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Spotify Has Led the Music Business to Record Growth. So Why Are Artists & Songwriters So Angry?

Spotify led the music business to growth, so why are artists and songwriters angry? It's a paradox that's proving difficult to solve.

But as industry revenues have consistently grown, individual artists — whose numbers are growing fast because barriers to entry no longer exist — don’t feel like they’re receiving a fair share of the bounty. In the fourth quarter of 2017, AM/FM radio accounted for 48% of Americans’ time spent listening to audio while streaming (including YouTube and podcasts) took a 26.5% share, according to Edison Research. Earlier that year, Swift had penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that argued “music should not be free” and urged artists to “realize their worth and ask for it.” Her entire catalog returned to Spotify and other streaming platforms in 2017.

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