![]() ![]() Spotify also makes it abundantly clear that they have no responsibility or knowledge of how labels and artists manage their earnings. According to the Seattle Times, “Spotify doesn’t pay artists directly, instead paying those who hold the rights to a song or album (normally record labels, distributors, aggregators, and collection societies) who take a cut and give the artists the rest”. The issue with saying “this many artists were paid this amount” is that “generated recordings and publishing royalties” is far from a direct means of payment. Roughly 13,400 artists and acts make above $50,000 a year. Clicking through, you can find that around 870 artists made over $1 million dollars, and about 7,800 make above $100,000. With Spotify forking over an arguably ridiculous amount of money for podcast rights, it would make sense that they pay their artists a similar amount, no? Well, in order to alleviate artist concerns about fairness of the payment system, Spotify launched "Loud&Clear", a small website and FAQ with some statistics about how many artists make above a certain threshold. It's hard to make the argument that any company that cares about music would have ever even considered that decision, politics aside. They have shelled out millions of dollars for exclusive podcast rights, including $100 million for the Joe Rogan Show, and dropped influential legends Neil Young and Joni Mitchell in the process. Looking at Spotify’s business model, it has become evident that they do not even consider themselves a music-focused platform. While Netflix pays millions for movies and series and Twitch has integrated methods for viewers to support their favorite streamers directly, Spotify has repeatedly refused to supply any clear statistics about how they pay artists, or even how many artists are on their platform. Anyone can hop on their phone, go to Twitch, and find tens of thousands of streamers to watch. Subscription services provide people with more content than they could ever consume at a flat rate, meaning customers don’t have to individually purchase content. The advent of streaming has drastically changed nearly every industry, including cinema, gaming, sports, television, and of course, music. ![]()
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