- Spotify: “How much money goes to artists and songwriters depends on their own contracts”
- Many tracks on Spotify do not generate royalties, and it promotes great artists
- There are still ways to directly support artists, however
Spotify is annoyed by the artists who accused him of Thésause all the money of music streaming. Addressing our colleagues on Musicradar, he pointed out on the intermediaries between Spotify and the artists themselves.
Spotify has one point: there are many, many people often take very large money cuts before one of it reaches the artist. But Spotify is also a little dishonest here, because intermediaries or not do not pay a single penny for most songs that you can disseminate from its service, and although its global payments are huge, the lion’s share goes to artists who are already enormous.
I am a broken musician and I earn more money from a single Bandcamp sale that I expect to do any streaming service this year. If you want to support artists, streaming is not the way to do so.
Where is the spotify money going?
Spotify’s declaration was partly in response to Gavin Rossdale, who said that “we know that Spotify barely pays. And whatever they pay, record companies ensure that they mostly signal before She does not return to the artist “.
Writing to Musicradar, Spotify said: “As Gavin properly points out, streaming services do not directly pay artists or songwriters. They pay rights holders, who in turn pay artists and songwriters according to their individual agreements. Once income leaves a service like the hands of Spotify, how much money goes to artists and songwriters depends on their own contracts with their rights. “”
This is absolutely true, and if you imagine income in streaming as a cake, there are many people stuffing their faces before the artist reaches the crumbs. The music company is sadly famous for its ability to bring together huge sums of money without giving a lot to talent. But although the streaming cake is enormous, most of this cake is given to the greatest artists via their record companies while many artists are not offered crumbs.
Music streaming services do not pay artists directly and they do not pay by flow. After taking their reduction in your subscription fees – generally 30% to cover operating costs and profits – they then pay royalties depending on the market share. Spotify explains it here: “We calculate streamshare by counting the total number of flows during a given month and determining the proportion of these flows which listened to music or controlled by a particular reactor.”
It’s great if you are Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar. But it’s not that great if you are a garage group that starts. Since 2024, Spotify has demonetized songs which do not obtain 1,000 flows per year – by certain estimates, 86% of music on the platform. As Air Herstand explained it in Variety, “an artist with 20 songs with just under 1,000 flows would each earn around $ 60. Now that the artist would earn $ 0. ‘is not either. “
What it means in practice is that the greatest artists are doing very well from streaming: rates of approximately $ 0.0031 per money price. But the smallest artists do not earn much money, nor at all money.
If you care about music and want to support artists, the best thing you can do is not to broadcast them. It is to buy from their Bandcamp, especially on Fridays from Bandcamp when all your money goes to the artist. It is to buy their goods. And above all, it is to go to their shows.
All these elements provide real money more or less directly to artists, and therefore help you make sure that they can continue to provide you with new music in the future. There is no guarantee of this by streaming alone.
If you like a group, don’t just broadcast them. Go see them.
