Spotify Reveals How it Actually Pays Artists

Spotify

SpotifyEver wonder how much an artist gets every time you click their song on services like Spotify? The Swedish streaming-music provider is looking to provide some answers amid continued debate over whether artists and music rights holders get a fair shake from their business model. Spotify on Tuesday unleashed a load of data,  revealing that each time a user listens for a song, rights holders are paid between $0.006 and $0.0084. Over the course of 2013, the company says it will have paid $500 million in royalties, representing half of the $1 billion Spotify sent to rights holders since setting up shop in 2008. The stats were unveiled as part of a new Spotify Artists webpage, a site where rights holders can access analytics tools to track their performance on the streaming-music platform. Spotify has been a lead player in the growth of streaming music, with revenue more than doubling in 2012 to $590 million and its user base growing well in excess of 24 million, at least 6 million of which are paying clients.

Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal.

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