Rdio Plans To Compensate Artists For Bringing In Subscribers

In a move that could potentially shift the favoritism of artists towards one music subscription service, Rdio is working on a plan to pay artists for bringing their service new subscribers, according to Billboard. This could be a good move to gain the endorsement of artists. But more importantly for Rdio, it could help them address their growing need for more subscribers, as their market share lands somewhere behind larger players such as Spotify and Rhapsody.

Subscription services paying artists based on something other than how often their music is played could possibly shift the perception of what a streaming service is to the wider music community. As Billboard.biz reports, one manager who has spoken with Rdio about the program frames the plan as a sort of “bounty” for each new subscriber that the artists bring ($10 per new subscriber was the mentioned amount).

Of course, for this plan to work, the artists need to be on board. Likely to be more interested in participating will be the smaller artists and bands, which can view a “finder's fee” of $10 per subscriber as a relatively viable source of band revenue. However, Rdio will definitely still need to attract larger artists due to their influence over larger tribes people.

In a time when artists are struggling the harder than ever to find ways to make a living just so they can continue making their art, music services that benefit directly and indirectly from them are often seen in a negative light. Lousy royalty payments and fuzzy accounting practices have caused a sort of disconnect between artists and those music services, but this move by Rdio, to directly put monies into the pockets of artists, could be the first step in rebuilding that bridge, and if proven successful, could be pave the way for more artist-focused business models in the future.

This post is by regular Hypebot contributor and independent music business professional & musician, Hisham Dahud (@HishamDahud)