Paris (AFP)

Finished the common pot: the musical platform SoundCloud, which allows artists to present their songs to listeners, announced Tuesday to AFP to launch, in April, a new system of remuneration of artists, based on the durations of listening to each artist, a first according to her.

Today the operation of music streaming platforms, such as Spotify, Deezer is simple: a subscriber who pays 10 euros per month sees a large part of this sum migrate to the artists who are more streamed (by subscribers in general).

Known under the name of "market centric" (pro rata of total listenings), this system, criticized by artists, is opposed to the theoretical model of "user centric", which would be based on the individual listening of subscribers.

Concretely, the first system favors the big stars like Drake or Ariana Grande, to the detriment of the smaller ones.

It is this system that the German platform Soundcloud will question, which, from April 1, will inaugurate, for artists who monetize their creations using the SoundCloud Premier, Repost by SoundCloud or Repost Select services, a system that links their remuneration for listening to their fans.

"This is a demand that has been coming back for years in the industry. We are happy to be the first to bring this innovation to support artists," Michael Weissman, CEO of SoundCloud, told AFP.

In total, "nearly 100,000 independent artists" around the world are concerned.

A more "fair" and "equitable" system depending on the platform, and which should ultimately promote greater musical diversity.

According to his estimates, French artists in particular should be the big winners of this change: they would see the total amount paid to them collectively increase by nearly 25%.

A study by the French National Music Center (CNM) published at the end of January estimated that changing the distribution system of musical platforms, from the common pot to listening by artist, would have little impact on the remuneration of currently marginalized musicians and would have the main effect of stabilize the "middle of the ranking".

The study, conducted with the firm Deloitte, did not however include the SoundCloud platform but only Spotify and Deezer.

Founded in 2007, SoundCloud has over 250 million songs created by 30 million artists listened to in 190 countries.

© 2021 AFP