Blisstunes

It's hard to tell if this is just noise, or a real trend.  But Spotify could be emerging as an indie darling.  "Our last royalty report had just under 25 percent of monies paid out coming from Spotify," one digital distributor told Digital Music News in response to an earlier article.  "I was dumbfounded. The artists we distribute are all indies. Someone is listening to a lot of indie music on Spotify." 

Then, this:  "[Spotify] is a very significant digital account for us, in some markets they are our biggest account – Sweden, Norway and Spain," Beggars Group head of digital Simon Wheeler told Music Ally at SXSW.  But Wheeler also noted that Spotify is now the second or third highest digital revenue contributor to the label, worldwide.

All of this is happening on the heels of Spotify surpassing its one-millionth paying subscriber, on an overall registered base of about 10 million.  Actually, we've heard similar stats from at least one other indie, and some of the biggest behind-the-scenes supporters (and informants to Digital Music News) have been independent labels.  One takeaway is that paying subscribers are naturally more into music, and therefore, more interested in non-mainstream stuff.  

Okay, but what about the endless stories - and endless hard stats - related to paltry artist and label payouts?  We've heard from innumerable content providers - and artists - that Spotify pays miserably, even for huge spins.  In fact, a raft of stats and documents supporting those complaints surfaced in this article (here).  

And, so did a few unhappy labels.  "As someone who runs a small independent label I can absolutely concur," one commenter told us.  "The income numbers from Spotify are PATHETIC."

So what's the real story?  Maybe at this stage, it depends on who you talk to.

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