Union Of Musicians call for 'Justice At Spotify'

Spotify's end of year 'Wrapped' campaign has highlighted a growing discontent amongst many musicians and music fans, aimed at the streaming giant's unfair payment system.

A large number of artists took to social media to voice criticism at Spotify, with The Union of Musicians (UMAW) also launching a 'Justice At Spotify' campaign to help collectively fight the issue. The UMAW aims to organize music workers to fight for a more just music industry, and to join with other workers in the struggle for a better society.

Their website statement reads, "Spotify is the most dominant platform on the music streaming market. The company behind the streaming platform continues to accrue value, yet music workers everywhere see little more than pennies in compensation for the work they make.

With the entire live music ecosystem in jeopardy due to the coronavirus pandemic, music workers are more reliant on streaming income than ever. We are calling on Spotify to deliver increased royalty payments, transparency in their practices, and to stop fighting artists."

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Hype Machine have unveiled ‘Merch Table’, an online program that lets you find your favourite artists from Spotify, on Bandcamp. Paste any Spotify playlist link (e.g. "Your Top Songs 2020") into Merch Table’s toolbar and it checks which tracks you can purchase directly from those artists via Bandcamp. Not only does Bandcamp pay artists a fairer rate than Spotify, but it allows unlimited streaming and high quality downloads of any music that you purchase.

Spotify is valued at €62.7 Billion, yet it takes 263 streams of a track to pay out one dollar to that artist.