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Streaming Services Not Killing the Music Industry

Buried inside a Bloomberg article about Apple renegotiating Apple Music streaming rights with Warner Music Group is this interesting tidbit: streaming services aren’t killing the music industry, which had been in decline for nearly two decades, but are actually reviving it. Global music sales grew 5.9 percent to $15.7 billion in 2016. Also interesting is the fact that Apple negotiated a smaller payout than it paid previously — an estimated 55 percent (or less if subscriber numbers increase), down from 58 percent. When Apple launched Apple Music, it made a big deal about how much more it paid artists than Spotify, but from the article, it appears that rates are based more on subscriber figures than any sense of artistic patronage.

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