Spotify’s Royalty Threshold Is Conscious Parallelism Reshaping the Music Business—But Not in a Good Way

Spotify’s Royalty Threshold Is Conscious Parallelism Reshaping the Music Business—But Not in a Good Way

Spotify recently rolled out a quiet but seismic change to its royalty system: if a track doesn’t get at least 1,000 streams in a 12-month period, it earns no royalties. Zero. The company claims this policy is about reducing “fraud” and redirecting money to “working artists,” but behind that PR gloss is a shift that disproportionately harms independent musicians and smaller rightsholders.Let’s be clear—this isn’t just about removing noise from th…