"Spotify
Paid Lady Gaga $167 For 1,000,000 Plays"
This headline
showed the “dark side” of music streaming start up, Spotify. Critics were in awe
about how little artists were being paid for their hard work. Despite the short
lived pleas from Spotify that they paid more per play people focused on this
number, as if it was a bad thing.
Paying an artist
less than 1p per play sounds like a raw deal, until you remember Spotify is a
marketing platform. Spotify is designed as a service for people to listen to
their favourite tracks cheaply. Why does this benefit the artist? Because if
you love their music, you’ll go to the show, get the t-shirt and support the
live scene.