The 4 ‘main’ recorded music corporations – which on this occasion means Common Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music, plus indie collective Merlin – have cumulatively misplaced 12% of market share on Spotify over the previous 5 years.

That stat got here to gentle in Spotify’s new annual investor report, which reveals that 75% of performs of music tracks on its platform final yr have been distributed by the ‘large three’ majors or a Merlin member.

Clearly, that implies that 1 / 4 of music streams on Spotify final yr (25%) have been distributed by corporations who have been unaffiliated with the majors or Merlin.

Stated corporations embrace the likes of TuneCore (and its mum or dad, Consider), plus UnitedMasters, and sure different distribution platforms for impartial (or ‘self-releasing’) artists.

(Vital observe of context: Merlin represents famed indie labels comparable to Beggars Group, Cinq Music Group, [PIAS], Mushroom and others, nevertheless it additionally represents indie distributors – together with DistroKid. Merlin claims to symbolize someplace round 15% of the worldwide music market.)

The main-plus-Merlin market share of all streams on Spotify was as excessive as 87% in 2017, in line with earlier Spotify fiscal experiences. You may see the gradual decline of this determine since then beneath.

The dilution of main document firm market share on Spotify has turn into one thing of an annual inevitability, when you think about the massive quantity of releases now hitting streaming providers every day (and the truth that the majors can solely launch a sure proportion of it).

Current estimates recommend that over 100,000 new tracks at the moment are convey uploaded to streaming providers like Spotify each 24 hours.

The decline in market share of quantity of performs for the majors has a concurrent affect on their share of income earned from the service – because of the dominant ‘pro-rata’ mannequin of royalty payouts adopted by Spotify and others.

The majors are definitely not unaware of this pattern, and are eager to change its persevering with affect on their companies.

Final yr, Rob Stringer, Chairman of Sony Music Group, spoke plainly concerning the topic to his firm’s buyers. He famous that Sony Music’s total distribution market share (and by affiliation, the market share of all majors) was being “diluted by default” from “the sheer quantity of tracks” being launched every day through DIY distribution corporations.

Stringer mentioned Sony‘s technique to slow-down this pattern of diluation. He stated Sony was intentionally “casting our nets deeper” in a bid to stem the market share shift to impartial distribution – i.e. bringing a bigger quantity of impartial music into’s Sony’s system through indie-facing operations like The Orchard and AWAL.

Stringer memorably spoke of his distate for “flotsam and jetsam” consuming up market share on streaming providers – a transparent reference to low-quality “purposeful” music and 31-second tracks designed to recreation the pro-rata royalty mannequin on Spotify and different providers.

Stringer isn’t alone in that distate.

Final month, Sir Lucian Grainge, CEO and Chairman of Common Music Group, introduced to his world workers that Common had concluded that the present royalty mannequin on providers like Spotify was not offering equitable worth to premium-level artists.

Grainge made it clear that UMG was making the transfer to new royalty fashions on providers like Spotify a matter of world precedence.

He famous that UMG strongly objected to streaming providers pushing clients in the direction of “lower-quality purposeful content material” which, he stated, “in some circumstances can barely move for ‘music’”.

Grainge specfically castigated playlists on streaming providers which can be filled with 31-second tracks of ‘purposeful music’ (i.e. music to chill out/sleep/unwind/focus to) whose brevity is intentionally designed to set off a streaming royalty cost as many occasions in a row as attainable.

“This yr, [UMG] can be engaged on the innovation that’s completely important to advertise a more healthy, extra aggressive music ecosystem, one through which nice music, irrespective of the place it’s from, is definitely and clearly accessible for followers to find and revel in,” he wrote.Music Enterprise Worldwide