Fairness and Royalty Payment Systems on Music Streaming Platforms

Broadcasting revenue sharing after cancelling sports competitions

“…But we are not the first ones suggesting that. Haampland et al (2022) resort to the data provided by a leading music streaming platform in France (with 427 million streams coming from more than 140,000 unique users during six months). They obtain from their empirical analysis that, when compared with the pro-rata method, the user-centric method renders consumers' choices better aligned with revenue sharing, but also that it favors organic streams with respect to curated streams, it reduces the superstar phenomenon, and it moderates the potential bias in curated streams.…”

Rethinking Royalties – Alternative Payment Systems on Music Streaming Platforms

“…The evaluation of the two first alternative systems presented has the advantage that Moreau et al (2023) have already studied their financial impact. As will become apparent below, the findings present both positive and what could be considered negative consequences of their implementation.…”

“…The alternative system's economic impact was long unknown, but a recent French study found that major labels slightly benefit from implementing the UCPS (Moreau et al, 2023). Furthermore, it redistributes 18,4% from the top 10 artists' revenue to the top 101-1000 artists, who experience an average growth of 4.4% in revenue.…”

“…In this system, less active users subsidise the consumption of highly active users. Moreau et al (2023) illustrate this scenario with a simple example. A music streaming platform has two users (A and B) and two artists (1 and 2).…”

“…The system negatively affects artists with fans who may not have much time to listen to music. The idea of a 'User Centric Payment System' (UCPS) has received considerable attention (Dredge, 2019;Maasø, 2014;Meyn et al, 2022;Moreau et al, 2023;Pedersen, 2014;A. Shapiro, 2022).…”