- Spotify: “How much money goes to artists and songwriters depend on their own contracts”
- Many numbers on Spotify do not generate royalties and it favors great artists
- However, there are still ways to support artists directly
Spotify gets annoyed at artists who accuse it of hoarding all money from streaming music. In a speech with our colleagues at Musicradar, it pointed a finger to the middlemen sitting between Spotify and the artists themselves.
Spotify has got a point: There are lots and lots of people who often take very big cuts of money before any of them reach the artist. But Spotify is also a bit uncomfortable here because middlemen or not, it doesn’t pay a single cent for most of the songs you can stream from its service, and although its total payouts are huge, the lion’s share goes to artists who are already huge.
I am a broken musician and I make more money on a single bandcamp sale than I expect to do from any streaming service this year. If you want to support artists, streaming is not the way to do it.
Where does Spotify money actually go?
Spotify’s statement was partly in response to Gavin Rossdale, who said “We know that Spotify is hardly paying. And whatever they pay, the record companies make sure they sign most of it before it goes to the artist.”
Spotify, who wrote to Musicradar, said: “As Gavin correctly points out, streaming services do not pay artists or songwriters directly. They pay rights owners who in turn pay artists and songwriters based on their individual appointments. When this revenue leaves a service like Spotify’s hands is how much money goes to artists and songwriters depends on their own contracts with their legal gardens. “
That’s all true, and if you imagine streaming revenue like cake, there are many people who fill their faces before the artist gets what crumbs are back. The music industry is notorious for its ability to get huge amounts of money without giving much of it to the talent. But while the streaming cake is huge, most of the cake is given to the very greatest artists through their record companies, while many artists are not offered any crumbs at all.
Music streaming services do not pay artists directly and they do not pay per. Current. After taking their reduction in your subscription fees – typically 30% to cover operating costs and profits – they then pay royalties based on market share. Spotify explains this: “We calculate streamshare by voting the total number of streams in a given month and determining what proportion of these streams are listening to music owned or controlled by a particular right.”
It’s great if you’re Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar. But it’s not so good if you’re a garage band just about to start. Since 2024, Spotify has demonstrated songs that don’t get 1,000 streams a year – at some great, 86% of the music on the platform. As Air Herst explained in Variety, “An artist with 20 songs of just under 1,000 streams each would earn about $ 60. Now the artist who earns $ 0 is $ 60, not life -changing, nor is it.”
What it means in practice is that the very greatest artists are doing very well from streaming: The rates of about $ 0.0031 per day. Power may seem small, but when you’re Taylor Swift – the first female artist to reach 100 billion Spotify streams – that’s a ton of money. But the very smallest artists do not make a lot of money or any money at all.
If you are interested in music and want to support artists, the best thing you can do is not to stream them. It is to buy from their bandcamp, especially on Bandcamp Friday when all your cash goes to the artist. It’s to buy their merchandise. And most of all it is to go to their shows.
All of these give real money more or less directly to the artists, and then help to make sure they can continue to give you new music in the future. There is no guarantee of it through streaming alone.
If you love a band don’t just stream them. Go and see them.
