‘Artists in Europe get more revenue from Spotify than from iTunes’

Spotify delivered more revenue to artists in Europe than iTunes at the beginning of this year, according to data released by a company that collects royalties for artists. In the first three months of 2014, Spotify’s revenue was 13 percent higher than iTunes.

Spotify’s catching up in Europe would have been quick: in the third quarter of 2013, iTunes revenue for artists was still 32 percent higher than Spotify. A quarter later, that lead would only be 8 percent and by the beginning of 2014 Spotify would have overtaken iTunes in terms of revenue for artists.

The figures come from Kobalt, a British company that collects royalties for 6,000 songwriters and artists, including big names such as Maroon 5 and Lenny Kravitz, according to TechCrunch. According to Kobalt, streaming services now provide 10 percent of the revenues of its customers in Europe. The figures seem to confirm that music sales via iTunes are on the decline, although Kobalt does not yet have figures for the past two quarters of 2014. Apple itself has already admitted that sales are falling.

Spotify is regularly under fire because it would not yield enough artists. For example, singer Taylor Swift withdrew her music from the service last week, because Spotify would be ‘modern piracy’ in her words. Spotify itself claims to transfer 70 percent of its revenue to artists.