The music industry is currently consumed with outrage over various tech-wrought injustices, such as generative A.I.’s new-found ability to copy real singers’ voices, and the laughable-if-it-wasn’t-tragic level of royalties that musicians can hope to wring out of streaming services. However, the contours of a potential rapprochement between the music and tech sectors are slowly coming into focus, largely thanks to the world’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group.
At the start of the year, Universal Music CEO Lucian Grainge told his staff that he wanted to catalyze a new, “innovative, artist-centric model” for streaming. He got Tidal on board in February with a rather vague and aspirational joint statement, and now UMG has struck what it calls “the first comprehensive artist-centric music streaming model” alongside Deezer, the French streamer that’s a market leader in Latin America. And it's a big shift away from the status quo, where every stream is worth the same.
Under the model, Deezer will pay more to artists that people actually like listening to, which is a tiny minority of those whose music goes onto the platform—97% of uploaders generate a mere 2% of total streams. Those who get at least 500 unique listeners generating a total of at least 1,000 streams per month will get a “double boost,” though it’s not entirely clear what that means in terms of royalty payouts. Streams of songs that “fans actively engage with” (as opposed to songs that are merely thrown up by Deezer’s algorithm) will also get a double boost.
Here's Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira: “This is the most ambitious change to the economic model since the creation of music streaming and a change that will support the creation of high-quality content in the years to come.” And UMG EVP Michael Nash: “The goal of the artist centric model is to mitigate dynamics that risk drowning music in a sea of noise and to ensure we are better supporting and rewarding artists at all stages of their careers whether they have 1,000 fans or 100,000 or 100 million.”
All stages? That majority of artists who are hobbyists or just starting out, with only a handful of fans, seems to be left behind by the announcement. But then again, their payouts—if they receive any at all—are so negligible that the shift won't make much of a difference. At that stage, getting people to listen to you at all is the big goal, not making money.
Also, thoughts and prayers to those who publish literal noise on Deezer—their content is being cut off from royalty payouts and will ultimately be replaced by Deezer’s in-house “functional music.” Folgueira again: "There is no other industry where all content is valued the same, and it should be obvious to everyone that the sound of rain or a washing machine is not as valuable as a song from your favorite artist streamed in HiFi."
Bearing in mind that UMG also just got Google to agree to a partnership on the development of “an A.I. framework to help us work toward our common goals,” the music industry has some cause to take heart—though details and results still need to be seen. Deezer’s Folgueira told The Verge that other labels are also signing up to the new model, and I’d be surprised if this is the last platform to reach such an agreement with UMG.
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David Meyer
