TuneCore: In Q1 We Paid $42 Million To Artists

• Save

That’s a 16% year-over-year increase…

But, what’s more interesting, is that TuneCore reports that their growth in revenue was fuelled by a 126% increase in gross revenue from YouTube, which includes a 730% increase in revenue from YouTube’s Art Tracks initiative. TuneCore CEO Scott Ackerman says,

“This year we’re going to almost triple the YouTube revenue in that product, because there’s more and more people creating videos and using artists’ music. I think when you look at our artist base, they’re not as concerned that somebody put a video up using their music, as long as they’re being paid for it.”

These reported figures are surprising to many, and come at a time where YouTube has been under fire for low royalty payouts and slammed for ignoring the interest of artists over ineffective measures for dealing with copyright infringed content on the platform. But, Ackerman seems to have a solid way of helping artists receive the correct payouts for their content on the service.

”YouTube has a system where artists can go through TuneCore and we’ll go out and search for them where their music is being heard and give them the money they deserve off the advertising piece. While some artists are claiming that they’re not making money on YouTube, our artists are continuing to make more and more, and they’re getting more exposure”, says Ackerman.

But, its not just inclining YouTube revenue that has helped boost TuneCore’s revenue and payouts to artists, streaming has also had profound effects. With the uprise of streaming services, especially last year with the addition of Apple Music and Tidal, more and more artists are signing up and more fans are also subscribing. In terms of streaming, Ackerman says, ”playlists and features are an important piece. [It’s] really a win-win, because an artist has both the store and Tunecore supporting them to get their music heard.”

(Image by pictures of money, Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic, cc by 2.0)