Spotify launches website to address royalty payment complaints

Routinely upbraided for ostensibly failing to provide sufficient royalty payments to artists, streaming behemoth Spotify has launched a new, interactive website called "Loud and Clear" in an attempt to mitigate complaints and/or misinformation regarding their revenue sharing practices. Spotify claims that as of 2020, they've paid over $23 billion in royalties to rights holders — including over $5 billion in 2020 alone (up from $3.3 billion in 2017). The new website features a component that allows visitors to see how many artists meet various revenue generation thresholds during the last four years. For instance, the site shows that roughly 7,800 artists generated recording and publishing royalties over $100,000 for the year 2020. Meanwhile, some 870 artists purportedly topped $1 million in royalty generation. Additionally, the website includes a form that allows users to enter song stream or monthly listener totals to see how the numbers compare to all artists and songs in the Spotify catalog. "Loud and Clear" also hosts a video titled "How the Money Flows" that provides a breakdown of how artists and songwriters get paid. "Inside Spotify, we talk about artist payouts and royalties every day, but externally, I think we've been too quiet and we haven't shared as much as we had the opportunity to and to contribute to the conversation," Charlie Hellman, Spotify's head of marketplace, told Rolling Stone.