Spotify Wants To Enable Fans To Tip Artists

Many sites empower users to make micropayments to creators. China’s Tencent Music already has a massive tip-like program returning revenue to artists. Based on a recent earnings call, Spotify wants to get into this business, as well. Exactly how they’ll do it, however, remains a question, writes music attorney and artist advocate Chris Castle.

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Guest post by Chris Castle of Music Tech Solutions

MTS readers will recall my post on what I called “Ethical Props” (OK, OK, not the best moniker I’ve ever come up with, but you’ll get the idea if you read the “Ethical Pool” post).  The concept is an expansion of the micropayments that TenCent (and lots of other sites in other businesses) permits on its music platform.  The question presented was whether Spotify would adopt a similar structure and how they would treat artists. That’s a serious question, by the way.

It turns out that the issue came up on Spotify’s latest earnings call, and was foreshadowed by Daniel Ek’s interest in Facebook’s Libra currency.  Stuart Dredge at Music Ally reports that the subject did come up:

Spotify IS interested in ways for fans to tip artists

Earlier this month, Spotify’s chief premium business officer Alex Norström hintedthat the company was exploring the idea of new ways for artists to make money on its service: “You can add stuff on top like micro-payments, a la carte, prepaid plans for different contexts…”

Ek was asked about direct monetisation such as tipping during the earnings call today. “It’s something that we’re overall interested in. We definitely look at it as part of the scope of the types of marketplace tools that you can expect,” he said. “You should expect us to try a lot of things… it certainly could be very interesting specifically for a lot of artists…”

First…does anyone know what a “chief premium business officer” is?  I’m not familiar with that one, although my best is that they probably office next to the “chief exposure business officer.”

Quick review–Mr. Ek’s buddies at TenCent have made quite a business of “tipping” which explains why Ek is interested:

 

Tencent, of course, makes serious bank on these system-wide micropayments.  As Jim Cramer noted in “Mad Money” last week:

 

“Tencent Music is a major part of the micropayment ecosystem because they let you give virtual gifts,” Cramer said. “If you want to tip your favorite blogger with a song, you do it through Tencent Music. In the latest quarter we have numbers for, 9.5 million users spent money on virtual gifts, and these purchases accounted for more than 70 percent of Tencent Music’s revenue.”

 

And that’s real money.  Tencent actually made this into a selling point in their IPO prospectus:  “We are pioneering the way people enjoy online music and music-centric social entertainment services. We have demonstrated that users will pay for personalized, engaging and interactive music experiences. Just as we value our users, we also respect those who create music. This is why we champion copyright protection-because unless content creators are rewarded for their creative work, there won’t be a sustainable music entertainment industry in the long run. Our scale, technology and commitment to copyright protection make us a partner of choice for artists and content owners.”