Spotify’s new changes explained
In the age of streaming, it has become something of a dismal Wild West regarding how artists get paid for their music. Even though services like Spotify may have started the ball rolling as one of the biggest streaming sites in the world, there are just as many artists who are seeing pennies compared to what the big names in music will be making. As artists find their way into the following year, they are looking to be getting a fraction of a fraction of the royalties that they are getting already.
When it comes to allocating money for streams, most of the artists who walk away with a paycheck are usually the biggest names in the business. Unless your name is The Weeknd, Taylor Swift, or BTS, chances are the up-and-coming acts were seeing only small residuals for what they put up on their Spotify accounts.
While this was initially combatted through the help of various labels representing more minor acts, the most recent business discussions between Spotify and companies like UMG only serve to make the smaller companies struggle that much more. Instead of having any newer artists gain mainstream exposure, the new deal revolves around the residuals benefiting the legacy acts rather than anyone new.
This kind of practice was opposite to what Spotify had preached decades before. When the site was first off the ground in the late 2000s, one of the most prominent taglines for the company revolved around what they called ‘The Long Tail’, which was set to give users access to more exciting acts that would soon become huge thanks to recommendations.
With this latest business venture, though, it’s as if that supposed “tail” has been practically cut off. When looking at the metrics for the monetary shift, this latest change in payment will entail demonetising any tracks that cleared 0.5% of the platform’s royalty pool. This means that if artists hoped to be broken on the platform, they would have to make something that would either ‘go viral’ on another platform or come up with the same level of streams as something like The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’ within a year.
While Spotify’s retort is intended to limit any fraud on their website due to various ambient and experimental sounds on the platform, it also limits what artists were designed to do in the first place. Even if there are more than a few tracks on Spotify that are only there to give subtle ambient noises, it feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to say that none of the newer artists get a cut of this, either.
Looking at the raw data, all of the numbers behind a decision like this will be in Spotify’s hands, which are not likely to be as transparent if gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Even though the idea might be to ward off fraud, it provides a bad omen for future things if other streaming services like Tidal get ahold of this method.
Even though artists might be able to get their music streamed around the world, the company is intentionally trying to limit any hope for these bands to make any kind of significant development in the future. Spotify may be one of the easiest ways to access music these days, but by using this mindset, they are practically enforcing the idea that no one wants to listen to new music anymore.
