Spotify Should Be Paid Essay

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Spotify: Are artists being paid enough?Since Spotify’s launch in 2008, the music industry has changed rapidly. With download revenue down and streaming revenues hitting huge figures, artists and record labels are concerned that they are not being paid enough. Huge artists such as Taylor Swift, Thom Yorke, and Beck have all had disputes with Spotify resulting in the artists removing their catalog from the service. Whilst it could be argued that relying on sound recording revenue to survive is not a sensible outlook on the industry, it cannot be denied that Spotify needs to pay them more. Spotify (2017) announced it has over 140 million active users with a catalog of over 30 million songs and still, artists are being paid very little. David McCandless, author of ‘Information Is Beautiful’, produced an illustration to show the pittance Spotify pay artists. …show more content…

This is a clear indication that Spotify is not only underpaying, but also overlooking grassroots artists.In addition to this, streaming services have resulted in a decline of illegal downloads –seemingly good news for the artist, however, is it much of an improvement? IFPI (2017) note that in 2016 streaming revenue grew by 60.4%, whilst physical revenue declined by 7.6% and download revenue by 20.5%. Ellis-Peterson (2017) notes “It is a vastly different story from the previous 15 years, where record labels saw a decline of 40% in revenue as piracy took its toll, physical sales declined and record shops went out of business”. Yes, it is good that there has been a decline in illegal downloads but it cannot be a great improvement for the artist because not only are they underpaid, streaming services have hindered their ability to maximise their download

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