By DJ Suspence
Apple Music provided an update in a letter it posted on its artists dashboard last week detailing the average it paid out in royalties per stream in 2020.
“While royalties from streaming services are calculated on a stream share basis, a play still has value,” it stated. “This value varies by subscription plan and country but averaged $0.01 for Apple Music individual paid plans in 2020. This includes label and publisher royalties.”
In response, the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers stated via Twitter last week that Apple’s payment methods are “doable for streaming companies, including Spotify which currently averages $0.0038 per stream... If Apple can pay a penny per stream, then Spotify can too.”
Spotify has previously spoken to their stance on royalties paid out per stream via their website Loud&Clear, to clarify why it doesn’t believe in a “per stream rate.” “Still, we understand that artists find it useful to calculate an effective “per stream” rate or, in other words, a revenue-to-streams ratio - dividing the total size of the royalty pool Spotify (the numerator) by the total number of music streams on Spotify (the denominator),” the site read. “both of these numbers are growing incredibly quickly every year.”