Still, the symbolism of the decision - which raises another round of conversation about whether artists can make a living wage from streams - has the music industry’s interest piqued.
And SoundCloud is not where the majority of music streaming in the world takes place. At launch in April, only indie artists on two of SoundCloud’s own distribution services will get access to these user-centric royalty options. SoundCloud’s move is by no means an immediate game-changer. Under SoundCloud’s new plan, the “fan-centered” system will create a set per-stream rate that lets fans’ streaming royalties go directly, and only, to the artists they listen. That works in favor of high-streaming acts like Taylor Swift or Harry Styles - but smaller, less streamed acts are often left with pennies, even if they have devout followers, because most of those followers’ subscription fees still end up in the pockets of the giant stars. But earlier this month, SoundCloud surprised the music industry when it announced a major change: For select artists, instead of paying from a pro-rata model, the service will translate fans’ streams directly into dollars.Ī brief explainer: Right now, music-streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify collect all their monthly streaming revenue and then proportionally divvy up those royalties to artists by percentage of their streams (a.k.a. Unless they’re at the level of Drake or Ariana Grande, musicians aren’t making very much from streaming as it stands now.