If you are like the majority of people, you likely listened to some sort of music during the day and definitely during the week. Music does many things including bringing people together which is why free concerts work whether they are performed. For the most intense form, many people go to concerts and festivals and that is wonderful. Another way to listen to music is use the streaming service Spotify.

In an article by Maria Sherman of the Associated Press, the writer discusses how Spotify works. For a musician some sort of music streaming accounts for 84% of the money generated by the music industry in the US. This statistic is from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). For the world, the number falls to 67.3% according to International Federation of Phonographic Industry which tracks global sales.

The biggest streaming platform with a 31% market share is Spotify with a reported 626 million users and 246 million subscribers in more than 180 markets.

Spotify pays roughly 2/3s of each dollar it collects to the rights holders of the music on its platform, paid out between recording and publishing agreements. The rights holders paid the musicians, the rights holders include record labels such as Sony, Warner, Universal and companies such as Merlin which represent independent labels.

For streaming services, subscription dollars are collected in a pool and paid out via stream share, a number Spotify calculates by adding how many times music owned or controlled by a particular rights holder was streamed in a month.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, while everyone listens to music, the real money is made in the most popular musicians’ rights holders. Once in a while, there are news articles about a deceased musician rights being sold and as long as the music means something to those listening, a royalty is received. Every once in a while, a movie or advertisement will bring more people to the artists and royalties continue to be constant. In every industry, there are sectors which tend to bring in more money on a consistent basis easier. In the music it is owning the rights to the music, if you can invest in companies such as this you can listen to the music and collect royalties all day long.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.