Streaming Platforms vs Artists
Explore the battle for fairness between artists and streaming platforms.

When an artist is working hard on a project, one of the main things that keep them going is the fulfillment and reward that comes with sharing it with the right audience. The artist makes music for their audience. But how can an artist share their music with the right people? That's where the middlemen come in.

The middlemen have been the lords of the music industry for as long as I can remember. In the early days of music, record labels were the gatekeepers. Since the rise of the Internet, however, that power has waned. The middlemen are still in charge, but record labels are no longer the sole rulers. Streaming platforms have entered the mix.

Almost everyone who listens to music today uses one of Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Boomplay, and other smaller platforms. Whether indie or signed, all artists push their songs to a streaming platform so that their fans can easily access them. Artists also get paid whenever someone plays their song. It sounds like a beautiful arrangement, but there's trouble in paradise.

Many artists, especially the smaller ones, believe that the streaming platforms aren't fair in their compensation. The payment formula only works to favor the big artists, they claim, while small artists are left to wallow. The streaming platforms, of course, deny that this is the case.

In this article, I'll tell you about the conflict between artists and streaming platforms, and we’ll look ahead to see if there's any hope for a true anytime soon. Let's do it.

The Case for Streaming Platforms

Before we continue, I'd like to clarify that I'm not against streaming platforms. In 2023, I was in the top 5% of Spotify users worldwide according to my Spotify Wrapped. Decades ago, one would have to buy music as a CD or cassette. So a true music lover like myself would have shelves stacked up with music just like a book lover would have a library. In 2023, I listened to over five thousand songs from almost two thousand artists from my phone.

In the old days, record labels and radio stations were in charge of what would go viral. With streaming platforms, the listeners choose what to listen to. That's why an indie artist like Connor Price can rack up 900 million Spotify streams in one year. Music is much more democratic today because the algorithm is built such that every user gets the music they enjoy. Gone are the days when radio stations would cram music down our throats. Streaming platforms made all that happen.

Music is also much cheaper than it used to be. We can now access all the songs in the world from different eras for about the same amount as one would get a few albums in the 80s. So streaming platforms have done the music industry a whole lot of good. No artist can dispute that. The bone of contention is in remuneration.

The streaming platforms and record labels take the lion's share of streaming revenue while artists and all other professionals involved are left with about 20% of the cake. The big boys argue that any reduction in revenue will affect their investment as well. To them, their cut is more than justified by the hefty amount of money they pour into the industry. The artists aren't having any of it.

The Case for Artists

Every artist I've spoken to on this subject agrees on one thing. Streaming platforms aren't an evil that must be purged from the music industry. Instead, they're an integral part of the industry that will continue to affect how music is consumed. The only issue with streaming platforms is revenue sharing.

First of all, no one knows how the calculations are made. What is the monetary value of every stream?  How was the sharing formula arrived at? Why is it that everyone involved seems to be turning a healthy profit except the actual creators of the music? Only the streaming platforms can answer these questions and the artists are tired of that. They want to know exactly what's going on behind the scenes.

Also, artists barely make any money from streaming royalties. To earn a decent living from royalties, an artist would have to be raking in millions of streams. This means artists, the indie ones especially, cannot live on streaming royalties alone. The result is that live shows have become the main source of income for artists. But shouldn't an artist be able to make a decent living without live shows? What happens to artists who are great in the studio but lacking on stage?

So the users are happy, the streaming platforms are happy, but the artists who are the real heartbeat of the entire industry are not happy. That can't continue or we're headed for troubled waters. What then must we do?

Final Thoughts 

So the streaming platforms claim that their chunk of revenue is fair while the artists claim to be getting ripped off. The first and most obvious answer to this would be to increase the price of the songs, that is increasing subscription rates. It would raise the revenue coming in enough to perhaps placate the artists. Users would not be happy, however, and that's the major concern of the streaming platforms.

Other artists say it's not about how much is coming in but about the system. This would require a complete review of the sharing formula. Currently, the platforms sum up all the revenue and take their cut of that first. Then they split up what's left between all the songs, depending on how much each song contributed to that revenue. To get a better picture of how the revenue is shared, read this.

I don't have the answer to this conflict, but I know one thing. For the music industry to work effectively, the creators must feel adequately compensated. At the same time, streaming platforms are a huge part of how things work. So they have to find a working solution that suits both parties.

I hope that the situation comes to a decent conclusion sooner than later, but I fear it's a long battle with many more twists ahead of us.