Streaming – a good business for musicians?
The provocative question if “Streaming – is a good business for musicians?”, is more important than ever.
Already in spring 2023 market leader SPOTIFY presented a new “royalty plan” which pays out artists only if they have a “minimum of 1.000 Streams per month”. Less than that produces 0,000€ payment.
Many music consumers have developed the benefits and easy use of streaming. Regarding a study of GEMA in 2023 Music has been consumed to 45% thru streaming portals. The rest of 30% are divited between Radiostations (15%) and CD- and rcord sales (7%) and other use.
Musicstreaming has been used in 2021, by half of the german population above 14 years (45 %), this responds to 31,8 Mio. users. In comparison to 2013 this is a plus of 6 times more. More than 80 % of listeners use streaming intensively (daily or weekly). At the age of 14- to 29 the use is already at 84 %. Thru streaming music is more easy to use and available, plus even cheaper than ever before.
Source: https://www.gema.de/de/aktuelles/streaming
In the contrary the compensation of composers for the use of their work by the streaming portals is a complete different story.
Streaming-growth on the back of musicians
Here are some more statements regained by the study of GEMA:
Regarding to the study of the research group Goldmedia that checked the netto distribution of a standard-single abonnement. These abonnements are beeing offered for a price of 9,99 Euro per month. Around two thirds of the users stream music thru payed abonnements.
The result: around 30 percent of the net sales of a standard-single abonnement stay with the Streaming-portals. Around 55 percent are beeing payed to Music-labels and Musicians, but only 15 percent of the net sales are payed to the composers and texters.Especially disturbing: with only 22,4 percent of the net sales (which are beeing payed to the musicians and composers), they receive much less than the Streaming-providers or Labels.
Source: Goldmedia-Analysis; Basis: monthly fees for a Standard-Streaming-Abonnement after taxes
Music consumers should be aware that, by all the easyness of use for themselfes, playing music thru Streaming is not really a lucrative income for musicians, as the royalty plans of the streaming portals just pay a minimum wage for the artists!
Some actual numbers:
per Stream for example AppleMusic (former iTunes) actually pays out 0,00783 € to artists. Spotify even pays less with only 0,00397€ per stream. One can imagine hhow many streams an artist will have to gain before earning 1.-€ (see image below).
Buying an album, wether as Vinyl, CD or in mp3 offers artists at least SOME income to gain with their music! Think of it next time you want to stream…
See who pays what for streaming:
Important hint: please take in account while streaming to play titles always completely or if not AT LEAST 35 Seconds. Another serious problem with streaming is, that royalties to artists ONLY get paid for completely played songs or at least 35 seconds of streams (partly). Songs played less than 35 seconds gain NO ROYALTIES AT ALL = 0,00000 € !