A brief explainer on how music streaming platforms such as Deezer currently pay artists and their goal towards a User Centric Payment System.

Deezer’s CEO Louis-Alexis de Gemini talks on the music industry’s shift from piracy, to ad-supported free music streaming, to subscription-based music streaming. Gemini gives more transparency on how Deezer makes money and explains how most music streaming services have historically paid artists and rightsholders.

Deezer announced back in 2019 their ambition to move towards a User Centric Payment System (UCPS), a goal of theirs since 2017. Under a UCPS, your subscription money goes directly to the artists you listen to, a model that is thought to be a fairer way of paying artists, one that would likely benefit smaller artists with dedicated fans. You can find out more about Deezer’s move to a UCPS here.

SoundCloud spoke earlier this year about their upcoming UCPS model.