Apparently Spotify wants musicians to be OK with not being paid these days
Spotify just released its annual Loud and Clear report, and judging by the excited tone of it all, and the repeated use of the words ‘billions’ and ‘millions’, Dr Mumbo is thinking he needs to strap on the old six-string, learn those four chords from There She Goes, and clear a fortune before breakfast.
Being a musician is an easy gig, according to the report. And, as Spotify points out in the report’s very first sentence: “Artists deserve clarity about the economics of music streaming”.
Of course, this clarity stops short at providing an actual clear dollar amount per stream – but we are treated to such opaque jewels as “Many of the artists who generated at least $1M on Spotify in 2023 aren’t household names and didn’t need a ‘hit’ song to have a big year” and “as a rule of thumb, artists can start approaching $1 million per year with around 4-5 million monthly listeners or 20-25 million monthly streams”.
I expect petty from Dr Mumbo, but not lazy and ignorant, after over a decade of Spotify and streaming in Australia.
Spotify pays billions, literally billions, to labels who in turn remunerate artists based on individual artist/label agreements. By now it should be well known that artists signed to majors receive perhaps 10-15% of the money Spotify pays to that label.
The bulk of streams go to major label artists, not indies, so 40M other tracks is irrelevant when you consider many are seldom played if played at all.
That means 2 things, 1) there’s no single per-stream figure calculable so stop bitching about it and 2), that labels have been stiffing artists since the Colonel and have no intention of stopping.
There are worthy axes to grind on this subject, but this isn’t one of them.
Over 70% of Spotify’s revenues go to labels and publishers. That’s a great share. Not sure where extra money will come from unless those royalties are carved up another way?
Sounds like the outcome of most Global Procurement exercises tbh…