Apple has paid the most music licensing royalties out of the big four streaming giants.
According to the Mechanical Licensing Collective, streaming services have paid out more than $424,384,787 in revenue to date, with Apple Music contributing the biggest share with $163,338,890 paid out.
The figure represents “historical unmatched royalties from digital service providers,” and the figure is made up of payments made from 20 different providers.
Though Apple Music is smaller than Spotify, the company has paid out the most revenue since its inception, likely because Apple does not offer a free version of its music streaming platform outside of a free trial. Spotify comes in second place, paying out $152,226,039, whilst Amazon lags behind in third place with $42,741,507.
YouTube and SoundCloud are also in the top ten.
Speaking of the payments, the MLC said: “The transfer of these monies represents the culmination of a months-long effort on the part of The MLC and these DSPs to develop and implement the specifications for these usage reports. With these historical unmatched royalties and usage reports now in hand, The MLC can begin the process of reviewing and analyzing the data in order to find and pay the proper copyright owners.”
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