Driven by the ease of music releases on major streaming platforms, the volume of music submitted globally has skyrocketed. Currently, over 120,000 new tracks are uploaded to streaming services daily— a stark contrast to the few thousand albums released annually during the CD and cassette era in the 1980s.

To tackle the overwhelming influx of music, Spotify is introducing key modifications to its payout model:

Minimum Threshold for Royalty Qualification:

• Songs will need to meet a minimum threshold of 1000 streams by 50 unique listeners to qualify for royalty payments within a 12-month period, discouraging the release of short “noise” tracks and bulk uploads.
• This move aims to reduce Spotify’s costs associated with data management and royalty administration.

Penalties for Streaming Fraud:

• Spotify will enforce penalties for streaming fraud, targeting activities like bot-generated plays and identity theft for false plays.
• The goal is to ensure fair compensation for legitimate artists and labels while deterring fraudulent practices.
• If Spotify finds that 90% of a song’s streams are made artificially, they will admit a 10€ charge to the label or distributor.

Restrictions on Short “Noise” Tracks:

• Starting this year, a two-minute minimum track length for functional noise recordings will be enforced to qualify for royalties.
• Affected genres include white noise, nature sounds, machine noises, sound effects, non-spoken ASMR, and silence recordings.
• The streams of noise content will be worth one-fifth of the value of normal music streams.

At Rebeat Digital, our top priority is to serve the best interests of our clients and artists while ensuring compliance with Spotify’s rules. In the event that Spotify identifies any artificial streams in your catalog, a nominal fee of 10€ per single track will be applied. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.