While Spotify has become all the rage to anyone who has ears and a smartphone, the service

has
carved a deep wound into the music industry. Spotify’s single-fee-for-unlimited-songs service has
surpassed the standard methods of music distribution that preceded it. The app only gives a small
percentage of profits from premium subscribers to artists and their record companies. Spotify’s
streaming feature makes it extremely difficult for artists to make any profit. The music holder
receives about $.006 to $.0084 for each streamed song, according to CNBC. It would take thousands
or even millions of streams for an artist to receive a reasonable amount of money compared to
Spotify’s profits. With a tremendous number of listeners, Spotify has cut out the need for music
consumers to buy an artist’s album. Consumers prefer to listen to music for free or have an endless
supply of music for a small monthly fee rather than purchase individual tracks.nstead of recieving
revenue from album purchases, the artist must rely on the number of streams that each of their
songs obtain. This fact forces most artists to change the usual album format to one more suitable for
streaming platforms. Albums have become longer in recent years. Traditional albums have 10 to 14
tracks, but artists like Drake have began to produce albums with over 20 tracks. This is a similar
length to a playlist on a streaming app. Travis Scott similarly exemplifies the trend. His album
Astroworld has 17 tracks with three songs over four minutes long. Artists have resorted to changing
the established album length to conform to the new streaming culture, according to USA
Today. Spotify has been criticized for offering direct licensing deals to certain independent artists.
The artist gets to keep the whole cut of Spotify’s profits if they are licensed directly. These deals with
independent artists and labels can lead to advance payments of several thousand dollars, according
to The New York Times. This system leaves little room for other labels and publishers, cutting off
their stream of revenue. Warner, Universal and Sony control around 80 percent of the industry
according to The New York Times, Since Spotify has started artists directly, these big names are being
cut out of the equation. Labels receive around 52 percent of the revenue from the amount of time a
song is played, according to The New York Times. When the money filters through the label to the
artist, the artist only receives between 15 and 50 percent of those profits.Spotify features many
music videos alongside its wide selection of music. These videos have reportedly provided an
enormous profit to Spotify, according to Bloomberg.com. Yet Spotify is not paying its fair share for
the videos, according to Bloomberg.com.Marc Cimino, a Universal Music Publishing Group executive,
has voiced his opinion on the subject as his company deals with Spotify’s business. “We want to
allow our digital partners to experiment, and at the same time make sure our songwriters are paid
properly,” Cimino said.Streaming has pushed artists to depend on tours instead of album profits
because they don’t earn as much money from their songs. Without these song and album profits,
artists are left to sell physical representations of their music through merchandise and
performance. Spotify must consider its actions in the industry. Artists are pushing out more and
more albums, tours and merchandise to stay afloat in the music community. Label companies are
getting cut out of their share of revenue by Spotify’s streaming capabilities. While money plays an
important role in the music industry, the current distribution of it is inequitable.