There’s a story going round this week, originating from the Swedish media, that Lady Gaga only earned $167 from a million streams of her Poker Face single on Spotify. Not a great advert for the service – in fact, it ties into earlier grumbles from artists about the money they’re making from Spotify plays.
The only problem with the story? It’s not true. Well, that’s what Spotify says, anyway. The company has issued a statement to Music Ally slapping down the rumour, which focused on payments made to the star by Swedish collecting society STIM.
“Firstly, any payment to STIM would only represent a fraction of the payments rights holders receive and only for music played in one country (in this case Sweden) as we pay not only collecting societies, but also publishers and the record company to play their music,” says a spokesperson.
“Secondly, the figure (unrepresentative as it is) is from a short period just after our launch last year, way before we’d established ourselves as a music service and built up a large user base. Specific payments are of course confidential, but this is certainly wide of the mark.”
So there you have it from the horse’s mouth. How much is Lady Gaga really making off streams of her songs? Heaven knows.