one of the highest per-stream royalties among music streaming services.

Here are some other per-stream royalty rates for music streaming services:

• Napster: $0.019–$0.021
• Tidal: $0.013
• Deezer: $0.0064
• Apple Music: $0.0056–$0.0078
• Spotify: $0.00437
• Amazon Music: $0.00402
• SoundCloud: $0.0025–$0.004
• YouTube Music: $0.0007–$0.0012
• Pandora: $0.00069

Pandora appears to be bringing up the rear.

I currently subscribe to Tidal and Qobuz, which are apparently the two highest paying streamers.

It would be interesting to know how the price per stream play is calculated and negotiated... I am guessing is has something to do with quantity of streams plays by each streaming platform... Tidal and Qobuz has a tiny share of the market and also seems to pay more per stream...

Spotify no longer considers paying a royalty on any song that receives fewer than 1000 streams per year, which is nearly 2/3 of the content on Spotify.

There are many ways Spotify is utilizing to not pay indie artists.

An artist with a family would need to have more than 24 million plays on Spotify per year in order to earn just enough to meet the federal poverty line.

Creators get only about $5 billion a year, or 12 percent, with corporate middlemen such as record labels and streaming services like Spotify sucking up a majority of the profits.

For starters....

Travis Ballstadt said:

Spotify no longer considers paying a royalty on any song that receives fewer than 1000 streams per year, which is nearly 2/3 of the content on Spotify.

There are many ways Spotify is utilizing to not pay indie artists.

An artist with a family would need to have more than 24 million plays on Spotify per year in order to earn just enough to meet the federal poverty line.

Creators get only about $5 billion a year, or 12 percent, with corporate middlemen such as record labels and streaming services like Spotify sucking up a majority of the profits.

For starters....

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I did not know this. Now its got me thinking and worried because the artists are not making any money and neither is Spotify according to publicly available financials. Has any company made anything at this? If not, it begs the question if this is a viable business model for the long term.

JStewart said:

Thanks for the info. I did not know this. Now its got me thinking and worried because the artists are not making any money and neither is Spotify according to publicly available financials. Has any company made anything at this? If not, it begs the question if this is a viable business model for the long term.

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Maybe there is still a thing they used to call "payola" ???

JStewart said:

Thanks for the info. I did not know this. Now its got me thinking and worried because the artists are not making any money and neither is Spotify according to publicly available financials. Has any company made anything at this? If not, it begs the question if this is a viable business model for the long term.

Spotify - Financials

investors.spotify.com

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The label execs are still making plenty of money. And as @Sal1950 pointed out, there is still payola, which I don't even believe is illegal for streaming services since they are not bound by the same regulations as terrestrial radio.

Just like with every industry today, and as has been the case in the music industry for decades, the suits are not struggling to feed their families. They're finding new and creative ways to screw the artists out of their due, just like they always have.

I stream to find new music, which then sends me to shows and to buy vinyl directly from the artist, or as directly as I can get.

Travis Ballstadt said:

Spotify no longer considers paying a royalty on any song that receives fewer than 1000 streams per year, which is nearly 2/3 of the content on Spotify.

There are many ways Spotify is utilizing to not pay indie artists.

An artist with a family would need to have more than 24 million plays on Spotify per year in order to earn just enough to meet the federal poverty line.

Creators get only about $5 billion a year, or 12 percent, with corporate middlemen such as record labels and streaming services like Spotify sucking up a majority of the profits.

For starters....

Click to expand...

That's crazy.

Travis Ballstadt said:

The label execs are still making plenty of money. And as @Sal1950 pointed out, there is still payola, which I don't even believe is illegal for streaming services since they are not bound by the same regulations as terrestrial radio.

Just like with every industry today, and as has been the case in the music industry for decades, the suits are not struggling to feed their families. They're finding new and creative ways to screw the artists out of their due, just like they always have.

I stream to find new music, which then sends me to shows and to buy vinyl directly from the artist, or as directly as I can get.

Click to expand...

I'd guess that probably puts you in the minority. Not that it's not admirable, not to mention a neat way of going about things, but I'd guess most streaming customers are simply hopping around without paying attention to the small details.

Todd Anderson said:

I'd guess that probably puts you in the minority. Not that it's not admirable, not to mention a neat way of going about things, but I'd guess most streaming customers are simply hopping around without paying attention to the small details.

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I'm sure I am in the minority, but it's also why I feel the need to point these things out. We need to help the artists, because the labels and distribution systems aren't. There is so much great music out there that nobody is hearing.

Think about this for a minute. In today's music industry, artists like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder wouldn't get a record contract. They don't fit the mold - they're BLIND, they DON'T DANCE.

I'm also not implying that many of the artists on the radio today aren't good. Billie Eilish is fantastic. Beck, the Cure, St. Vincent, there's a lot of great stuff out there on major labels. But gone are the days of a label taking a risk on a young artist that they can't guarantee a platinum record.

The artists who used to get development deals with record labels (we'll give you three records and see if we can't get you heard) are now out there doing it themselves, and the distribution channels are refusing to pay them for their art.

It's sad.

And I'm now going to take this moment to shout about Been Stellar, a band out of NYC that put out my favorite album of 2024. I have become addicted to this record. Yes, I found it on vinyl, and yes, on Friday I bought tickets to see them at a little club in Seattle this spring. Go check them out. They don't sound anything like Charlie XCX.

Travis Ballstadt said:

The label execs are still making plenty of money. And as @Sal1950 pointed out, there is still payola, which I don't even believe is illegal for streaming services since they are not bound by the same regulations as terrestrial radio.

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That is probably the case and as an aside I’ll point out that payola or pay to play exists in many places including the grocery, where we know the large brands buy shelf space to squeeze out small competitors. But with streaming if only one of the deals constituents is profiting the current model isn’t sustainable. All must benefit.
Short term the streaming delivery services can jack the rates, but that will likely only delay the inevitable if the artists can’t share too.
Do musicians have a trade union? Sounds like they could use one with some teeth to effect change.

An excerpt from one of the articles Travis posted.

The first part for context. My emphasis added in the 2nd.

“Merchants of Garbage

The thing that really irritates me about all of this is the attitude of the music industry players who believe the content these independent distributors deliver to the DSPs is somehow inferior. Recently, Universal Music Chairman Lucian Grainge basically called the likes of DistroKid, TuneCore, and CD Baby merchants of garbage.

Specifically, he put music produced by new artists who have no engagement with fans — yet — in the same category as vacuum cleaner sounds or rain on a pane of glass. And he argued that, and I quote, “those groups who have expressed the concern about ‘Artist-Centric’ are those whose business model is based on being ‘merchants of garbage.'”

Merchants of garbage? You are crazy, Lucian.

I know you and your fellow major-label CEOs are very concerned about the market share erosion the majors are seeing caused by the explosion in popularity and volume of independently distributed music. But let me remind you, that garbage you’re talking about is where some of the most creative and interesting music is being made today. It’s where some of the most loyal and passionate fans listen to music and buy CDs and merch, and it may just be where your next big artist is coming from.

Besides, this independent music in no way gets in the way of music fans discovering your artists’ music — the streaming algorithms will make sure of that.

Toxic notions about independent music​

The danger in this whole thing, of course, is that this toxic “indie is garbage” mindset will become mainstreamed and, indeed, because the majors are talking about it, it appears Spotify is at least buying into the argument and is okay with the notion of royalty theft and redistribution.

Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that the majors all own a minority equity stake in that streaming platform. And here’s the truly insidious part: this attitude that small independent artists are inferior to popular acts has led to the Spotify proposal that will really hurt independent artists and which is my major beef with Spotify and the majors today.”

So the record labels own minority stakes (by definition usually 20% to 50%) in Spotify? If accurate it would explain quite a bit.