14 DAY TRIAL // The war between the recording industry and the music streaming industry is scaling up a bit as Spotify and Taylor Swift contradict each other about the sums artists are being compensated with.
Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO, wrote in a recent blog post that an artist as popular as Taylor Swift could expect to get some $6 million (€4.81 million) per year. On the other hand, Scott Borchetta, the CEO of Big Machine, Taylor Swift’s record label, claims that the artist was paid less than $500,000 (€401,326) in the past 12 months for domestic streaming of her songs.
“The facts show that the music industry was much better off before Spotify hit these shores. Don't forget this is for the most successful artist in music today. What about the rest of the artists out there struggling to make a career? Over the last year, what Spotify has paid is the equivalent of less than 50,000 albums sold,” Borchetta told Time.
There’s a bit of a discrepancy here, given by the fact that Ek was referring to the sums an artist receives from all the markets Spotify is present with, which equals some 60 countries, but Borchetta only mentions the US market.
Jonathan Prince, Spotify’s global head of communications and public policy, pointed out that the service’s users, both free and paid, have grown by more than 50 percent in the last years, and with them, the run rate for artists of every level of popularity climbs too.
“And Taylor just put out a great record, so her popularity has grown too. We paid Taylor's label and publisher roughly half a million dollars in the month before she took her catalog down -- without even having 1989 on our service -- and that was only going to go up,” he said.
How did we get here?
As you may know by now, Taylor Swift decided to pull her albums from Spotify, which caused a bit of confusion among her fans. Singer and songwriter Aloe Blacc backed Taylor’s position, saying that they’re barely getting anything from such services, that they need millions of plays to get a decent amount of money.
Spotify pointed out, however, that 500,000 plays come from 500,000 individuals, while a single radio play reaches as many people in a just a few minutes.
The fact is that the music industry is shifting and the way we consume content is changing, which includes music streaming services.
