Spotify paid $9 billion in royalties in 2023. Here's what fueled the growth

abcnews.go.com:

Every year since 2021, Spotify has published its “Loud & Clear” report, an attempt to be more transparent about its payments

LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Spotify paid out $9 billion in streaming royalties last year, the streaming giant said Tuesday in its latest “Loud and Clear” report.

Spotify's fourth annual report, which originally launched in 2021 following criticism over its lack of transparency, noted record accomplishments, including the highest annual payment from any retailer to the music industry.

“This is everything we know about how much is being paid out, how many artists are achieving different levels of success,” says Charlie Hellman, the vice president and global head of music product at Spotify. “So, everyone can have access to the information and be sort of up to date with the state of the industry.”

According to the data, 1,250 artists generated over $1 million each in recording and publishing royalties in 2023; 11,600 generated over $100,000 and 66,000 generated over $10,000 — numbers that have almost tripled since 2017.

More than half of those 66,000 artists came from countries where English is not the primary language, the report says, reflecting an increasingly global music landscape.

And “indie” artists — the self-distributed, do-it-yourself acts and those on independent record labels, according to Hellman — accounted for $4.5 billion, half of all royalties paid out by Spotify.

“There are millions of people who’ve uploaded a song at least once but that doesn’t really speak to whether they’re an artist, or if they’re doing this more as a hobby,” Hellman says.

Spotify zooms in on artists that have “at least put up an album’s worth of music once they seem to have some indication that they’re