Music Streams Growth Skyrocket for TuneCore but Not for Artists

TuneCore is the largest independent music distributor in the US.  While music streaming has been growing more slowly for many artists, TuneCore reported a 90 percent jump in streams and downloads during the third quarter.  They reported a 6.1 percent increase in artist payments.

The 90% yearly growth is impressive, but compared to the 6.1% earnings growth , it illustrates that there are still concerns over streaming revenue for artists long term.

TuneCore does not take any portion of money generated from the sale, stream, or sync of its music.  They instead charge clients a flat fee to put its music on digital platforms and stores, including download stores like iTunes and streaming services like Spotify.

There has been yearly growth in streaming, and performance rights organization BMI (which collects money on behalf of songwriters) announced that it has collected more than $1 billion in revenue for the first time due to strong gains in digital revenues and music licensed for film and television.

Despite this revenue growth, this doesn’t appear to be growing the overall size of the pie for artists and rights holders, although the 75 percent year over year international revenue (70% increase in syn revenue since 2014) shows there may be more opportunities for artists to capitalize on.