Streaming restructured musician economics before generative AI, with per-stream payouts of fractions of a cent¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoretical r2 · q1
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2031: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q1 i? The shift from unit sales to streaming subscriptions collapsed the per-unit value of recorded music by roughly two orders of magnitude before generative AI became commercially relevant, and AI intensifies rather than originates this devaluation. → Jean-Pierre Briot 2026

Evidence¶

Jean-Pierre Briot 2026¶

Jean-Pierre Briot. (2026). Challenges for Musical Education in the Age of AI and Digital Transformation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.05176 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2608.05176

q1 · i? · theoretical · r2

The article's economic analysis of the streaming era reports per-stream payouts of "$0.003 to $0.005 on Spotify" and argues the structural devaluation of recorded music predates generative AI by well over a decade. This is an analytical argument, not a tested empirical result.

"Per-stream payouts remain a small fraction of a cent on most major platforms – on the order of $0.003 to $0.005 on Spotify, somewhat higher on Apple Music and Tidal, and lower still on YouTube Music's ad-supported tier."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• A practice-framework article, quoting Johnston and Wildy (2016), reports that the literature generally finds attainment grouping (streaming) harms learning outcomes, while noting the research is contested — related