Apple Music has issued a memo to artists, labels and other rightsholders about its royalty rates and practices, praising the streaming service that it pays an average of one cent per stream as The Wall Street Journal reports and Pitchfork can confirm.
“Although streaming service royalties are calculated on a stream share basis, a play still has value,” reads the memo, viewed by Pitchfork. “This value varies by subscription and country, but averaged $ 0.01 for individual paid Apple Music subscriptions in 2020. This includes royalty for labels and publishers.”
Much of the memo appears to be indirectly aimed at primary competitor Spotify. At one point, Apple claims it is committed to paying the same 52% rate to all labels. “While other services pay a significantly lower rate to some independent labels than major labels, we pay the same headline rate to all labels,” the memo reads. “This means that artists can distribute music however they want, knowing that Apple Music will pay the same rate. Draw with a label or remain independent; we believe in the value of all music. “
The memo appears to refer to Spotify’s discovery mode, which gives artists the option to sign up for a promotional, lower royalty in exchange for a boost in personalized algorithmic playlists.
The memo says, “We believe that every creator should pay the same rate, that a play has a value and that creators should never have to pay for it.” It was later written, “Apple Music’s team of global tastemakers has 30,000 editorial playlists. These tastemakers select music based on merit, and we don’t ask anyone to accept a lower royalty rate in return for a performance. The same goes for the personalized ones. playlists and algorithmic recommendations from Apple Music. “
It should be noted that streaming companies such as Apple Music and Spotify do not pay artists directly, but instead pay to record labels, distributors and performing rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI, who then pay artists. Towards the end, Apple also shared its findings from research on “ alternative royalty models. ”
“Our analysis showed that they would result in a limited redistribution of royalties with a varied impact on artists,” the memo reads. Per play rates would no longer be the same for each time a song is played. But more importantly, the changes wouldn’t increase what all creators earn from streaming. Instead, these changes would shift royalties to a small number of labels while making creators less transparent everywhere. “
Apple’s announcement comes at a time when artists in the music industry are demanding that streaming services shift towards fairer royalty rates. The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) is campaigning for Spotify – which has a much larger user base than Apple Music, with 155 million paid subscribers compared to Apple Music’s 60 million in June 2019 – to spend a cent a month Pay. flow. In March, Spotify rolled out the Loud & Clear transparency initiative to enable more communication with the artist community.
Read “Meet the Experimental Musicians Who Built Their Own Streaming Service” on the pitch.