Spotify, as grand a portal for music as it’s become, has also had a bit of a gatekeeping issue. Uploading to the platform has, up to this point, been the responsibility of distribution platforms like CD Baby, TuneCore, Distrokid and Ditto. Now, however, Spotify is beginning to open uploading to artists directly – and they’re doing it for free.
Those distribution platforms have historically charged a one-time upload fee or yearly subscription fee for use of their services, but now Spotify is allowing artists to upload directly free of charge. At the moment, the feature is an invite-only beta for users of its Spotify For Artists platform. Roughly 200,000 artists are counted in the platform at this time.
Music Business Worldwide makes the necessary comparison to SoundCloud, which has reigned king of the hill in user-uploaded musical content. Now that Spotify is offering the same service, and for free, to a larger audience with more possible upward mobility and playlisting opportunities, SoundCloud could find it necessary to reduce the price of its Premium tier or even reinvent their platform entirely.
A post on the Spotify blog goes into further detail regarding the new move: “Just like releasing through any other partner, you’ll get paid when fans stream your music on Spotify. Your recording royalties will hit your bank account automatically each month, and you’ll see a clear report of how much your streams are earning right next to the other insights you already get from Spotify for Artists.
“Uploading is free to all artists, and Spotify doesn’t charge you any fees or commissions no matter how frequently you release music.”
This is sure to be massive for independent artists once the portal is expanded and available to more users.
via MBW | Photo Illustration by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images
I think it’s a very good update from Spotify ! Now artist’s get freedom to upload their content directly to Spotify ..like distrokid used to take charges for uploading your music to Spotify like around 20$ a month …now Spotify does it for free ! Good decision Spotify ! Cheers !