It's no secret that Spotify pays total garbage when it comes to royalties. Apple Music certainly does better by artists, but still – both combined aren't putting a roof over your head and food on the table. Among the musicians in disbelief that their entire artform is likely never gonna pay them a living is the wildly successful Jerry Cantrell. Cantrell spoke out against streaming services' low pay in an interview with Primordial Radio, lamenting the fact that artists are getting paid as low as a thousandth of a cent per stream.
"And as far as keeping your publishing, that was a real battle and very few artists did that" said Cantrell. "The new model has taken that and kind of intensified it a bit. I was looking at – I can't remember the artist – but I was looking at something that gets millions and millions of streams or whatever, and people are being paid 1000th of a cent every time it's played. In the old days, when you got played on the radio, that turned into like a penny or something then, and that adds up. I'm a real advocate for artists' rights, man."
He continued: "The new model of the streaming platform has really taken the old model of really being a small cut to the artist and made it really even smaller. So the prices to do business – rent a bus, gas, fuel, salaries, travel – they all continue to go up and the income continues to go down for artists of all sizes now.
"It's a bad business model. It would be nice to see it a little bit fairer toward the artist. The landscape is always moving, the clock is always running and you can count on the fact that it's changing. And so that's part of life, is as you go through the days, weeks and years to try to feel the changes, be aware of them, try to adapt to them and figure out how to operate."
And I mean really, is anyone surprised? Spotify CEO Daniel Ek doesn't even know how much it costs to make music – how could he possibly know what a fair rate is for royalties?
