Spotify CEO Daniel Ek denies existence of alleged artist streaming scheme

Spotify co-founder joked that his playlist would be full of his own music if the scheme did work

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has responded to an alleged scheme on the platform that could supposedly make artists more money.

On Monday (11 September), Julian Klymochko, founder and CEO of Accelerate, cited a JP Morgan report that suggested artists could make up to $1,200 a month in royalties on Spotify if they uploaded a 30-second track and then programmed their phone to listen to it on repeat for 24 hours.

“According to JPMorgan, if someone uploaded their own 30-second track to Spotify, and then programmed their phone to listen to it on repeat for 24 hours a day, they would receive $1,200 a month in royalties,” he tweeted.

Ek, the Swedish co-founder and CEO of the streaming service, replied to Klymochko’s tweet, saying that this is not how royalties are distributed over at Spotify.

“If that were true, my own playlist would just be ‘Daniel’s 30-second Jam’ on repeat,” Ek wrote. “But seriously, that’s not quite how our royalty system works.”

Another X user named Mihai replied to Ek’s tweet, writing: “It’s not how your royalty system works directly, but the 30-second cutoff for receiving payout has trended songs to be shorter and shorter, and the ‘Tiktok part’ is usually always at 31 seconds in. (I’m a label owner.)”

Ek agreed with Mihai’s point that new releases are getting shorter and shorter. However, he mentioned that four-minute songs are still very popular on the streaming platform.

“Yes, some songs have gotten shorter. However, most popular songs are still around 4 minutes,” he wrote.

In July, Spotify announced an increase in the subscription prices of its premium plan in many parts of the world. The cost of an individual plan increased by £1 in the UK, while in the US, a premium plan went up from $9.99 (£7.77) per month to $10.99 (£8.55).

Other counties where premium subscriptions experienced a price hike included Australia, Belgium, Spain, France, Finland and Denmark. Existing subscribers were told they would receive an email informing them of the changes to their price plan, with a one-month “grace period” before it took effect.

“The market landscape has continued to evolve since we launched. So that we can keep innovating, we are changing our Premium prices across a number of markets around the world,” representatives said in a blog post to Spotify’s website.

“These updates will help us continue to deliver value to fans and artists on our platform.”