Spotify CEO Daniel Ek today hit back at assertions that legit music-streaming services are not doing their part to make sure artists get paid, but pledged to do whatever it takes to make sure both sides are happy.
To date, Spotify has paid more than $2 billion in royalties to music labels, publishers, and collecting societies. "A billion dollars from the time we started Spotify in 2008 to last year and another billion dollars since then," he wrote in a blog post.
Still, streaming services have had a rather testy relationship with musicians, as evidenced by Taylor Swift's move to pull all her music from Spotify recently.
In an interview with Yahoo Music, Swift said that services like Spotify feel "like a grand experiment," and "I'm not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music."
"When I hear stories about artists and songwriters who say they've seen little or no money from streaming and are naturally angry and frustrated, I'm really frustrated too," Ek said today. "The music industry is changing – and we're proud of our part in that change – but lots of problems that have plagued the industry since its inception continue to exist."
Ek pledged to "do anything we can to work with the industry to increase transparency, improve speed of payments, and give artists the opportunity to promote themselves and connect with fans – that's our responsibility as a leader in this industry; and it's the right thing to do."
The Spotify chief argued that his company is currently the "single biggest driver of growth in the music industry." But there are three misconceptions he wanted to clear up.
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First, just because you're not a premium member and listen for free doesn't mean artists don't get paid. "On Spotify, free music is supported by ads, and we pay for every play," Ek said.
A hybrid approach with free and paid options is the best way to go, he said, because on their own, "paid provided monetization without scale, free reached scale without monetization, and neither produced anywhere near enough money to replace the ongoing decline in music industry revenue."
Spotify currently has 12.5 million premium members who pay $120 per year, which Ek said is "three times more than the average paying music consumer spent in the past."
Ek also pointed to the assertion that artists get paid so little per click that they can't make a living from Spotify royalties. Ek said 500,000 plays on Spotify can bring in about $3,000 to $4,000, while someone like Swift could take home up to $6 million per year.
He did provide details on how many artists reach that 500,000 play threshold.
Meanwhile, Ek shot down the assertion that streaming services are the reason music downloads are down. "The whole correlation falls apart when you realize a simple fact: downloads are dropping just as quickly in markets where Spotify doesn't exist," he wrote. He pointed to Canada, where downloads were down prior to Spotify's recent arrival there.
The debate will likely continue to rage, with or without Swift. She is not the first artist to boycott Spotify and she probably won't be the last. Though with almost 1.3 million album sales for her most recent outing - a big number these days - it's no wonder Spotify is concerned about how her comments about streaming music will affect its bottom line.
For more, check out Why Music Should Not Be Free, as well as PCMag's roundup of Spotify tips in the slideshow above.