THE BEAST

Much has been made of how tiny today’s streaming payouts are—averaging between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream. In the past, the major labels have applied pressure on streamers to increase their streaming payouts, and recently two organizations appealed to Spotify to raise their payments to a penny per stream. This got me wondering:

What should Spotify pay per stream so that artists today can make comparable revenues from streaming as they used to from CD or iTunes download sales back in the day?

In today’s video , I do the math, comparing Spotify payouts to CDs sold through distribution and direct to fans and to iTunes download sales of a digital album or single. I also offer my take on the likelihood Spotify’s artist payouts will increase in response to the current lobbying.

I think you’ll find the results eye-opening.