The nominees for the Songwriter Of The Yr class at this yr’s Grammy Awards have determined to boycott Spotify‘s celebration for the ceremony.
The likes of Jessi Alexander, Amy Allen, Jessie Jo Dillon and RAYE – who’ve all been nominated for Songwriter Of The Yr have introduced they are going to be skipping the streaming platform’s celebratory bash and also will not be performing on the occasion.
Whereas talking to Billboard, Allen (Harry Kinds, Niall Horan, Sabrina Carpenter) and Dillon (Jelly Roll, Megan Marooney) confirmed that their absence is because of Spotify’s therapy of songwriters.
“After some thought, I couldn’t in good conscience assist this initiative given their strategy to bundling royalties,” mentioned Dillon in an announcement to the publication. “It is vitally good to be individually honored, however it’s higher for me and my complete songwriter group to be paid pretty for our artwork. There are not any songs with out songwriters.”
A consultant for RAYE instructed the publication that she had by no means dedicated to attending or performing on the occasion, so “there’s nothing for her to again out of at current,” and added that RAYE has been “an outspoken advocate on behalf of songwriters’ rights igniting an industry-wide dialogue on the subject.”
Final yr, it was reported that Spotify had lower the royalty charges for songwriters and publishers, resulting in an estimated $150 million lower in royalty funds.
The announcement of the boycott comes after figures inside the {industry} have expressed their dissatisfaction with the streaming platform.
Again in July, Spotify revealed that it has topped expectations with its earnings and variety of premium subscribers this quarter.
Within the report, Spotify revealed that it had a Q2 income of €3.81billion (£3.2b) – a rise by 20 per cent for the reason that final quarter – and a internet revenue of €274million (£230m), versus a lack of €302million (£253m) the yr prior.
It additionally shared that working prices had decreased by 16 per cent, and the gross margin for the interval was forward of expectations, coming in at 29.2 per cent in comparison with 2023’s 24.1 per cent.
The earnings have been more than likely aided by the streaming service elevating costs for many of its present plans in early June 2024. Additionally, Spotify’s determination to chop down 17 per cent of its workforce in an effort to save prices on the finish of 2023 in all probability additionally contributed to their earnings rising. This determination got here after an earlier plan was applied to lay off one other six per cent of its workers in the beginning of 2023 in a bid to advertise “pace”.
Along with value hikes and workers lay-offs, it’s probably that the earnings additionally benefited from the streaming service formally demonetising all songs on the platform with fewer than 1,000 streams.
The coverage was launched on April 1, however had been deliberate by the platform for a while. It was rapidly criticised for making it tougher for artists to generate royalties from their music and proscribing new artists seeking to crack the music {industry}.
Kate Nash just lately highlighted low streaming royalties in her “bum on the again of a hearth truck” protest, the place she headed to the London workplace of Spotify and mentioned, through megaphone: “Artists are paid 0.003 of a penny per stream while [Spotify] demonetised 80 per cent of music on the platform. The shareholders cashed out over 419 million between them.”
Just lately, a web site parodying Spotify Wrapped was taken down on the request of Spotify‘s authorized group. Titled ‘Spotify Unwrapped‘, the location highlighted the low pay artists obtain from the platform.
‘Unwrapped’ calculated the quantity customers pay in subscription charges, vs the the royalties paid to the artists they’ve listened to all year long. They intention to name the corporate out for “its predatory therapy of artists”, per the web site.
Advantages criticised bands and artists sharing Spotify Wrapped graphics after complaining in regards to the firm “destroying” the {industry} for the remainder of the yr.
“I don’t perceive how one can assist stuff like Kate Nash’s latest protest after which be placing wrapped graphics on each nook of your socials,” they wrote.
Primal Scream bassist Simone Marie Butler additionally spoke out in opposition to the platform, referencing CEO Daniel Ek. She wrote that he’s “sitting on his yacht laughing at your spotify high 5 whereas he cashes in on music he had nothing to do with, calls it ‘content material’ and artists nonetheless get £0.04 per stream . For brand new bands the primary 1000 streams are nonetheless demonetized.”
Elsewhere, Spotify CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek additionally got here underneath controversy earlier this yr after talking about the price of “creating content material”, when referring to music.
Ek implied that it’s simpler and extra reasonably priced than ever to create “content material” because of fashionable know-how. “Immediately, with the price of creating content material being near zero, folks can share an unbelievable quantity of content material. This has sparked my curiosity in regards to the idea of lengthy shelf life versus quick shelf life,” he wrote.
It sparked outrage from artists together with Deadmau5, who mentioned he thought-about eradicating his music from the platform in response, and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante who added that Spotify is “the place music goes to die”.
Ek later walked again on his feedback, explaining in an apology that he had no intention of dismissing the struggles confronted by musicians and utilizing the “reductive” label of “content material”, and as a substitute “was most concerned with exploring was how, on this setting of fixed creation, we are able to determine and be sure that the daring, thrilling, world-changing concepts and items of artwork don’t get misplaced within the noise.”
