Streaming royalty battles intensify as artists demand more

The long-running battle over how streaming platforms pay the artists and songwriters whose work fills them intensified this year, as musicians, industry organisations and policymakers pressed for fairer compensation in a system that many argued left all but the biggest stars struggling to earn a living from recorded music.

Streaming had come to dominate the music industry, accounting for the overwhelming majority of recorded-music revenue and rescuing a business that piracy had battered. But the way streaming income was divided had long been a source of grievance, with per-stream payments tiny and the bulk of revenue flowing to a relatively small number of chart-topping artists.

Songwriters in particular had voiced frustration, arguing that their share of streaming income was inadequate given their central role in creating the music, and campaigns pushed for reforms to royalty structures and greater transparency.

Platforms, for their part, pointed to the enormous sums they paid out to rights holders overall and the ways streaming had expanded access to music and revived industry fortunes, while facing pressure to adjust their models. Some explored new approaches to distributing royalties intended to better reward artists with dedicated fan bases.

The disputes reflected a fundamental tension in the streaming economy between vast scale and individual livelihoods, and between the interests of platforms, labels, artists and songwriters. As streaming matured, the fight over how its spoils were shared had become one of the central issues facing the music industry, with the economic survival of working musicians, and the health of the creative ecosystem, seen as hanging in the balance.