According to a report from Expressen.se Lady Gaga made ‘only’ $167 USD from the STIM (Swedish Performing Rights Society) after her song “Poker Face” was played one million times via Spotify over a 5-month period. Lady Gaga’s track “Poker Face” was one of the most popular tracks during a five month period on Spotify. That means an earning of 0.000167 dollar per streamed track. Add to this that all majors work with a revenue model for artists from downloads that are just a few percents. Indie record labels have a model that is often closer to a 60/40 deal with 40% for the revenue being for the artist. So, if Lady Gaga had be signed to an indie label she’d have to sell 20 to 40 times less via downloads to get the same revenue.
That aside, both artists and labels have casted their doubts about the Spotify service, especially about the service’s ability to turn free users to paid customers. As a result the US launch of the service has been delayed in order to tweak things a bit so is believed.
