This article is false. There are different rates for streams listened by paying customers and those listening for free. The massive majority of Spotify users

This article is false. There are different rates for streams listened by paying customers and those listening for free. The massive majority of Spotify users are free, and those rates are significantly less. There are several articles about this and most do not report anywhere near those rates for streams. It would not surprise me to find that they don't even pay the average directly-licensed band for "free" streams. Furthermore, the question the article asked is how much money do "bands" make from streaming, yet it only included a band that has a direct relationship. The bulk of bands on Spotify are put there by the major labels and one or two collectives of independent labels. The major labels setup the licensing structure such that the bulk of it is paid up front for a setup fee, and that fee is divided evenly among their artists, even though a small percentage of those artists constitute the bulk of the streaming. 95+% of the artists they include in that setup are not recouped, which means they haven't earned enough royalties to offset the "expenses" associated with releasing their album. The label keeps your money until you are recouped. So, the label shares nothing with 95% of the artists from this massive, tens-of-millions-of-dollars fee they charge. Then they pay 5% of the fee to their recouped artists - the megastars - even though those artists will generate 95% of the listening. After the setup fee, the per stream fee that gets paid to the artists is minuscule, and even much of that is swept under the rug during shady accounting. And if that wasn't enough, the labels own 18% of Spotify (I've heard it's even protected against dilution) and will ultimately unload their stock on the public right before the licenses expire and they hike the rates up to an unsustainable level, drain all of the investment dollars out of the company, and start the cycle again.