The hidden truth of the music industry

Artists get $0.007 per play

Spotify, a leading music streaming service, have released some shocking facts which reveal that on average, the artists you listen to get $0.007 for every time you play their tune. That means, you would have to listen to their song 143 times just to give them a dollar.

 

When Spotify were asked about why artists were receiving so little, they said that they only take 30% of the money from subscriptions to its premium service and advertising. The remaining 70% goes to the record labels who then allocate it between, managers, artist etc. Many artists tend to collaborate when making their music and so this $0.007 may not be up to the amount artists will receive at the end.

 

In a world where there is so much music downloads, some legal, most illegal, I wonder whether these artists were actually aware of what they were getting themselves into. Had they known, would they have pursued another career?

 

It seems as though, we're growing into an age where music is so easily accessible for free, that artists are making only a minority of their earnings from the sales of their music which is the core part of their profession if you wish to call it that. Artists such as Example have been in debt for over a year after the sales of their albums didn't reach predicted targets, having to do countless shows in order to pay the record labels back.

 

What I find most surprising is that Spotify tried to justify this by saying that they pay more to artists than most music streaming services and more than twice of that of Youtube. If we boycott all of these businesses selling music digitally, we would inadvertently bring the music industry to a standstill with artists such as Katy Perry losing more than 70% of their current income.