Music streaming platforms – particularly Spotify – have come under scrutiny from musicians and music fans. Spotify pays a reported range of $0.003 - $0.005 USD per stream. Most competitors aren’t a whole lot better: Apple Music pays a reported $0.008 per stream, while YouTube pays $0.002 according to some sources, and $0.00069 according to others. Tidal is noted for its higher payments to musicians, giving $0.01284 per stream. Importantly, these figures don’t account for record labels’ cuts – meaning artists may earn even less.
An analysis, reported by music outlets such as Digital Music News, showed that buying a vinyl album from an independent music store, if the vinyl cost $24, would give the artist $6.03. To give the same profit to the artist through streaming, a listener would have to stream the album for four and a half days straight. The earnings from vinyl sales are more comparable to what a game developer might earn, for example. Casino developers like NetEnt, whose games can be found at an
online casino UK, reportedly charge around 17-20% of gross gaming revenue (GGR).
How much do Nigerian musicians earn from streaming?
Perhaps Africa’s biggest artist of all time, Fela Kuti, is still popular today. His top song on Spotify, ‘Water No Get Enemy’, has been streamed over 33 million times. But even 33 million streams earns just $132,000 from Spotify, if each stream pays $0.004. Fela’s passing in 1997 means he won’t be earning, of course, but his family will. His eldest son, Femi, has songs that have been streamed 3.6 and 3.8 million times on Spotify. 3.6 million streams earns $14,400.
Burna Boy’s ‘Last Last’ has been streamed over 5.3 million times on the same platform (earning around $21,200). If an artist shares credits with another, they’ll have to share the streaming income. Wizkid, for example, appeared on ‘forever be mine’ with Gunna – a song streamed over 36 million times on Spotify alone, but will have shared the income.
In either case, such artists are exceptions. Many professional recording artists never have any songs that ever reach a million streams on a single platform. The fundamental problem, according to some analysts, is that music is a “superstar business”. Mark Mulligan, managing director of Midia Research, said as much when speaking to The Guardian in 2021. Mulligan said that streaming does not generally add up to a sustainable living alone; it “only adds up” when an artist has billions – rather than millions – of streams.
Record label owner Terry Cole, who provided the analysis about vinyl sales, said
buying a physical record was one of the best ways to support an artist.
Aside from any streaming royalty concerns, Spotify’s CEO has been criticized for his investments in AI-powered military technology. Many artists have pulled their music from the platform.
Broken system?
Tom Gray, founder of the campaigning group Broken Record, has said that 99% of musicians won’t see the benefit of streaming. That, he says, “is not how the economics are supposed to work.”
IPO research has found that overall, musicians were making the same from recording rights in 2021 as they were in 2008, before streaming really took off. Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the UK industry body, the BPI, has said that artists and songwriters earn more from streaming than they did from CDs and downloads.
But
musicians’ earnings have been a subject of debate for decades. In traditional record deals, labels often took 80% of the revenue from sales. The remaining 20% was split between the artist, producer(s) and any co-writers.
Hayleigh Bosher, a senior lecturer in intellectual property law, has argued that one way to help struggling musicians would be an “equitable remuneration model”. Right now, when a song is streamed, the money goes to the label or other rights holder, and a percentage ends up with the artist. But in Bosher’s suggested model, a separate organization (called a collecting society) would take a fair share of the streaming money directly from the label and give it straight to the artist, without the label controlling that payment. It would effectively be the same system as used for radio plays.
In short, songs must be streamed millions of times to contribute meaningfully to an artist’s living. Buying vinyl is one way to support musicians.
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