It’s no mystery that the future of the music business is in digital streaming. With the influence of smart phones and online data sharing at an all-time peak, music lovers have shifted their attention from buying their favorite band’s vinyl at a live show, to finding the most efficient music streaming app available to them in the palm of their hand.
While online music streaming businesses have given smaller, unsigned musicians the opportunity of extended exposure, it comes at a significant cost to musicians. According to Ditto Music – an online music distribution company – for every mobile stream on Spotify, the artist of that stream receives .00012 of a cent. That means for an artist to even make a dollar off of Spotify mobile streams, they would need to have their music streamed over 8,000 times on hand-held mobile devices. But it’s okay, because they’re getting free exposure right??? Wrong. The system is set up so that only those at the top of the food chain have any chance of making respectful income off of their music online. While streaming sites like Spotify, Beats Music, and Pandora provide artists with avenues to get their music to listeners, the business model that online streaming sites create for musicians is unsustainable.
And this is supposed to be the future of the music business? Online streaming isn’t going away, but the system can be re-modeled to provide a more feasible monetary output to musicians. I don’t know how much longer musicians are going to put up with spending thousands of dollars out of their own pocket to be able to post their music online for a chance to make .00012 of a cent per stream. But enough of my ranting, look at the facts for yourself.
[Via]