Announced by Spotify founder Daniel EK, Loud & Clear website aim to increase transparency and shed light on the complicated economics of music streaming.
Loud & Clear offers an in-depth look into the streaming platform numbers, by sharing new data around artist royalties with a focus on both artist payouts & how the data provided from the platform to the artist are breaking down the royalty system, the players & the process.
Spotify explained that artists want the opportunity to make a living from their work while more artists than ever are finding success through streaming and that the platform will keep pushing to grow the industry.
Spotify Loud & Clear is made to increase transparency
From streaming on Spotify alone, Spotify explained to see growth from artists at all stages of their career: since 2017, the number of artists generating
- more than $50K/yr is up 80%
- more than $100K/yr is up 85%;
- and more than $1M/year is up 90%.
57K artists now represent 90% of monthly streams on Spotify — a number that has quadrupled in just six years, meaning that the number of the most played artists in the world is growing & is now more diverse.
Loud & Clear explain concepts like average royalties generated, average listeners by categorizing Spotify’s artists into 8 different categories but also how many artists were within each category in 2020.
Last but not least, the site provides a visualization at revenue generation over the years, showing how many artists globally generated how much — across recording and publishing for their catalog — for each of the past four years on Spotify.
This approach is a direct consequence & answer to Soundcloud’ last decision to launch Fan-powered royalties payouts system.