Music-Streaming: Who Pays Best?

Following the emergence of CD bootlegs and illegal downloads, the traditional business for music labels and publishers collapsed in the early years of this century. The compact disc had served its time and music downloads weren’t big enough yet to compensate for the losses. The music industry was short on solutions and struggled to develop effective distribution channels in the digital age.

In recent years, on-demand streaming has emerged as a possible solution for the industry’s pains and after years of decline, the music industry has returned to growth. But despite looking like the music industry’s lifeline, streaming services such as Spotify have often been criticized in the past for not paying artists adequately.

The following chart by Statista shows that a single stream is in fact of little value. However, there is a substantial difference between the many services competing for the listeners’ money. Whilst Spotify is constantly keen on cutting royalties, providers like Tidal or Apple Music are offering substantially higher per-stream rates for artists.