Today we are answering the question that EVERYONE has been asking..."How much does Spotify actually pay artists?"I sat down with Sam Duboff, the Global Head of Spotify for Artists to answer that exact question.Prior to this interview, I did a lot of research on the business of streaming as a whole, and how the music industry collects revenue. My goal with this video is not to push anyone's opinion one way or another, but to add some clarity for exactly how this monetization structure works for Artists, DSPs, Songwriters, Producers, Labels/Publishers, and anyone else involved when it comes to music streaming.JOIN THE DISCORD:https://discord.gg/FjSrEF2JZ4 Follow the Pod on SPOTIFY:https://open.spotify.com/show/0WWqkpzdSCY7Sj6XlTROY1Follow the Pod on APPLE:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nicky-at-night/id1758627077Follow me on IG:https://www.instagram.com/nicky.reardon/#musicindustry #musicmarketing #aspiringartistToday we are answering the question that EVERYONE has been asking..."How much does Spotify actually pay artists?"I sat down with Sam Duboff, the Global Head of Spotify for Artists to answer that exact question.Prior to this interview, I did a lot of research on the business of streaming as a whole, and how the music industry collects revenue. My goal with this video is not to push anyone's opinion one way or another, but to add some clarity for exactly how this monetization structure works for Artists, DSPs, Songwriters, Producers, Labels/Publishers, and anyone else involved when it comes to music streaming.JOIN THE DISCORD:Follow me on IG:#musicindustry #musicmarketing #aspiringartist
Full Episode
10 years ago, the music industry was on the brink of financial collapse. From 1999 all the way to 2014, music was in a 15-year downward spiral, hemorrhaging money, each year losing more money than the last. And all of this was for one major reason. piracy.
With the invention of technology like Napster, LimeWire, MP3 players, jailbreaking your iPhone even, people were illegally downloading music left and right, giving nothing to the artists at all. And because all of that, music saw nearly a 70% drop, $9 billion in less than 10 years. However, all of that changed with the invention of one technology. Music streaming.
The idea was that if we just charge people a subscription, and for that one monthly fee, they get access to all of the music in the world, so much music, that it would actually just be kind of inconvenient for them to pirate every song one at a time. And to these people who are used to paying $20 for one CD, $12 for all the music in the world, didn't sound like that bad of a deal.
Enter Spotify and the genesis of the streaming era, where every year since then, the music industry has grown. So much so that in 2024, the industry has been worth an estimated $29 billion, surpassing its previous peak in 1999.
And even the largest labels in the world, like Universal Music, put in their 2024 financial report that 77% of all recorded music revenue came from subscription-based streaming. And Spotify, as the largest platform in the world,
paid out over 10 billion dollars to the music industry in 2024 alone despite all of this being true however there is a lot of discourse from artists saying that spotify doesn't pay artists enough so how does this make sense how can an artist be struggling when the music industry is more profitable than ever how can labels be reporting that nearly 80 of the revenue they collect comes from streaming yet artists are saying nearly none of the revenue they collect comes from streaming what is actually happening here how are artists getting paid
And how can we look at this to decide the best path forward for an industry as a whole? Well, that is exactly the question we've set out to solve here today. I am sitting down with Sam Duboff. He's the global head of Spotify for Artists, Marketing, and Policy, and here to answer some questions about exactly all of these topics here today. Sam, I'm so excited to have you on. Thanks for being here.
Excited to get into it. It's going to be good. I have many things to say, and I'm honestly very interested to hear your opinions on this topic. And I also would like to really commend, like, I really appreciate the transparency. I know that this is a very sensitive topic, and it has been very easy for many people in the past. from all sides of the industry to just not talk about it at all.
And I would really like to commend you for being willing to sit with me and have an open dialogue about this. And I think that speaks a lot to both your character and the character of the company.
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