Yesterday Digital Music News published an article about the state of Spotify royalty payments.

‘Viva Spotify’ isn’t quite the phrase being bandied about at Midem, and executives from both sides of the Atlantic are continuing to disparage.  But this is a nuanced picture.  Most European executives we’ve talked to recognized that Spotify has achieved ubiquity in many countries, and considerable progress on the premium front.  And, this is an addictive product that’s playing by the rules.

But the money situation is problematic, and that has prompted a few independents to jump ship.  But also on the major label side, the royalties are a royal problem.  In fact, one major label executive close to the numbers pointed to a bizarre problem: there aren’t enough zeros in the royalty program to calculate the fractions being paid by Spotify.

So, think .00000000000005 euros and you get the idea.  “It’s laughable, if it wasn’t so sad really,” the executive told Digital Music News after a few beers.

It seems as though executives and even Digital Music News don’t understand why Spotify is a great service for artists. Having your music on a specific service isn’t always about the revenue generated by that single activity. Spotify allows artists to showcase their music with the aim of growing their fan base even further. I would much rather have 1 million listeners on Spotify and get some of them to see us in concert, instead of just selling a few downloads on another store.

Spotify also aims to provide a service that will attract users away from bittorrent and other p2p services. More music is being consumed that ever before and from a larger diversity of artists. However, legal music only makes up a less than 7% of the entire online music market. Executives should be focused on helping to grow these new services that will attract users from illegal alternatives, instead of trying to pick holes in the legal service of Spotify!