Many music streaming service providers always claim their mission is to spread high-quality music and give creative artists the opportunity to live off their art. However, they are not treating those who create music fairly.

As the overall trend in copyright industries, the percentage of copyright royalties has declined among the total income for individual artists, not only because users are used to the increasingly free content available online, but also since those services with copyright are not paying artists fairly, either.

Currently, copyright royalties are even not among the top three artist revenue streams, even if artists still have to upload their music to streaming services to exist in today’s musical economy. Performance generates the largest revenue now. However, there is a chicken-and-egg conundrum — You need to have popular songs on streaming services to receive performance and earn money, but you also have to perform to support yourself to produce and market music financially.

Thus, young artists usually choose to sign a contract with complete control given to the labels. It sounds similar to startups looking for funding support from VCs. Yes, you will receive corresponding support on your music release, social media management, or even wardrobe, but simultaneously, you are also losing your freedom to decide who you are, as a music creator. As many listeners complain day after day, perfect assembly-line products occupy the platform instead of talented creators coming up.

What makes things even more complicated is artists can neither upload their music directly nor receive royalties from streaming services. A music distributor, such as TuneCore, DistroKid, or CDBaby, is required. These websites are the conduit between the artist and streaming services providers. Artists need to sign up with an email address, and then choose where to upload their efforts. When royalties are generated, the return channel is also from services to distributors and finally artists.

Oh, help. The process is so complicated. Yes, it is. Too many sides are involved in the music release process and all of them are also grabbing streaming revenue share from musicians’ hands. The complicated process results in an irregular payment system in an opaque manner. By schedule, artists should receive their royalties on a quarterly basis, whereas delay is more frequent than punctuality, and based on the research from Berklee College of Music, 20–50% of royalty revenues just mysteriously vanish and never arrive in the right pockets.

Ok, I know I have complained too much. So, what is the exact amount an artist can receive per stream? Forbes reports, that streaming services like Amazon Music, Apple Music, Google Play, and Pandora pay artists approximately $5,000 to $15,000 for every 1 million plays of a song. Thus, given the minimum wage rate in California is $14 per hour, an artist would need roughly 400,000 streams to earn an amount comparable to the state monthly minimum wage. Also, the money per stream received by artists from streaming services is decreasing. In 2014, they paid $.00521 on average, but two years later, the average rate dropped to $.00437. By 2017, the average pay rate had been reduced again to around $.00397, according to artist-rights site The Trichordist. According to Business Insider, Spotify has paid artists as little as $.0033 per stream, with other sites reporting upwards of $.0054 on average in 2021. In May 2020, classical violinist Tasmin Little revealed she was paid approximately $15.67 for six months of plays — “around 5–6 million streams” — on Spotify.

Oh, unbelievable. When a system fails to reward its key contributors, how can it keep sustainable? It might be time for us to reconsider how to recreate the system. After all, as a listener, I want to see more music geniuses enrich my music list. They deserve more.

Sonorus hopes to make some contributions to the process —to bring artists financial rewards compatible with their work and bring traffic to those unknown but talented artists. If you are interested in our plan, welcome to join our discord group . We are making some real changes.

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Discord：https://discord.gg/rQf4Vz2Brp

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