Record labels take the biggest slice of the pie from music streaming

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has claimed that record labels take in the biggest chunk of the revenue from music streaming services ever since Taylor Swift departed from the service because she thought it didn’t pay the people who made her music enough money. Now there’s a study that backs Ek’s claims: record labels take in about 45% of the revenue while artists are left with around 6%. 

A new study of the distribution of revenue from streaming-music services such as Spotify, Pandora, and Deezer shows that the major record labels are pocketing nearly seven times the licensing revenue than artists and musicians collect. It goes along with what Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has been saying ever since Taylor Swift’s high-profile departure from his service: The money is there for the taking, it’s just that the record labels are taking too much. Music Business Worldwide posted figures from the study, a joint effort conducted by the French trade group SNEP and the public accounting firm Ernst & Young. The study looked at how royalties stemming from subscription fees are divided. If the numbers are accurate, the major labels make off with 45.5 percent of the loot, while artists pocket just 6.8 percent. Songwriters and publishers split 10 percent, and the rest goes to platform costs and taxes.