This A+ list singer has one of the most sophisticated bot farms that money can buy to make sure she sets every streaming record to a level that can’t be beat.

Ariana Grande

The Fight Over Music-Streaming Royalties Misses the Point

Replacing the current “one big pot”streaming payout system with “user-centric” royalties that pay artists based on specific listeners’ activity on their catalog.

Currently, under pro rata, Spotify pools the money from tens of millions of global subscribers, takes its cut, and divvies up the rest to artists based on their share of all listeners’ plays — meaning that a user who exclusively listens to one ultra-niche artist might still see a chunk of their money going to, say, Ariana Grande.

Under a user-centric model, that user would see their subscription money allocated only to that niche artist, and not to any artists they do not actively play.On the surface of it, “user-centric” seems like the fairer option.

Just ask SoundCloud, which its own take of this adventure — savvily dubbed “fan-powered royalties” — and argues this system healthily tethers consumer activity to the artists those same consumers love. – Source

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