Taylor Swift, Spotify and earnings from music

As one of the many artists at the bottom of the barrel, I am highly interested in what’s happening between Taylor Swift and Spotify right now.

If you missed it, let me explain. Currently, Taylor Swift is the best selling music artist around. I’m sure you haven’t missed that, right? Well, Spotify is one the biggest music streaming services. Perhaps, you already know this too.

1 Cent Per Play

Just like me, Taylor gets about 1 cent (US$) when someone plays her song on Spotify. She thinks that’s underrated.

I always feel like I’m still learning the music business as I go along – especially because the business is ever changing – but it’s always amazed me how little money sticks for the artist at the end of the day.

For me, this is one of the challenges to find a business model that actually works. My first love is the studio, so I don’t have much revenue from performances and merchandise. All has to come in through the music itself.

Making A Loss

With every song I’m in a bind; to digital distribute it or not. Digital distribution of one song costs me about $10 per year. This is to release the song as a single.

Because new shops pop up all the time, I can automate my distribution to automatically include new stores within that year for an additional $10. So these are my costs. It’s not that shocking, right?

Go Taylor!

Now here’s what I’ve earned this year: A whopping 12 cents! This is thanks to random streams on Spotify and XBox music; there were no music sales. So knowing this, I say “go Taylor, go on and make it 2 cents or more per play!”. Thanks Tay!

You Need Spotify

For her, it’s about the big bucks. Her music gets streamed, oh just a couple million times more than mine. The bottom line for me is that I always lose money on streaming services and online music stores.

However, I can’t go around Spotify. As an artist, I need to be on there. It’s where the audience is at, which is exactly what a lot of experts are saying. And Spotify is quick to agree, of course.

Spotify has been able to get a large group of people to legally listen to music. It does provide artists with income we otherwise would’ve lost out on. And these types of services really are the future. There is an audience there I would love to reach. And I hope Taylor’s fight benefits us all.

Read more:

The response from Spotify
Taylor Swift just removed all her songs from Spotify (Time)

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