SPOTIFY’S NEW ROYALTIES MODEL NOT MUSIC TO EARS OF STRUGGLING NEW ACTS
SPOTIFY’S new royalties model will have a significant ‘psychological impact’ on emerging artists, an Irish music industry leader has warned.
The world’s leading music streaming service – already widely criticised for paying artists a pittance in royalties – confirmed its new payment model last week, under which a song will have to reach 1,000 plays per year before earning any money at all.
Spotify, which is valued at more than €30bn, said the move is to cut down on fraud streaming and put more money in the pot for more established artists.
But Angela Dorgan, CEO of the Arts Council-funded First Music Contact and who works closely with aspiring talent, told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘We advise artists that the hardest work they’ll ever do is getting from 100 to 1,000 followers, and then it becomes easier after that.
‘So I think it’s more the psychological impact of telling all of those artists as they start out that they don’t matter.’
Spotify’s reverse-Robin Hood proposal of taking from smaller artists to give to the stars may make for bad PR – around two thirds of its more than 100 million tracks get fewer than 1,000 plays – but financially it will make little difference to individual artists.
A thousand plays equates to less than €3 in royalty payments. But Ms Dorgan said that her ‘fear would be’ that there could be further announcements to come from the streaming giant.
‘They’re starting at 1,000 [plays], but where are they going to end up? What if they say 10,000?
‘Then you would question whether it would be advisable for artists to use it at all, because you’re giving Spotify your music for free.’
Even established artists are struggling to make ends meet at the moment, as post-pandemic inflation means that touring is no longer the cash cow it was sold as when people stopped buying records.
Ms Dorgan said the ‘mental impact’ of this latest blow for small artists ‘will be fallout that we’ll be dealing with and we’re already dealing with’ at FMC.
‘We’re supporting artists starting out. Everyone has to start with 1,000. You don’t go straight to a million. So it’s about the impact that will have – telling you that 1,000 isn’t important when 1,000 is crucial.’
On the plus side, Spotify can help rising artists to find a global audience, especially if their songs make it into a popular playlist. Dermot Kennedy has said it allowed him to release tracks and sell out tours before he had even recorded an album. And fellow Dublin singer-songwriter CMAT would have made a lot more from her second album Crazymad, For Me in days gone by, but her immediately catchy tunes are sure to reach far-flung audiences by popping up in playlists.
Meanwhile Hozier’s Take Me To Church has been played 2.27 billion times on Spotify, dwarfing the record for single sales and propelling him to 30 million monthly listeners.