A Conversation on Streaming
Graphic by Cate Banks
By Charlie Deitchman
As streaming continues to take over more and more creative industries, it seems that artists everywhere are increasingly fed up over the lack of compensation that comes with it. The Writers Guild of America recently ended a 148-day strike in which they successfully gained better residuals and overall representation when it comes to streaming services, while the Screen Actors Guild continues to fight for similar benefits. All of this has led me to think about how streaming affects musicians, the lack of revenue that comes from it, and whether there is even a way to solve this problem.
The issue of streaming is not black and white, it is full of gray areas. In a lot of ways, streaming saved the music industry. The accessibility and low costs of streaming services make is so any artist can upload and expose their music, allowing many smaller artists to grow a following before being signed to a record label. But while entry is relatively low cost for artists, there are also cons to this DIY method. By foregoing association with a record label, artists instead have to learn how to market themselves, losing the resources and monetary support that a label can provide.
The biggest issue with streaming services is unequal distribution of wealth. While streaming services themselves are extremely profitable (Forbes reports that in the first half of 2021, revenues from streaming music grew to $5.9 billion), artists are seeing little to no revenue growth of their own. In 2022, Business Insider reported that Spotify pays artists approximately $0.0033 per stream or $0.0007 per stream for artists who are a part of a record label. Apple Music reportedly pays their artists $0.01 per stream or $0.002 per stream once labels take their cut. This is not a liveable income. Although Spotify claims to want to give “a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art,” only 13,000 out of their seven million artists generated $50,000 or more in 2021. I met with an up-and-coming independent artist, Brooke Alexx, to learn more.
My first question for Alexx was how an independent artist actually goes about getting their music on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music without having a record label to go through. She explained that most start out by using distributors like CD Baby or TuneCore to get their music out. Then as an artist continues to release music and gains popularity, some distributors may invite them onto their platform, often giving the artist a better chance of getting their music onto editorial platforms. Alexx went on to say that many artists nowadays are choosing not to sign record deals, instead opting for distribution deals in which a distribution company gives the artists money towards their projects. So how much revenue does Alexx earn from streaming services? It’s hard to say, since the amounts vary and are so negligible. It wasn’t until her song “All My Exes’ Moms,” which currently sits at 19 million streams on Spotify, blew up that she began to see a notable increase in royalties each month. For an artist to have to reach this level of streams before a noticeable change in revenue is absurd, and makes it nearly impossible for artists to live off of their music alone. Alexx explained that the majority of revenue she receives from her music actually comes from brand deals that she shares on social media platforms.
Another issue with streaming platforms that is seen throughout a variety of industries is transparency. For instance, Netflix is extremely secretive about details regarding their streams and often tries to withhold those details from the shows’ creators. When asked about the transparency from streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, Alexx claimed that Spotify is the most transparent. When an artist uploads a song to Spotify, they are able to see who streams it. This initially updates live before it transitions to updating every 24 hours; on Apple Music, this data is updated every 24 hours from the start. However, neither of these transparency policies is perfect. You may be able to see how many people have streamed your music as a whole, but you cannot see how long they are streaming it, nor the specific song they are listening to.
Wrapping up our conversation, I asked Alexx if her goal is to be signed to a record label or whether she would prefer to continue as an independent artist.
“I really do enjoy being an independent artist. I love having my hands on everything and doing everything myself, but I feel like my dream is to [reach the status of] Taylor Swift… and to get to that level you probably need the money of a record label and the connections they have to back you up.”
Finally, I asked what she would change about the Spotify and Apple Music experience, and whether she believes there is a better way in which streaming could work for artists. She feels there could be better transparency: for instance, letting artists “see all the time how many people are listening and watch the number go up as it's going up.” She also suggested a single space where artists could see all the streaming platforms in one, although she figured that was unlikely.
Although streaming has turned the music industry into a more open place in many ways, it is heavily lacking in artist compensation. It’s hypocritical for corporations to milk artists for content and not compensate them fairly, when those same companies—who are withholding money—claim to want to be a place for all artists to live off of their music. It’s a problem that is unjust and needs to be solved if we want there to be more art—and more artists—in this world.