Spotify paid USD 7 billion to music copyright holders in year 2021

According to the latest report, Spotify paid $7 billion to music copyright holders last year, accounting for 25% of the total revenue of the entire music industry.

According to Spotify, 52,600 artists will make more than $10,000 through Spotify in 2021. Of these, 130 earned more than $5 million last year.

Spotify didn’t reveal the names of the artists, but last year’s top hits were Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, BTS, Drake, and Justin Bieber; the top song was “Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo.

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But Spotify may be telling us only part of the truth, not all. For example, if an artist earns $10,000 in royalties from Spotify, he might actually get only $2,000, and the rest is split between record labels and publishers. If it is BTS, the $2,000 will be divided among 7 people. Songwriters and occasional musicians may earn less.

Let’s take a look at the specific data to have a deeper understanding: the income is between 10000-49999 dollars, a total of 36100; the income is between 50000-99999, a total of 7000; the income is between 100000-499999, a total of 7330; the income is between 500000-999999, a total of 1130; income between 1000000-1999999, a total of 590; income between 2000000-4999999, a total of 320; $5 million and above, a total of 130.

Of course, artists don’t just make their money from Spotify, but also from competing streaming sites and CD sales. About 8 million artists upload songs to the Spotify platform, and about 60,000 new songs are uploaded every day. 

Moreover, 99.3% of artists earn less than $10,000 a year. About half of the 8 million artists uploaded fewer than 10 songs. Revenues for the entire music industry will grow 18.5% in 2021 to $25.9 billion.

(via)