What Spotify's Changes Mean for You: A Simple Guide for Artists
Spotify recently changed their approach to royalty payments and artificial streams and we thought it's important to break it down for you. Here’s what it means for artists who distribute on Spotify.
Changing Artist Payouts
The Issue:
Many songs on Spotify aren’t earning enough royalty revenue to meet the minimum withdrawal thresholds set by labels and distributors. When you combine the streams from all the songs below the threshold, that leaves a huge pool of money that could be distributed to artists whose tracks are actually meeting those thresholds.
Spotify's Fix:
Spotify is changing the rules. Starting in early 2024, a song needs at least 1,000 streams in a year to start making money. This way, Spotify can focus on sending more money to songs that people are genuinely enjoying.
Artist's Take:
While it might be a bit challenging for smaller tracks, hitting that 1,000 stream mark is what you want to work towards. For your next release, set a mental target of reaching 1K streams, but the key is to make sure you’re using legitimate promotion. Get help from UnitedMaster’s promotional tools like MasterLinks and AI music marketing to amplify your music and get you over that critical threshold. You can read more about how to make sure you’re using legitimate promotion here.
Cracking Down on Fake Track Plays:
The Issue:
Some bad actors are trying to cheat the system through fake track plays. These tactics include using automated bots, creating looped playlists, and manipulating popular playlists– all to inflate stream counts. Unfortunately, there are also some fraudulent third-party promotion companies out there who are also engaging in these practices and guaranteeing artist streams in exchange for money (which by definition, is considered to be artificial streaming). See what Spotify has to say about third-party promotion here.
Spotify spends lots of money detecting, preventing, and removing the impact of artificial streaming. These tactics ultimately take money out of the royalty pool, lowering the amount that could be distributed directly to artists.
Spotify's Fix:
To stop this, Spotify will charge companies a fine, including labels and distributors, linked to individuals involved in such activities. This penalty is designed to discourage artificial streaming and motivate distributors and labels to assume greater responsibility for the content they handle.
Artist's Take:
Spotify wants to make sure that the money it earns goes to the artists who are generating legitimate streams from real fans. By putting a penalty on the companies, including labels and distributors, associated with fake plays, they're trying to keep things fair for artists who play by the rules.
New Rules for Noise Tracks
The Issue:
In an effort to game the music streaming system, some people have been stacking short, repetitive noise tracks like this to get more streaming revenue. The stacked tracks boost streaming revenue unfairly.
Spotify's Fix:
Spotify is setting some new rules. Now, noise tracks need to be at least two minutes long to earn money. Also, they're going to pay less for noise streams compared to genuine music.
Artist's Take:
If you're into making noise tracks, consider lengthening them to adhere to these new regulations. Ultimately, you want to make sure that you aren’t engaging in any artificial streaming activity. Focus on organic listening versus repetitive listening for the sake of boosting stream counts and/or royalties.
Conclusion:
Change can be a bit scary, but it's important to stay in the loop. Spotify's changes aim to decrease fraudulent activity on the platform and make things better for artists in the long run. Keep making music, use the resources Spotify provides, and check back in the UnitedMasters app to stay up-to-date with the latest changes in the music industry.
