Jay Z’s newly launched Tidal music service has reignited the debate about the economics of music in an era where streaming services like Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube reign supreme. In hopes of adding to that discussion, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow recently took to Twitter to share exactly how much money the band actually earned from its 34 million streams last year. His estimate: After taxes he was left with £1,700, or around $2,511, according to Consequence Of Sound.
That number is even more staggering when one considers that streaming services brought in over $1.87 billion dollars last year. And while Spotify claims to have delivered $500 million to rights holders, that doesn’t always translate to money for the artists involved. COS estimates that, according to his numbers, Barrow made about 0.0007 cents per stream last year. [via Flavorwire]