While many have claimed that streaming services such as Spotify, MOG or Rhapsody are the future of music listening, it has been increasingly brought into question how much money artists can actually stand to make through these outlets.
According to Billboard.com, The Black Keys may have realised this; their latest LP El Camino remains conspicuously absent from Spotify, or any other music streaming service for that matter, even though the album has now been out for three days.
According to Billboard, neither the band nor Spotify have decided to comment on the album’s absence from the service. Spotify’s competitors, though, have offered statements on the matter. MOG spokeswoman
Marni Greenberg informed the LA Times: "
As always, we're just adhering to the requests of the content provider," while a rep for Rdio noted "
we're hopeful we'll have the record on our service soon," in a statement to
Bloomberg.
Spotify have staunchly defended artists’ ability to make money via the service. When Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto was made available for purchase only on Spotify back in October, head of US Operations Ken Parks offered the following statement to the L.A Times:
"Artists can - and do - receive very substantial revenues from Spotify, and as Spotify grows, these revenue streams will naturally continue to grow… Spotify is now the second single largest source of digital music revenue for labels in Europe, and we've driven more than $150 million of revenue to ... artists, publishers and labels since our launch three years ago."
As Billboard notes though, the service’s pay rate has particular ramifications for indie acts:
"At Spotify's payout rate of 1.146 cents per stream, it would take 64 full streams for an artist to reap the same profit they'd see from the gross revenue rights of one 99-cent download."
