Home Industry News Arithmetic on the Internet: The Ethical Pool Solution to Streaming Royalty Allocation
Subscription services are one of the few secular trends in the current economy that is not yet reactive to trade wars or interest rates. Subscription services are found in many areas of the economy, but music drives some of the big ones like Spotify, Amazon and especially the razor-and-razorblades plays like Apple. But per-stream royalties do not come close to making up for the CD and download royalties they cannibalize. Not only do subscription retail rates need to increase, but it’s also time for a major change in the way artist’s streaming royalties are calculated from what is essentially a market share approach to one that is more fair.