Spotify has hit back at Taylor Swift’s claims that the streaming service “devalues music,” after the singer pulled all of her music from the platform.
Though Spotify had previously issued a grovelling open letter to Swift, now its CEO Daniel Ek has decided to make a lengthy rebuttal to the ‘Shake It Off’ pop star’s claims that the services underpays musicians.
In the post, titled ‘$2 Billion and Counting,’ Ek wrote: “Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists. A billion dollars from the time we started Spotify in 2008 to last year and another billion dollars since then.”
He continued: “At our current size, payouts for a top artist like Taylor Swift (before she pulled her catalog) are on track to exceed $6 million a year, and that’s only growing – we expect that number to double again in a year.
“Any way you cut it, one thing is clear – we’re paying an enormous amount of money to labels and publishers for distribution to artists and songwriters, and significantly more than any other streaming service.”
Even though Taylor can pull her music from Spotify… her songs are all over sites like YouTube and Soundcloud.
Swift isn’t the only artist to lash out at Spotify, with the likes of Thom Yorke also criticizing the platform down to it reportedly handing very little money over to artists. However, Ek, also makes a valid point in that for many streaming is an alternative to piracy (though that is its own issues), with him adding: “Even though Taylor can pull her music off Spotify (where we license and pay for every song we’ve ever played), her songs are all over services and sites like YouTube and Soundcloud, where people can listen all they want for free. To say nothing of the fans who will just turn back to pirate services like Grooveshark. And sure enough, if you looked at the top spot on The Pirate Bay last week, there was [Swift’s new album] 1989.”
Taylor Swift’s new album 1989 was all over torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay.
Though Ek has a point, there are many who will look at the small amount of money dished out to lesser-known bands via the platform. While Swift, one of the best-selling artists around, could generate $6 million from the platform, many will struggle to break into the thousands due to the small amount of money given to artists per stream.
This is a debate that will no doubt keep raging, and while Spotify is far from the “grand experiment” that Swift has previously branded it, providing a wide array of music to the consumer and a much more user-friendly UI than the likes of the laborious iTunes, perhaps Ek and Spotify will need to take a further look at its treatment of musicians who aren’t global mega stars.
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