Spotify, once slammed for paltry royalties, touts gains for music artists

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Back in the early 2010s, the music industry was at a low point.Piracy was rampant.Compact disc sales were on a steady decline.

And the then-new audio streaming services, like Spotify, were taking hits from creators for paying low royalty rates.Today, Spotify has grown into the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service and the highest-paying retailer globally — paying the music industry over $11 billion last year, up from $10 billion in 2024.Nearly 14,000 artists earned $100,000 from Spotify royalties alone last year, the Swedish company said in a post Wednesday, adding that independent artists and labels accounted for about half of all payments.“A decade ago, a lot of the questions were really fair.Spotify had to be able to prove out if it could scale as an economic engine.

People didn’t know if streaming would scale as a model,” said Sam Duboff, Spotify’s global head of marketing and policy of music business, in an interview.Duboff said Spotify’s payouts aren’t “plateauing — we’re still growing that royalty pool on Spotify more than 10% per year.” He credits the streaming platform’s growth to “incentivizing people” to “pay for music again” — the service costs $12.99 a month — by providing personalized experiences and global accessibility.Hollywood Inc.

Last year, Spotify paid out more than $11 billion to the music industry.And as the company continues to grow and raise prices, the music streamer plans to crack down on AI.The company, founded in 2006, serves more than 751 million users, including 290 million subscribers, in 184 markets.“The average Spotify premium subscriber listens to 200 artists every month, and nearly half of those artists are discovered for the first time,” Duboff said.

“When you build an experience where people can explore and fall in love with music, it inspires them to upgrade to premium and k...