The Fair Artist Payout Model — what is it and why should you care?

We pay artists per user and per second, instead of just per play. But… so what?

Streaming has quickly become one of the primary ways to find and listen to music in the 21st century, and it’s meant that discovering and sharing music is easier than ever before. However, it’s made the question of how artists are paid that little bit more complicated. Whereas in pre-streaming times buying a CD meant the flow of profits going from listener to artists was relatively straight forward, it’s not so simple anymore.

So, if you’re paying a subscription to a streaming platform: how does that platform make sure each artist you listen to is reimbursed fairly?

With mainstream music platforms, it’s most likely the case that artists and rights holders are paid depending on how many times their track is streamed. It’s also very likely that user subscriptions are pooled and the royalties divided between the top-performing artists. It’s a system that works well for some genres, but not for classical.

At IDAGIO, we work with a Fair Artist Payout Model — but what does that mean for artists?

Source: IDAGIO

It means two things — firstly that we pay artists and rights holders per second instead of per play, and secondly that we distribute royalties based on the actual listening behavior of each single user. Here’s a closer look on why that’s fairer:

• Reason 1: We pay artists per second. The average length of a classical music track is much, much longer than a pop track. Take a user that listens to music for 30 minutes: in a click-based payout model, a 3-minute pop song would get payed ten times more than a 30-minute movement of a symphony, even though the listening time is exactly the same. With a pay-per-second model, however, both artists would be paid the same. Therefore, with this model we we can fairly reflect the actual listening behaviour of users.
• Reason 2: We don’t pool subscriptions. Each individual user subscription is distributed depending on which tracks that individual has listened to over the course of a month. For example, if one user listens only to one artist during the month, all royalties will be paid to that one artist. So, the longer you listen to the recordings of one artist, the more of your monthly subscription money they receive.

With IDAGIO you directly support the artists you love. It’s that simple.

At IDAGIO, one of our key aims is to make access to classical music as easy as possible — a key step we’ve made towards this this year has been the launch of IDAGIO Free. With streaming becoming increasingly popular, it’s as important as ever to support artists. A recent MIDiA Research paper, published in collaboration with IDAGIO, found that 31% of classical music listeners already stream classical music via audio streaming services or Youtube. With this number set to rise within the next few years, now’s the time to start thinking about how we can ensure that the work of artists is fairly reimbursed — the best place to start is finding out how your streaming service pays artists.