The world’s leading audio platform Spotify will change its compensation method for artists in 2024 and introduce a minimum number of plays to qualify for compensation, it announced on Tuesday.
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Spotify’s compensation system will evolve to meet three needs: “Continue to discourage artificial streaming, better distribute small payments that don’t reach artists, and curb those who try to game the system” by focusing on non-musical “noise.” focused, he said on his website aimed at artists.
Spotify expects that solving each of these issues can generate about $1 billion in additional revenue for “emerging and professional artists” over the next five years.
Starting in early 2024, the platform will launch at least 1,000 games over 12 months to be able to generate payment.
Spotify explains that the tracks below this threshold currently generate an average of $0.03 per month and are unaffected by rights holders, while representing a total of $40 million.
“We will simply use these tens of millions of dollars per year to increase payments to eligible securities,” the platform says.
In the fight against artificial streaming, particularly created by robots, Spotify announces that it will “charge labels and distributors for each track if obvious artificial streaming is detected in their content.”
The amount of this withholding tax was not specified.
In early 2023, a first global study on the subject estimated that between 1% and 3% of online listening was incorrect, according to 2021 data from the National Music Center (CNM) in France.
As a third evolution of its compensation method, Spotify will increase its terms for paying royalties for listening to non-musical “sounds” (animal sounds, nature sounds, etc.).
Tracks of this type of noise must have a duration of at least two minutes and Spotify will discuss with the holders of these rights “to value the noise streams at a fraction of the value of the music streams”.
“This is just the beginning,” said the head of the music distribution platform Stem, Kristin Graziani, at the beginning of November about the changes planned by Spotify, but judged that they were “not in a good direction”.