Disc Maker CEO responds to Spotify in ‘1000 Streams’ debate
Tony van Veen, the former CD Baby and current Disc Maker CEO responds to Spotify and their statement explaining the decision to stop paying royalties on tracks with under 1000 plays.
After we published current van Veen’s post and video on the what he calls Spotify’s “$47 million deception,” the streamer responded.
“More than 1,340,000 songs have surpassed a million streams, and more than 1,000 songs have more than a billion streams” a Spotify spokesperson told Hypebot. “99.5% of all streams are of tracks that have at least 1,000 annual streams, and each of those tracks earn more under our policy.” {Read the full Spotify statement here.]
Ari Herstand jumped into the debate calling Spotify’s royalty policy a “reverse Robin Hood” that “slapped every emerging, independent artist in the face with this backward policy.” Jay Gilbert and Mike Etchart also weighed in on this week’s Your Morning Coffee Podcast, as did Digital Music News.
Disc Maker CEO responds to Spotify in ‘1000 Streams’ debate
Now the Discmaker CEO responds to Spotify’s rebuttal with a spirited defense of his original post.
Watch the full video below. Some highlights:
van Veen: “I know artists think it’s unfair. I hear from them all the time,” wrote van Veen, “and I know the big distributors – Distrokid, Tunecore, and CD Baby – find it unfair. But they get SO much of their royalty moneys from Spotify that they are afraid to speak up.”
From Spotify: “More than 1.34 million songs have surpassed a million streams, and more than 1,000 songs have more than a billion streams.”
van Veen: ‘”Great Spotify,” says van Veen, but that is immaterial to this discussion about songs with under A THOUSAND streams.”
From Spotify: “Our policy helps ensure that as much money as possible reaches the emerging and professional artists that our platform is built to support. Because labels and distributors require a minimum amount to withdraw (usually $2-$50 per withdrawal), and banks charge a fee for the transaction (usually $1-$20 per withdrawal), these small monthly payments often don’t reach the uploaders.”
van Veen: “This is just patently untrue! Sure, some of the money you are diverting IS going to emerging artists whose tracks have over 1000 streams. But since you are redistributing those royalties proportionate to the number of streams of the tracks you are distributing them TO, the vast majority of royalties are going to Taylor Freaking Swift for the 27 BILLION streams she had last year.”
“I mean, nothing against Taylor, she deserves the royalties from her streams. But she doesn’t ALSO deserve a piece of YOUR collective $47 million in demonetized independent artist royalties!
And this blatant lie about distributors’ minimum payments making it impractical to pay royalties to small artists … come on man! You know that’s just not true… How can I be so sure?
Because I was CEO of CD Baby’s parent company from 2008 to 2019. Those small monthly artist artist royalty payments just keep gradually growing in those artists’ accounts until they amount to $50, $100, 300 dollars, and THEN the artists withdraw them. Implying that an artist wants to withdraw $2 and needs to pay a fee of a dollar for that… is just disingenuous.”
Watch as the Disc Maker CEO responds to Spotify.
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, a Berklee College Of Music professor and founder of the Skyline Artists Agency
