Spotify offers ‘context’ to Hypebot’s streamshare payouts post
Spotify reached out to take issue with Hypebot’s reporting on the streamer’s Substack “The Truth About Streaming Payouts.”
Spotify’s post took “a closer look at the actual math behind real music royalties.” It reiterated that there is no “per stream rate” and how its “streamshare” payment model works.
Our conclusion was that “The Truth About Streaming Payouts” explained well how payments work and why, from their perspective, are fair. But it still did not address the real problem earning a living that most musicians and songwriters face.
The spokesperson offered these notes on our “Spotify Explains Why There’s No ‘Per-Stream Rate’ – Artists and Industry Push Back“.
On our contention that Streamshare payments continue to reward the biggest acts:
- “Loud & Clear data shows a broad shift: the number of artists making at least $1K, $10K, $100K, and $1M+ per year on Spotify has tripled since 2017″
- “Listening is far less top-heavy: the top 40 tracks now account for ~2 percent of streams, down from roughly 20 percent in the pre-streaming era”
- “Streaming removed physical constraints, allowing tens of thousands more artists to earn royalties who previously couldn’t reach an audience”
Streamshare inherently ‘rewards only superstars’:
- Consumption has become dramatically less top-heavy
- Mid-tier, niche, and regional artists now build sustainable fanbases that weren’t possible when radio could support 40 songs and record stores could carry only a few thousand artists”
“Explaining the system” overlooks the improvements underway:
- “We’ve strengthened AI and rights protections, royalty-modernization policies, and self-serve tools like Marquee, Showcase, Discovery Mode, and Native Ads – all accessible through Spotify for Artists, not just those with major-label resources
- “These are designed to grow the overall payout pool and broaden who participates”
Spotify Made Artist Income Their Problem
It could be argued that musicians earning a living is not really Spotify’s problem. But as the largest player in music discovery and consumption, Spotify has a vested interest and responsibility to help solve it.
Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek clearly agrees when he wrote:
“That’s our mission – to unlock the potential of human creativity—by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it. … professional creators must be able to earn a fair living doing what they love, where monetization is at the core of a creative proposition and not an afterthought.”
Thank-you Spotify for adding more clarity. Now the real work of helping creators begins.
Bruce Houghton is Founder & Editor of Hypebot, Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, a Berklee College Of Music professor and founder of Skyline Artists.
