Deezer and Universal Music Group have announced the launch of a royalty payment model focused on artists. According to information published in the Financial Times, UMG and Deezer hope that this new model will increase artist payouts by 10 percent. This is a significant change in the music industry and it will kick off in France in the fourth quarter of this year before expanding to other markets.
Deezer’s CEO, Jérôme Fournel, describes this as “the most ambitious change in the economic model of music streaming.” The goal of this new model is to provide better support and rewards for artists at all stages of their careers, regardless of the number of their fans.
Interesting points about the new model:
- Artists with more than 1,000 plays from 500 unique users per month will be a priority for support from Deezer.
- Artists will receive more money for tracks discovered through search on the platform to reduce the impact of algorithms on royalty distribution.
- Deezer plans to remove the monetization of “ambient content” such as rain sounds or white noise to focus on music.
Despite the name “artist-centric,” it’s worth noting that this model also involves the rights holder, not just the artist. Deezer currently has approximately 9.4 million subscribers and is the sixth-largest music streaming service in the world.