A first European study reveals, despite a strong increase in the online music market for ten years, “a systemic imbalance” in the distribution of income.
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“Music is sold out on the streaming market”, annoys David El Sayegh, Deputy Managing Director of the Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers (SACEM). Although the world’s turnover of online music has exploded, from $ 1 billion (1 billion euros) in 2012 to 16.9 billion in 2021, the authors and composers remain injured. This is what the first study on the place and the role of these on the European streaming market, published on Wednesday September 28 and commanded by GESAC, asserts, which brings together 32 companies of authors and creators on the old continent .
conducted by the Parisian consulting company Legrand Network, the study evokes an “asymmetry between the objectives of the streaming services and the aspirations” of these creators. If the goal of Spotify or Deezer consists in increasing their number of subscribers and users, music remains “only a call product” for Apple, Amazon or Google, according to Mr. Sayegh.
Despite an increasing user base (524 million paying subscribers worldwide), the authors and composers do not find themselves financially. The average income per client of the platforms dropped from 7 euros at the end of 2015 to 4.40 euros at the end of 2021. This tumble is explained by the stability of the subscription prices set, depending on the country, at 9.99 euros or books Sterling (11.20 euros) since 2006, despite the high weight of inflation and the improvement of the offer. 2>
call for more transparency
This requires the exponential growth in the number of songs available and a multiplication of new services. But, above all, the number of individual subscribers who pay the high price erodes for the benefit of family offers or intended for students, much cheaper. This is where the rub.
Today, 30 % of the turnover generated by streaming is donated to platforms, 55 % to record companies and their artists, and 15 % to the authors, composers and music publishers. According to this distribution key, and in the case of a high price subscription, a million streams generated in 2021, 1,910 euros, to be distributed between authors, composers and publishers. “They are on average four per song,” says David El Sayegh. Everyone therefore pockets 477 euros. This windfall is reduced to 260 euros per author with a family subscription, 201 euros for the student option and 50 euros for the most used farm system, namely the free offer funded by advertising.
The Deputy Director General of SACEM recalls that in the United Kingdom, the most important musical market in the field of study, less than 1,700 artists reached in 2020 the famous CAP of million streams per month. Apart from an increase in remuneration, the study suggests more transparency in the operation of algorithms, the implementation of tools intended to better discover the authors or an ad hoc promotion of European works.