Latest news with #Loud&Clear
Time of India
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
‘Indian music is a soft power with potential to woo global audiences'
Mumbai: Indian Pop—or I-Pop—isn't just having a moment but may be on the verge of going global in a big way. That was the big takeaway from a panel on 'How Music Can Amplify India's Global Identity' on Day Three of the first-ever World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES). Artistes and music industry voices said Indian music is increasingly being seen as a soft power force with real potential to connect with international audiences. The panel featured singer Amruta Fadnavis, Tips Industries' Kumar Taurani, playback singer Asees Kaur, music industry veteran Ralph Simon, and Spotify India MD Amarjit Batra. The group discussed how music can act as soft power and why Indian pop is well placed to catch the ears and hearts of global listeners. You Can Also Check: Mumbai AQI | Weather in Mumbai | Bank Holidays in Mumbai | Public Holidays in Mumbai Backing that up with numbers, Batra shared findings from Spotify's Loud & Clear report, released last March. In 2024 alone, Indian artists were discovered over 11.2 billion times by first-time listeners across the world—a 13% rise from the previous year. "This shows that there is a lot of interest in Indian artistes, even in other countries," he said, adding that even within India, the focus has largely shifted to homegrown music. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Google Brain Co-Founder Andrew Ng, Recommends: Read These 5 Books And Turn Your Life Around Blinkist: Andrew Ng's Reading List Undo Amruta Fadnavis made a strong case for Indian pop's global potential. "The success of K-Pop and J-Pop shows how a country's music can serve as soft power and spark international interest in its culture," she said. "Indian Pop has the same potential," she said pointing to Nattu Nattu and Jai Ho as examples of Indian songs that have already made waves internationally. Singer Asees Kaur shared how her performance at London's O2 Arena hit home. "The love and energy from the crowd felt just like it does here," she said. "Indians as well as foreigners, you could see everyone connecting with the songs in their own way." Her experience points at a bigger shift. Between 2019 and 2023, streams of Indian artistes in global markets shot up by over 2,000%, according to Spotify. Ralph Simon, a pioneer of mobile music and fondly known as 'the father of the ringtone', credited this rise to the distinct voice and rootedness of Indian artistes. He namechecked talents like Hanumankind, Shankar Mahadevan, and Arijit Singh for creating music that stays true to Indian culture while still sounding global. "India is right on the cusp of the golden era of music," he said.
CBC
12-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Spotify paid over $10B US to the music industry last year. How much actually makes it to the artists?
Spotify announced in late January that it had paid out a record $10 billion US in royalties in 2024, the largest payout to the music industry in a single year. This amounts to a tenfold jump from $1 billion US in 2014. The Swedish streaming giant on Wednesday released further details in its Loud & Clear report, saying that nearly 1,500 artists earned over $1 million US in royalties from Spotify last year. The report also highlighted how artist generating royalties have tripled since 2017. And though Spotify has absolutely changed the game for artists in terms of exposure and helping them build their fanbase, that doesn't always translate to financial stability, according to music publicist Eric Alper. Spotify doesn't pay artists and songwriters directly and how much they get paid depends on their agreements with rights holders. And after all the pit stops on the revenue chain, he says what makes it into their hands could amount to a very tiny percentage. The streaming giant's report comes amid the ongoing debate about how much money artists and songwriters actually receive in royalties and whether it is actually fair. Many artists, especially songwriters, struggle to see substantial earnings from streaming, even if their songs rack up millions of plays. "While Spotify boasts a $10 billion payout in 2024, only a fraction of that ends up in the pockets of those who create the music. A typical signed artist might see only 10 to 20 per cent of their total earnings after their label takes its cut," Alper told CBC News. "Songwriters have it even worse since mechanical and performance royalties are split among multiple stakeholders. Independent artists fare slightly better, as they avoid label deductions, but they still must navigate distributor fees and publishing splits," he said. How the money flows Spotify breaks down how the money flows in its report. The music platform pays the rights holders, which are typically record labels, distributors, aggregators or collecting societies. Artists and songwriters choose their rights holders and make agreements on their music, including giving them permission to deliver it to Spotify. The streaming giant then pays the rights holders, and they then pay the artists and songwriters. Spotify has different agreements with each of these rights holders and in general Spotify pays them roughly two-thirds of every dollar made from music. "As is the case with other streaming platforms, the payout to music creators and publishers is significantly minimal, especially considering that it is the music itself which initially provided the platform with its value," said Dr. Charlie Wall-Andrews, creative industries professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Spotify was hit with a lawsuit last year that accused it of underpaying songwriting royalties for tens of millions of songs. Several Grammy-nominated songwriters, including Amy Allen and Jessi Alexander, boycotted a Spotify awards event earlier this year after the platform's decision to cut royalty rates for songwriters and publishers on premium-subscription streams last April. "Spotify continues to announce royalty payout numbers that distort the infinitesimal amount that ends up going to songwriters. To put real Spotify numbers into perspective, in 2024 Daniel Ek cashed out $376 million in stock. In that same period, it is estimated that all songwriters in the U.S. received $320 million from Spotify," National Music Publishers' Association president and CEO David Israelite told CBC News. "To add insult to injury, just last year Spotify enacted a bundling scheme to further slash what little they pay songwriters by unilaterally combining their premium music service with audiobooks. We continue to fight back against these efforts to find solutions that give creators their fair share of the massive value they create for Spotify." CBC News reached out to Spotify for comment, but did not immediately hear back outside of office hours. Pennies per stream The Loud & Clear report also showed music publishing payouts surpassing $4.5 billion US to songwriters and publishing rights holders in the past two years — with double-digit percentage growth from 2023 to 2024 alone. "The numbers are wild — 1,500 artists made over $1 million from Spotify in 2024, and 100,000 artists generated at least $6,000. That sounds great, but when you realize that there are over 12 million uploaders, the competition is staggering," Alper said. "The vast majority of artists are still making pennies per stream, and unless you're in the top few per cent of streamers, you're probably not quitting your day job anytime soon," he added. Alper explained that major-label artists with massive streaming numbers can make substantial money, but for mid-level and emerging artists, streaming income is often unsustainable. "The industry's shift toward streaming has widened access to distribution, but it has also devalued individual streams," he said. Spotify operates on a pro-rata model, where revenue is pooled and divided based on total streams and smaller artists can often get lost in the system. Alper would rather see fees distributed based on what each listener actually plays — and that the per-stream payout be increased. He explains that if Spotify and other platforms shift to a fan-powered, user-centric model, subscription money goes directly to the artists you actually listen to which alone could significantly boost earnings for independent and niche artists. "Spotify isn't the enemy, but the system needs tweaking to ensure that more artists — especially songwriters — can thrive," Alper said.
Euronews
12-03-2025
- Business
- Euronews
Is the $10bn Spotify gave artists last year enough to silence its critics?
Spotify paid out more money into the music industry last year than any other retailer in history. ADVERTISEMENT Swedish music streaming platform Spotify paid the music industry over $10 billion (€9.2 billion) over 2024. Loud & Clear, Spotify's annual report on how much the platform gives back to the industry has been released. 2024's figures bring the total amount Spotify has paid back into the industry nearly $60 billion (€55 billion). It makes Spotify the single biggest retailer contributing to the music industry in history, with its annual figures 10 times greater than the largest record store at the height of the CD era. It's also a significant figure in comparison to the company's profits. Spotify paid out over 60% of the €15.7 billion it made in total revenue in 2024. While Spotify's contribution back to musicians, labels, promoters and others in the industry is significantly higher than any single record store ever has been, they exist in an entirely different model. Music streaming makes up around 89% of the revenue of the entire industry. Spotify leads the pack of the streamers, with 31.7% of the market share. It's a dominance over the space that far exceeds any single retailer during previous eras of music. That rise in streaming culture is represented in the Loud & Clear report. In the decade since 2014, global revenues have recovered from a low point of $13 billion to $28 billion (€11.9-25.7 billion). At the same time, Spotify's annual payouts have increased tenfold from $1 billion (€0.9 billion). Spotify uses the report to respond to one of its main sources of criticism: that it underpays artists. What critics miss is the enlarged number of artists attempting careers in music, Spotify argues. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Kelly West/AP 'Looking back to the peak of the CD era, only a few thousand artists had their music on the shelves of record stores,' the report reads. 'Streaming has allowed millions to easily share their music globally – that's an amazing thing. But the sheer volume of uploaders means the fraction who find success appears smaller over time.' The 100,000th-ranked artist based on royalties earn around 10 times what they earned a decade ago, from under $600 to $6,000 (€550-5,500). At the next echelon up, the 10,000th-ranked artist, increased in earnings by around four times, from $34,000 to $131,000 (€31,200-120,000). It means that an artist who received in every million streams on Spotify generated over $10,000 (€9,200) on average. This year, they also included a tool within the report to work out where an artist is likely to fall within the platform's rankings, to be able to guess how much they might earn. Hurray For The Riff Raff, who released Euronews Culture's Best Album of 2024, are in the top 24,000 artists on Spotify through their 508,400 monthly listeners. This means the New Orleans band will earn somewhere between the $6,000 for the 100,000th-ranked and $131,000 for the 10,000th-ranked artist. Comparatively, second favourite album artist Charli XCX is in the top 1,000 streamed artists with her 32 million monthly listeners. Spotify has said that the nearly 1,500 artists generated over $1 million in royalties last year. Spotify also sought to explain some of the misconceptions around earnings. 'Streaming services don't pay out based on a fixed per-stream rate' they write, explaining that instead it is calculated based on an artist's streamshare – the proportion they are being streamed in comparison to streams across the entire platform. Last year, in response to the release of the previous Loud & Clear report, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek offered many of these arguments in response to the platform's critics. Ek also made note that while Spotify is consistent in how it pays artists, it cannot account for what share artists get of that money after labels and publishers touch it. ADVERTISEMENT 'Spotify is probably the worst thing that has happened to musicians,' Icelandic musician Björk said earlier this year. She lamented how younger artists must rely on streaming to grow their fanbases, counting herself lucky to be established and able to tour – where the money really is. Björk performing AP2007 Even with Spotify's grand payout figures, it's still estimated that artists earn somewhere between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream. It pales in comparison to the amount artists would earn from physical media sales. While vinyl sales continue to increase though, Pandora's box of streaming music is unlikely ever to close. How useful comparisons between streaming and physical media sales are anymore is questionable. Spotify has also come under new criticism in the past year. Investigative journalists have found that large swathes of the easy-listening playlists increasingly popular as background music are from seemingly non-existent artists. As Spotify's profits increase, questions have been raised as to whether a significant portion of the payouts are able to be rerouted internally through company-commissioned music. 'What I uncovered was an elaborate internal program. Spotify, I discovered, not only has partnerships with a web of production companies, which, as one former employee put it, provide Spotify with 'music we benefited from financially,' but also a team of employees working to seed these tracks on playlists across the platform,' Liz Pelly wrote in an expose piece. ADVERTISEMENT 'In doing so, they are effectively working to grow the percentage of total streams of music that is cheaper for the platform.' Pelly's investigation is fully explicated in her 2025 book "Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist". Spotify is unlikely to slough off its critics any time soon, but the Loud & Clear report proves once again how enmeshed the platform is within the music industry.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How the Music Industry's Cultural and Financial Impact Define Its Success in 2025: Spotify Loud & Clear Report
NEW YORK, March 12, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Spotify has just unveiled this year's Loud & Clear report, a transparent look at how the streaming economy continues to support artists and fuel the music industry's explosive growth. Loud & Clear is an annual initiative to demystify how artists earn money through streaming, clarify royalty distribution, and highlight the growing and evolving global music landscape. The latest report underscores record-breaking revenues, increased artist diversity, and a more borderless music industry than ever before. A booming industry In 2024, Spotify alone paid out $10 billion to the music industry —more than any company in the history of the music industry has ever contributed in one year. As more listeners around the globe subscribe to paid streaming services, the industry has seen a tenfold increase in payouts over the past decade, with streaming alone contributing over $28 billion in revenue in 2024 – doubling the industry's worth from just a decade ago. Breaking borders and expanding representation The music industry's growth isn't just financial—it's cultural. More artists are succeeding across borders, with more languages and diverse voices breaking into the mainstream. In 2024, the artists who generated at least $100,000 in royalties were recording music in over 50 languages, while the artists who generated at least $1 million on Spotify recorded music in 17 different languages, both more than double the languages at those thresholds in 2017. Women are also making historic gains on Spotify. Female artists generating more than $1 million annually have quadrupled since 2017. Markets like Canada, South Korea, Sweden, and Argentina see particularly strong female representation amongst their top artists. The export factor: global fandom fuels artist success Artists today are no longer bound by their home markets. Over 50% of the artists who generated at least $1,000 in royalties on Spotify in 2024 made the majority of their earnings from listeners outside their home country. This demonstrates the pivotal role that export plays in the success and sustainability of an artist's career. Around one-third of those same artists saw more than 75% of their royalties come from outside their home countries, showing the power of global streaming in driving artist income. And at the $100,000 level, the connections run even deeper—over 80% of these artists have teamed up with musicians from abroad. More artists, more success Spotify has helped level the playing field for artists at every stage of their careers. Since 2017, the number of artists generating between $1,000 and $10 million annually has tripled. Notably, nearly a quarter of the 12,500 artists generating over $100,000 in 2024 weren't even releasing music professionally five years ago. Beyond the mainstream Success in the streaming era doesn't require a decade-spanning catalog nor a chart-topping hit. More than 80% of Spotify's top-royalty generating artists weren't even featured in its Global Daily Top 50, proving that independent musicians, less mainstream artists and niche genres can all thrive in the new streaming economy. Meanwhile, in 2024, independent artists and labels collectively generated more than $5 billion from Spotify — representing about half of total Spotify royalties for another year. Record-breaking royalties and industry impact Spotify continues to lead the music industry in payouts, with more than $10 billion distributed in music royalties in 2024 alone—increasing payouts tenfold over the past ten years. The company has now paid out around $60 billion since its inception. Music publishing payouts have also hit new peaks, surpassing $4.5 billion to songwriters and publishing rights holders in just the past two years - with double-digit percentage growth from 2023 to 2024 alone. What's next: fans driving the future of music The future of music is being shaped by its most passionate force: fans. New opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and creative expression will emerge as they continue to embrace and support artists across streaming platforms. With global access to diverse sounds and cultures stronger than ever, artists will keep pushing boundaries, and fans will play an even more significant role in shaping the next era of music. The industry is not just growing, it's evolving into an ecosystem where listeners and creators thrive together. Visit Loud & Clear by Spotify for a closer look at the economics of music streaming. View source version on Contacts Public Relations:Chris Macowskicmacowski@
The Guardian
12-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Spotify is trumpeting big paydays for artists – but only a tiny fraction of them are actually thriving
Since 2021, Spotify has published its Loud & Clear report, corralling data points to show how much money is being earned by artists on the streaming service. There is much talk of 'transparency' – perhaps the most duplicitous word in the music industry's lexicon – but this year's report feels very different, coming as it does alongside the publication of author Liz Pelly's book Mood Machine, a studs-up assault on streaming economics in general and Spotify in particular. Then there is the unfortunate timing of the news, as recently unearthed by Music Business Worldwide, that Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek has cashed out close to $700m in shares in the company since 2023 while Martin Lorentzon, the company's other co-founder, cashed out $556.8m in shares in 2024 alone. Meanwhile artists scream of widening financial inequalities and accuse streaming services of doing better from artists than artists are doing from streaming services. So there's a strange tang to the numbers being pushed today, as Spotify announces its 2024 report. 'We think [the report] helps us contribute to the larger understanding of what happened in music the year before,' says Spotify's Sam Duboff, who carries the unwieldy title of global head of marketing & policy, music business. It does contribute in that way, but only to a point. Loud & Clear, just like Spotify Wrapped each December, is a marketing tool, trumpeting just how fantastic Spotify is. It proffers multiple talking points, the biggest being that Spotify – which claims it holds a quarter of the recorded music market globally – paid out $10bn in royalties last year (and almost $60bn in its lifetime). Duboff says 2024's report is 'particularly symbolic, because it's exactly 10 years after the low point of the recorded music industry', when downloads had failed to fill the void created by the collapse of the CD market and the rise of piracy. He says Loud & Clear aims to show 'how many more artists are able to participate in the massive royalty pools' generated by streaming. $10bn is a hefty number, but it needs to be closely examined. This money, around two-thirds of its total income, is what Spotify has paid through to record labels and music publishers. Spotify cannot be held responsible for egregious label and publisher contracts, but it needs reiterating that only a portion of that $10bn will make its way to the people who wrote and recorded the music. The company also says this $10bn is 'more than any single retailer has ever paid in a year' and is '10x the contribution of the largest record store at the height of the CD era'. That may be true, but it says less about Spotify's benevolence and more about how streaming's market share has mostly consolidated into the hands of four global heavyweights – Spotify, Apple, YouTube and Amazon. Don't like those numbers? Spotify has others. Some land well. Others, when contextualised, land like a cake flung from the top of a skyscraper. As with live music, a handful of megastars are sponging up most of the money. There are now over 200 artists each generating over $5m a year from Spotify, up from just one act a decade ago; Duboff says the top 70 acts are generating at least $10m each. We get a better insight into the hard scrabble for smaller artists when Spotify says its 10,000th-ranked artist generated $131,000 last year – up from $34,000 a decade ago – and that 1,500 acts each generated over $1m in royalties in 2024. This is a heartening rise, but last year, Spotify said there were 225,000 'emerging or professional recording acts' (its terminology) on the service globally. That means just 4.4% of professional or near-professional acts stand a chance of generating at least $131,000 a year, while 0.6% are in with a shot of generating $1m or more. A solo act at this level might be encouraged by the potential income, but a band with four or five members will need to heavily rely on income from gigs and merchandise. Spotify has asserted that 2024 was 'another record year' for songwriters, with $4.5bn paid to music publishers (who distribute royalty payments to songwriters) over the past two years. But given Spotify has been accused in the US, by the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), of trying to reduce its payments to songwriters by reclassifying its premium subscriptions as 'bundles' as they contain access to audiobooks, this claim will not be warmly welcomed by everyone. The MLC took legal action last May but in January this year a judge granted Spotify's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. 'The court agreed that Spotify Premium's definition as a bundle was accurate,' says Duboff. 'We added audiobooks, which has been a huge value to subscribers a year or two ago. All four major streaming services operate bundles and we're no different.' To Spotify's credit, it publishes this report annually to allow everyone to pick through some of its (albeit carefully curated) numbers. None of the other streaming services do this, and record labels most certainly do not. 'Five years in, we always pictured all the streaming services would start reporting data like this,' says Duboff. 'It's a knowable fact how much each streaming service is paying out to the music industry. And we think artists deserve to know what the revenue opportunity on each platform is. It's crazy to me in 2025, with the amount of data available on the internet, that there still is so much that's opaque in the music industry.' The music industry creates and benefits from this lack of transparency. Without record labels and publishers revealing exactly how much of this money flows to artists, Loud & Clear's numbers feel like fireworks sent up to draw our attention away from tombstones.
