Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Music streaming royalties finally begin to add up

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 8:27PM EST
BGR

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

Digital music has become increasingly popular over the years, and now it looks like new methods of digital music distribution are finally starting to pay off. SoundExchange, which processes royalty payments for online music streams, confirmed on Monday that it has paid artists and record companies a total of $1 billion since being founded in 2000. “The way the industry is going, it is about multiple revenue streams, not just one,” Michael Huppe, SoundExchange’s president, said in an interview with The New York Times. The company’s quarterly payments to artist and record companies exceeded $100 million for the first time this year. SoundExchange collects money from Sirius XM Radio, Pandora and other forms of Internet radio, and then pays royalties to both artists and their labels. While Internet streaming royalties have increased, they still remain a relatively small percentage of music royalties as a whole.

Read

Dan joins the BGR team as the Android Editor, covering all things relating to Google’s premiere operating system. His work has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business and Yahoo News, among other publications. When he isn’t testing the latest devices or apps, he can be found enjoying the sights and sounds of New York City.