Apple Music and Spotify are the two main music streaming platformsDespite a similar price for users, the difference in terms of what each company pays artists is quite significant.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is sending an open letter to artists, and most importantly, the letter says that Apple Music pays a dime per game. That’s roughly double what Spotify is paying, according to estimates.
The streaming services are generally not very transparent In this regard, these types of contracts are generally confidential and neither Apple Music nor Spotify has disclosed this data publicly.
Apple believes in paying the same fees to every creator, that a work has value, and creators should never have to pay to be shown
Apple Music wants to be on the artist’s side
In the letter, Apple says it pays 52% of subscription revenue, or 52 cents of every dollar, to record companies and other music rights holders.
These musical rights holders they in turn pay the artists on the basis of their recording, publishing and distribution agreements, so artists don’t get that penny.
“As the discussion on continuous payments continues, we believe it is important to share our values. We believe in paying the same fees to every creator, that a work has value, and that creators should never have to pay for their music to appear in important sections of the Apple Music app.“.
Previous analyzes already showed similar data, Apple pays artists much more for each reproduction. The latest figure given by Apple is 60 million paying subscribers in 2019, but that figure could already be close to 100 million.
