How music streaming services pay artists

[Street Hunger]

NYTimes.com: "Part of the dispute is over streaming’s basic economics. Spotify, Apple Music and most other major platforms use a so-called pro rata system of royalty distribution. In this model, all the money collected from subscribers or ads for a given month goes into a single pot, which is then divided by the total number of streams. If, say, Drake had 5 percent of all streams that month, he (and the companies that handle his music) get 5 percent of the pot — meaning that, effectively, he gets 5 percent of each user’s money, even those who have never listened to his music."

NYTimes.com: "Industry estimates put Spotify’s payout rate for recordings at about $4,000 per million streams, or less than half a cent per stream. Since that money may pass through a record company before making its way to an artist, hundreds of millions of streams may be needed for a musician to net anything substantial."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/arts/music/streaming-music-payments.html

[Overdrive]

The model isn't great, but streaming services just make to little money to pay per listen.

For example local radiostation has to pay 1,02€ per minute of a song when they air it. That's why an hour of radio is made up of alot of talk and ads. To play 40 minutes of music they have generate well above 40€ within that 20 minute window to stay net positive. No way spotify could do this, with its unlimited streaming for 10€ a month.

Let's say spotify has 1 billion users - fantasy numbers - who stream for 2 hours a day. That'd make it 120 billion euros they'd have to pay every day. Opposed to a cross income of 10 billions a month.

[ArbitraryWater]

A nikka would like to get a cent per stream cmon man

[Patrick Chewing]

No wonder these artists are relying on Cameo so much.

[Street Hunger]

I guess they primarily have to rely on live shows for serious revenue