Apple Music Reveals How Much It Pays Artists Per Stream

The rise of streaming has changed the music industry. Instead of record labels and artists making larger sums of money when people buy their new album, they make pennies when people stream a song.

The argument comes down to whether streaming actually works out better for the music industry in the long run. It's obviously better for consumers, but if labels and artists aren't making any money, there won't be an industry to create music.

More often than not, we don't actually hear about how much services like Apple Music and Spotify pay artists. It's like some big secret happening around us. We know our plays are paying the artists and labels, but how much is a mystery.

Apple has revealed a bit about how much it pays artists in a letter discovered by The Wall Street Journal.

How Much Does Apple Pay Artists?

In the letter to artists and labels, Apple told artists that it pays them 1 penny for each stream. So if you're obsessed with your favorite song, you'd have to play it 100 times for the artist and label to make $1.

And while that doesn't sound great, that's actually about double what Spotify pays per stream, so it's actually a pretty good deal, at least when compared to the competition. Spotify pays an average of about one-third to one-half penny per stream. However, the key difference is that Spotify has a much larger user base, so while each stream pays less, Spotify tends to generate far more streams.

Apple Music said it pays the music industry a penny per stream on its service—roughly double what Spotify pays—a disclosure the company made as part of an effort by music-streaming services to show they are artist-friendly https://t.co/1ARuuTitR2
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 16, 2021

In the letter, Apple said, "As the discussion about streaming royalties continues, we believe it is important to share our values. We believe in paying every creator the same rate, that a play has a value, and that creators should never have to pay for featuring."

As far as how much Apple makes, the company said that it pays 52-percent of subscription revenue to labels and artists. That mean's Apple is making 48 cents on the dollar.

Do The Artists Get It All?

That penny doesn't go straight to the artists in most cases. It goes to rights holders, who then distribute it to the labels, artists, and everyone else involved in the music creation process.

In the end, it's not up to Apple how much of that penny goes to the actual creator of the music and how much goes to the label and other parties. The contract artists sign when they join a record label is ultimately what determines everything.

source https://www.makeuseof.com/apple-music-pay-per-stream/