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The music industry is booming. The problem is musicians aren’t getting their hands on much of that money.

In 2018, the overall revenue for the U.S. recorded music industry rose 12 per cent to $9.8 billion, and that growth was almost entirely powered by the expansion of music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, Pandora, Amazon Music and others.

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But artists from Radiohead frontman Thom York to Taylor Swift have been complaining artists are not fairly compensated by the streaming services.

According to Digital Music News, one of the worst offenders is streaming giant Spotify, which reportedly pays artists on average $0.00437 per stream.

With Spotify, the rate varies from artist to artist. At that rate, an artist would need 336,842 plays in a month to earn $1,472 — the average monthly minimum wage in the U.S.

In other words, it’s a joke for the artists. But the artists aren’t laughing. They’re crying.