Music subscription system and musicians

In past times, people usually bought a physical record to listen to music at home. Due to the emergence of social media and new technologies, this trend changed to online system of music subscription, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon Prime Music. This shift boosted the audience’s satisfaction and convenience, as well as the ease that songs could be spread among the listeners. Having said that, the change also had some harmful influences on the industry.

Then, let’s explore how the subscription system works. In major music subscription services, something called Proratasystemofroyaltydistributionis used. In this system, all the subscription fees of listeners go to a single pot, and then distributed to the creators. The percentage that the creators are paid is proportional to the number of

However, because the musicians with highest number of streams gains larger proportion, it is said that 1% of the top creators receive 90% of the royalty collected. Also, unlike the music industry in physical-record period, not all the listener’s subscription fee and royalty go to the creators that the person has listened to. This means, the industry has become less fair in opportunities and more competitive than ever before.