What Spotify's New Royalty Model Means

There are so many problems with this article. They correctly state that Spotify will stop paying royalties for songs getting less than 1,000 streams per year. But then go on to talk about how 2/3 of songs on Spotify have less than 1,000 streams total. Those are two different things! There are way more songs with over 1,000 streams total that don’t get 1,000 streams per year that will also be demonetized.

Then the author tries to justify it by saying that it is only about $3 per year. Again, that is per song! And the author makes the erroneous claim that distributors already weren’t paying it to the artists. This is true, until it builds up to a certain payout threshold. Under the new Spotify plan, the money just doesn’t exist.