Hi Deezer,
I read that Deezer is implementing a new royalty payment system for artists with UMG.
Initially, I was really supportive of Deezer’s groundbreaking approach with UCPS. It helps to reduce the stream dilution in the current system and people gaming the system with fake streams.
But the thing is… the newly announced royalty system ain’t it,. I’m happy to know that Deezer is recognizes that the current one is flawed as white noise cannot be paid on the same rate as a real studio quality original composition and production. The level of knowledge, artistry, creativity, hard work, talent to work on every single word and every single second in the lyrics and instrument production is not on par with white noise. I’m happy to know that this issue is being addressed and real artists can be paid more fairly.
The other thing is the doubling of royalty rate for established artists with 1000 streams and 500 monthly listeners is really unnecessary and appalling. By doing this, we’re taking away the little bit of money from the new artists without the a massive fan base and giving it to the artists at the top of their games. Needless to mention, the pay per stream rate is already abysmally low.
As an artist with about a hundred monthly listeners, this is really unacceptable. Rising new artists need the most exposure and support at the beginning stages of their music careers. They shouldn’t be disadvantaged to a lower royalty rate. It makes it even harder for artists to reach their minimum threshold of $11 before they can withdraw their earnings.
One thing that we can do is to stop accepting sub-standard or AI generated content. There has to be a more stringent process for reviewing and approving new music by a panel of professional musicians before they can appear on streaming platforms.
I know that it’s not easy to “break out” as a musician. I put in all the hard work, time and money for purchasing instruments, daws, studio rentals and mixing and mastering and most importantly, social media promotion. I don’t make a single cent out of this. I’m happy to be doing music and releasing my music to the world. I’m not blaming anybody for everything that I put in but I feel that it’s totally fundamentally wrong to be taking that bit of money and giving to the established acts. And also uncomfortable to know that my music is treated as noise or “lower level content” .
As a paying Deezer customer from 2014, Deezer opened up my world and exposed me to listen and discover music of different genres, nurtured my passion for music and inspired me to become a musician myself. I really enjoyed the flow feature, hifi quality music, artist curated playlists, minimalistic interface and mp3 feature (that allows me to upload my own music demos and music from artists not on streaming platforms) .
Unfortunately, I cannot support this flawed payment system as an artist and Deezer user. I will be taking down my music and unsubscribing when my annual plan ends.
Jian Wei
