Musicians say they’re receiving micro-pennies for streaming while Spotify says its paying big bucks. So what gives?
After speaking at Spotify’s press conference unveiling its new video product and mood-music playlists, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek sat down and told On the Money that his company is paying big artists between $5 million and $10 million annually. “That is meaningful money.”
So where is it going? Ek responds: “I don’t want to point fingers. I think it’s more of a systemic thing.”
Ek suggests there are perhaps too many middlemen, coupled with the problem of antiquated collection systems. “Some systems and processes use physical pieces of paper. How do you do that when every unit would be in the billions? That’s a lot of paper,” says the tech-focused Swede.
Ek says a lot of things need to change to improve things for artists.
“We need to do a better job of showing artists and everyone else how it is translating back to the ultimate rights holders.” Now, there’s a challenge for all involved.