There Are Way, Way Too Many Tracks Uploaded To Streaming Services Every Day

Again in October we reported that there have been over 100,000 songs being uploaded to streaming services like Spotify each single day. And guess what? It is gotten worse since then!

In keeping with Music Business Worldwide, there at the moment are a median of roughly 120,000 songs uploaded to streaming companies each day. That works out to only over 10 million tracks uploaded all through the primary quarter of 2023 alone, and places us on observe for about 43 million for the yr. Assuming that the typical would not rise once more, which it appears more likely to given the exponential development. For reference, the typical variety of tracks uploaded to streaming companies each day in 2022 was 93,400 – so it is nonetheless very a lot on the rise.

So what the hell is occurring? In keeping with the identical report, Chairman and CEO of Common Music Group Sir Lucian Charles Grainge CBE says a whole lot of it has to do with AI music.

“Not many individuals understand that AI has already been a serious contributor to this content material oversupply,” mentioned Grainge. “Most of this AI content material on DSPs comes from the prior era of AI, a expertise that isn’t skilled on copyrighted IP and that produces very poor high quality output with just about no client enchantment.”

Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl additionally introduced up the issue of how streams are paid out, saying “Each stream [in music today] is valued precisely the identical manner. That does not look like one thing that”s aligned with the best way the world works. It could”t be that an Ed Sheeran stream is value precisely the identical as a stream of rain falling on the roof.”

That is all an issue for 2 causes. One, the extra there may be on streaming companies the tougher it’s to make a residing. For reference, simply 14,700 DIY artists made over $10,000 in streaming and publishing royalties in 2022 – down from the 15,140 in 2021. Two, rising above all of the (literal and figurative) noise means platforms like Spotify can supply frankly predatory deals like Discovery Mode, which permits artists to be heard by extra individuals for much less pay.