However, that number isn’t entirely accurate. “In other words, Spotify is paying out about $3,300 – $3,500 per million plays,” Lowery wrote. By his estimation, Spotify’s current rate equates to roughly $0.00348 per song. In 2014, Taylor Swift pulled her music from the service over the issue, stating in an op-ed that “valuable things should be paid for.” When she came back three years later, it was the result of a years-long pressure campaign from Ek himself-the CEO personally traveled to Nashville several times to convince Swift to return.Įach year, David Lowery of Santa Cruz’s pioneering indie rock band Camper Van Beethoven, and later the alt-hitmaker Cracker, publishes his annual Streaming Price Bible, which uses his band’s streaming data to help break down royalty rates across the industry’s top 30 streaming services. As famously low as it is famously hard to pin down, Spotify’s payouts have provoked public complaints not just from indie artists, but huge industry players as well. When discussing Spotify, there is always an elephant in the room: the company’s royalty rate. But in the face of an increasingly dominant streaming industry, is it enough? Rich Band, Poor Band Thankfully, in 2020 Bandcamp was there to funnel some money back into musicians’ pockets. For musicians, it offers something else entirely: a gamed system that favors that already successful. In just nine days, the company paid their musician users a reported $40 million.įor listeners and investors, Spotify offers that eternal promise of capitalism: infinite growth for one low, low price. Throughout 2020, Bandcamp held nine of these Bandcamp Days, in which for 24 hours they waived their standard cut of 15% on all music sales, and 10% on all merch.

“On May 1, 2020, we did it again,” he continued, “and fans paid artists $7.1 million-amazing!” The amount paid out to musicians on that day alone: $4.3 million. “On March 20, 2020, we waived our revenue share in order to help artists and labels impacted by the pandemic,” Diamond wrote. In an article titled, “Support Musicians Impacted by the Covid-19 Pandemic,” Bandcamp co-founder Ethan Diamond touted some of his company’s recent accomplishments. The same month, a company right here in the Bay Area issued a very different message to its users.

Bandcamp create artist account