How much does a music stream pay, and why do artists and labels disagree?

A stream pays a tiny, variable amount, and whether that is fair depends on who you ask. Unlike physical or download sales, which pay a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the number of an artist's streams as a proportion of all songs streamed. It distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders, often record labels, who then pay artists under individual agreements. There is no fixed per-play rate: Spotify for Artists says the amount depends on factors such as the listener's home country and the artist's royalty rate. In 2013 Spotify revealed that it paid artists an average of $0.007 per stream. By simple arithmetic, not a published figure, that average works out to about $7 for every 1,000 plays.

Artists have not been satisfied. According to Ben Sisario of The New York Times, about 13,000 of seven million artists on Spotify (0.19%) generated $50,000 or more in payments in 2020. In March 2021 a musicians' union, UMAW, organised protests in 31 cities, demanding more transparency and compensation of one cent per stream. Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke also criticised Spotify, arguing it does not fairly compensate musicians, and both at one point withdrew their music.

Defenders of streaming see it differently. A 2021 New York Times article said "streaming saved music", because it provided monthly revenue. Music Week editor Tim Ingham argued that streaming is not a one-off payment, and hundreds of millions of daily streams quickly multiply the potential revenue. Spotify itself claims it moves users away from unauthorised copying and less monetised platforms toward paid accounts.