[rm999]

> If they can make the average song listened to by a user just 1 second longer, they reduce that by about 0.5%.

This isn't how music royalties work - rather, Spotify (and most other on demand streaming services) pay out a % of their net revenue to rights holders. This % does not change based on how many streams there are in total, but it IS distributed proportionally based on the number of streams, so it's more profitable for a music rightsholder to have more streams (the topic of the article).

Some high level information: https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/royalties/

[wryun]

But also:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/06/deezer-and-...

[lotsofpulp]

Can you define “net revenue”? Do you mean gross revenue, because Spotify does not earn profit (aka net income)?

[datavirtue]

They must be evil communists/socialists.

[MuffinFlavored]

Is a stream defined as wonderful listen through the song or like maybe halfway through?

[morkalork]

Seems like they should measure proportions using seconds streamed vs units streamed?

[reducesuffering]

They both seem primitive. If a user paid $10/month for a subscription, each month they should divvy that $10 to the proportional minutes listened of each artist for that month. That’s paying out to the people that are keeping that person subscribed. Minus Spotify’s cut of course

[foota]

White noise and other background sounds cause issues here.