Spotify once again presented “record-breaking” figures on Thursday. According to the figures, European artists earned a total of around 1.7 billion euros in royalties on the music streaming service in 2024. This corresponds to an increase of 15 percent compared to the previous year and is almost twice as much as in 2020. According to the latest distribution report, more than 17,000 artists from the EU earned more than 10,000 euros. More than 27,000 music artists from the international community are said to have broken the €5,000 mark.
Spotify describes the increase not only as encouraging, but also as trend-setting. Almost 44 percent of all royalties generated in the EU also came from artists from the Union. This is the highest proportion since records began in 2017. 57 percent of royalties went to artists who did not sing in English. European artists were “discovered” 28 billion times worldwide last year. Creators from the old continent were streamed 351 billion times by European listeners. But over 830 million user-generated playlists in the USA are also said to have contained EU artists. In Germany, more than half of the licensing revenue went to independent musicians.
Although the music industry in Germany and worldwide is booming again and achieved the highest turnover of all time in 2024 with 2.38 billion euros – largely driven by streaming (78.1 percent) –, many artists are not getting off the ground. German pop musician Balbina recently complained to Zeit magazine that she only earned a total of 343.36 euros from her songs on Spotify last year. This is downright tragic: “I make music to survive. But I don’t survive because I make music.” Ten years ago, when her music was distributed via CDs, she earned much more with it.
Seductive figures
In general, the high total payouts published by Spotify do not reflect the reality for most music creators. The figures conceal the fact that only a tiny fraction of all artists on Spotify (around 0.4 percent) exceed the 10,000 euro mark. The vast majority continue to earn hardly anything. On average, they only earn around 0.003 euros per stream. Millions of views are needed to reach 10,000 euros.
The biggest stumbling block: Spotify throws all revenue into one pot. The money is then distributed proportionately the streams according to the “pro rata model”. This favors superstars and major labels, while small artists – only receive pennies, even with many listeners –. The 10,000 euros mentioned are also gross revenues. Labels, publishers, and distributors often deduct a large proportion before the money reaches the actual creator.
Grönemeyer: “Criminal system”
Alongside Balbina, one of the harshest critics of this streaming billing model is Herbert Grönemeyer. The pop legend has even described this system as “criminal” because “the middle class is breaking away”. Spotify changed its remuneration model at the beginning of 2024. Songs that achieve fewer than 1,000 streams per year are left empty-handed. This mainly affects newcomers and niche artists.
Together with stars such as Helene Fischer, Marius Müller-Westernhagen, Sarah Connor and Peter Maffay, Grönemeyer launched an initiative back in 2020 to distribute the sources of income, which are bubbling up again thanks to streaming, more fairly. The alliance is campaigning to replace pro rata billing with a usage-based system in which the number of listeners is decisive. MEPs also pushed for the remuneration standards to be revised in 2023.
(nen)
