A new report reveals that Apple, among other music streaming services, paid the highest streaming royalties of nearly $163 million.
As per iMore, Apple pays out a record amount in music royalties and licensing fees. The California tech giant paid around $163 million to The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC). It’s part of a big payout coming from streaming services.
Apple pays, musicians, win!
The MLC announced recently that it received more than $424 million in unmatched historical royalties’. The amount came from various digital service providers (DSPs). Along with that, MLC also shared data reports identifying usage related to the royalties.
Speaking specifically about Apple, then its share of royalty payment was the highest among other services.
All in all, around 20 DSPs made the payment to The MLC.
CEO of National Music Publishers Association David Israelite praised this big move. Talking to Variety, he said that the record payout was “a massive win for music creators and the streaming services themselves.”
It’s an excellent thing for contemporary musicians and music labels because the payment criteria are already below expectation in earnings from streams.
Taking the initiative last year, Apple had announced to pay $50 million Royalty Advance Fund. It was solely for indie labels, especially those affected by the pandemic.
Interestingly, last year’s reports also revealed that the California tech giant pays a significant amount to artists. And it’s more than the rival streaming companies.
Here’s an excerpt from the report:
“Apple paid out nearly 25% of the industries streaming revenue, despite only accounting for 6.36% of streams.”
This is also because Apple’s pay per stream is $0.00675, which is higher than Spotify’s $0.00348. In other words, Spotify pays “between $3,300 – $3,500 for every one million plays a song gets, whereas Apple is paying around $6750 for the same amount.”
The current reality of music streaming
Speaking of the actual streaming scenario across the globe, the bigger picture is not that great because most young and upcoming musicians cannot earn a good amount even when they gain millions of streams.
Since the last few years, there’s been a backlash against most services, especially Spotify, because it’s probably the most used platform for listening to songs or podcasts.
Keeping that in mind, many artists are disappointed because the platform hasn’t increased the pay per stream even after so many requests.
While Apple’s recent initiative is a welcome step, there’s still a long way to go as far as distributing a reasonable, decent payment is concerned.
Image courtesy of Apple Explained/YouTube Screenshot