“The current music streaming model needs to be re-imagined”, Universal said in a press release.
Universal Music Group has unveiled a new music streaming royalty framework in partnership with Deezer, the streaming platform. This new model, known as the “artist-centric” model, is designed to remunerate established professional artists, while de-prioritizing non-musical content and combatting fraud. Within the ambit of the artist-centric model, Deezer is poised to boost per-stream payouts twofold for individuals they recognize as “professional artists,” namely those who amass 1000 or more monthly streams from a minimum of 500 distinct listeners.
Furthermore, there will be a supplemental royalty boost bestowed upon songs actively sought out by fans, as opposed to those passively played via playlists or digital radio. This marks a departure from the compensation structure used on other platforms, which divides subscribers’ fees among all platform artists in proportion to their stream counts. Both of these initiatives aim to redirect financial resources towards established artists who substantially bolster Deezer’s user engagement. They also aim to address the surge in ‘functional’ music, such as white noise, which has increasingly saturated streaming services. Deezer plans to discontinue payouts for such tracks and introduce its own versions of this content.
“The current music streaming model needs to be re-imagined”, Universal said in a press release. “While streaming has been the most significant technology advancement in music in many years, a flood of uploads with no meaningful engagement, including non-artist noise content, has necessitated reassessment of the approach that platforms, labels, and artists take to foster a thriving music ecosystem.”