Split each person's streaming fee only among the artists that person actually listened to
Steps to make it happen
- Streaming services and artists' groups talk together about a new way to divide the money.
- Each person's monthly payment goes only to the artists that person listened to.
- Services make a rule that does not count machine-repeated plays or fake plays.
- Artists can check for themselves how much money reached whom.
- Services that want to try it go first, and they tell everyone what changed.
- If it works well, it spreads to other services and other countries.
- It becomes normal for fans' money to reach even small artists directly.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal covers subscription music streaming services, where people pay a fixed fee each month and can listen as much as they like. At present, most services pool all users' fees into one big purse and divide it among rights holders according to their share of total plays. Under this proposal, each user's fee, after the service takes its share, is instead divided according to the share of songs that user personally listened to. For example, if someone listens only to folk music from one ethnic tradition in a given month, that person's fee goes to the people who carry on that music, no matter what other people played. For free plans paid for by advertising, the proposal would look into dividing the money on the same principle, based on the ad revenue earned from each user. The parties responsible are the streaming companies and the bodies and record labels that manage copyrights, while each country's agencies for culture and copyright, and international forums on copyright, would set common guidelines for how to calculate the payments and how to disclose information. As rules, plays shorter than a set number of seconds and unnatural plays made by machines are not counted. How to handle the fee of someone who listened to nothing for a whole month, for instance by sending it to a shared fund that supports musicians, is made public in advance. Listening records are used only to calculate the payments and are processed in a form that cannot identify individuals. It is not made mandatory from the start but introduced as an option people can choose, and whether to expand it is decided based on the results of testing.
BenefitsFans' payments become direct support, and fraud shrinks
The biggest advantage is that the money paid is tied to the music heard, so it is easy for users to understand and accept. Feeling that their money reaches the artists they love builds trust in the streaming service and gives people a reason to keep paying. For artists supported by a small number of devoted fans, such as those who sing in the language of a particular region or who carry on traditional or experimental music, income could become more stable, because fans' payments are no longer soaked up by other genres. Fraud that inflates play counts with machines also loses most of its appeal, because under this method it only affects the fraudster's own fee. If the calculation methods and disclosure guidelines become common, artists can more easily check the basis for their income, and they have more to go on in contracts and negotiations. As a result, even in the world of streaming, where popularity tends to concentrate, there is more room for many kinds of music to survive, and it can be expected to work as a system that supports cultural diversity.
DrawbacksThe total pie does not grow, and some people may lose out
What opponents weigh most heavily is that changing how the money is divided does not increase the total amount reaching musicians as a whole. They argue that the root causes of musicians' hardship are the low level of streaming fees and the large shares taken by services and record labels, and that debating the division method distracts from that real issue. Some estimates also suggest the change in income would not be very large, so it is doubtful whether it is worth the effort. There is also a risk that some people lose out in unintended ways, for example musicians in genres popular with younger listeners who listen for long hours, or artists whose devoted fans listen for a long time, may earn less. Because the calculation is based on each user's own records, the work and system costs rise, which could become a heavy burden for small streaming companies and rights management bodies. Worries about privacy also remain when listening records are handled in such detail. There is also a concern that if each country and company uses a different method, dividing money for music streamed across borders would become more complicated and less transparent.
Learn the background
Over the past twenty years or so, the way people listen to music has moved from records and CDs to streaming, and in many parts of the world streaming is now the main source of income. But under the current method, where fees are pooled and divided by share of total plays, the plays of a few users who keep music running all day have a large effect on the whole division. So even when someone listens only to a small band they love, to jazz, or to local traditional music, most of that person's fee flows to the rights holders of popular songs that the person hardly ever hears. Fraud that pads play counts with programs also slowly takes money from other artists, and it is hard to detect. Artists, in turn, find it hard to see how their income is calculated, and distrust has spread. For artists outside the languages and regions where popularity is concentrated, making a living from streaming is still difficult, and it is time to rethink how the money flows, in order to protect the diversity of music as well.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
It helps pay for the server and the AI's planting
This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-15d) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes