Some of the world’s most illustrious musicians are now bringing in more cash from Spotify streaming royalties than from iTunes downloads.
According to new figures from Kobalt Music Publishing, a group which represents 6,000 songwriters, its artists brought in 13 per cent more from Spotify during the first quarter of 2014 than they did from iTunes.
The Wall Street Journal report outlines a massive turnaround in a very short space of time. These same writers collected 32 per cent more cash from the iTunes Store, compared with Spotify, during the third quarter of 2013 and 8 per cent more from Apple’s portal during Q4 last year.
Kobalt represents top names like Dave Grohl, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and Taylor Swift’s songwriting partner Max Martin and also has half of this week’s Billboard top ten on its books.
Word has it that Apple plans to leverage the Beats Music platform next
year and fold it into iTunes, giving the company a better shot at
challenging the streaming platforms.
Spotify may still be a little disappointed that Swift decided to remove her entire back catalogue from the platform, but today’s news perhaps proves more than ever that streaming is the way forward.
While this is all well and good for some of the world’s larger artists, whose tracks rack up millions upon millions of plays, those lesser-known bands who’re more reliant on the cold hard cash from downloads may be hit harder by the fall in digital music sales.
Is streaming, as many observers feel, killing the music industry? Or is a business model that suits all artists needed to rectify the discrepancies? Share you’re vision for the future below.
Read more: iTunes Radio vs Spotify
Via: TechCrunch
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
