Spotify Paid Out $7 Billion to the Music Industry — Labels, Publishers and Others — in 2021

variety.com:

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSpotify paid $7 billion in royalties to rights holders — primarily labels and publishers, but also distributors, performing rights organizations and others — in 2021, the company announced on Thursday in its annual “Loud and Clear” report.That total is more than any other service — with more than 180 million paying subscribers, Spotify is the top paid-subscription music service in the world by far — and sets the record for the highest annual payment from any single retailer in history, including during the height of the CD era, according to the announcement. (Because Spotify’s data is proprietary, it is not possible to cross-check all of these numbers with accuracy — see the full report here.) The report also states that in 2021, for the first time, more than 1,000 artists generated over $1 million on Spotify for rights-holders.

Some 450 artists generated more than $2 million on Spotify, 130 artists generated more than $5 million — and more than 50,000 artists generated $10,000 from Spotify alone.However, it is important to note that unless the artist or songwriter is the rights holder, these payments went directly to labels and publishers and other entities listed above, which then divide them according to the artist or songwriter’s contract.

Spotify breaks down how that money is distributed in this video: In Thursday’s report, Spotify says it has paid more than $30 billion to rights holders since it was founded in 2006 (which goes a long way toward explaining its aggressive move into podcasting: a music-only model is unsustainable under current circumstances).