The world is listening to more and more music online. Either streaming radio, downloading music, or using on-demand services like Spotify and We7. These on-demand services will generate R7 billion for the global music industry in 2012 – a rise of 40%, new research has suggested. Artists, however, are complaining that they are getting paid very little despite their tracks getting 10’s of thousands of views.

It means streaming music is the fastest-growing sector of the industry, overtaking downloads, which are due to see an increase of 8,5% this year. Strategy Analytics – who conducted the research – forecast that spending on digital music (including downloads, streaming music and mobile sales) would overtake that of physical products like CD’s in 2015, both in the UK and worldwide.

Music streaming services are expected to be huge drivers of the growth, said Ed Barton, the company’s director of digital media, as the boom in retail downloads is starting to “flatten out”.

However, some musicians have complained about royalty rates on streaming services – which pay artists a fee every time their song is played.

Cellist Zoe Keating recently released her earnings in a public Google document, and claimed she was paid just $281,87 by Spotify after her songs were played 72 800 times by users.

Meanwhile pop artist Shannon Hurley tweeted last month that she had earned $14,87 from 4 030 plays. Not really ideal when making music is your job. Those statistics suggest that each stream of a song earns around 0,03 American cents.

However, Spotify says it paid $180 million in royalties to musicians last year and is on track to double that figure to $360 million in 2012.

Martin Mills, who founded Adele’s record label XL and is now chairman of the Beggars Group, has also defended such services, saying some of his artists now earn “more than half” of their revenue from streaming services.

“If we didn’t have digital we wouldn’t have a business,” he told the Daily Telegraph last week.

[Source: BBC]