Music streaming royalties finally begin to add up

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.

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