Every day, millions of people use Spotify to stream music. Streaming now accounts for most of the money generated by the music industry — a whopping 84% in the United States, according to the RIAA, and 67.3% worldwide, according to a 2024 report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which tracks global sales.
Spotify is the largest platform of all — making up roughly 31% of the total market share — with a reported 626 million users and 246 million subscribers in over 180 markets.
How does Spotify pay artists and songwriters?
Short answer: They don’t. Spotify pays roughly two-thirds of each dollar it makes from music streams — a collection of paid subscriptions and advertiser income — to the rights holders of the music on its platform, paid out between recording and publishing agreements.
Those rights holders usually comprise a combination of record labels, distributors, aggregators and collecting societies — think Sony, Warner, Universal, the digital music licensing organization Merlin that represents independent labels — who then pay their artists according to their contracts. apnews.com
