Spotify has announced that starting in 2024, tracks will need to have been played 1,000 times per year before they will qualify for a royalty payout.

Background

The story goes that tracks that have less than 1,000 plays account for 0.5% of the annual royalty payout and many of these are micro payouts which in effect go into a black hole as there isn't enough to make an actual payment.

As at May 2023, there are some 120,000 tracks per day being loaded onto Spotify. Now to qualify for a royalty payment, tracks will need to be played 2.74 times per day, every day in order to achieve the 1,000 plays in a year.

Spotify currently pays £0.00005 per play. A thousand plays would therefore earn you £0.05. Hardly retirement income. I  know people who will only load their tracks onto Soundcloud or Bandcamp as they don't like the Spotify model and that's fine. However, by not having tracks on Spotify, there is a big opportunity being missed.

So what can we do ?

Well, as writers/artists, we can support each other. If I have a network of say 200 people. That means they only have to play my track 5 times per year to get the 1,000 plays. In return, I'm going to make sure I play my friends tracks 5 times per year. Not only does it help generating plays, it also means you may find new music that you wouldn't have found otherwise. You may find someone who you want to work with .

What else ?

We can also change our way of thinking. If we look at Spotify as an advertising tool instead of an income tool, it becomes more useful. As a music lover, the first place I go to when I want to listen to some music is Spotify. Spotify is a huge opportunity for new people to find you. These people can then be redirected to your website where you can advertise music, merchandise and gigs.  Think about it, If you have a thousand people playa track once, you'd get £0.05. However, if say 20 of those people then visit your website and 5 of them buy a CD then you've may a lot more than £0.05. You may find that these will be repeat customers too.

Where's the first place a music supervisor is going to look when they want to find some music ? Spotify. A supervisor isn't going to hunt around looking for a platform that pays an artist a better royalty. They're going to go to the place that's most convenient for them to access music.

And finally

If you're interested, there's a really good docu-drama on Netflix called The Playlist which is all about Spotify. Well worth watching.