Spotify stopped paying royalties on any track under 1,000 streams (2024)

What changed

Effective April 1, 2024, Spotify changed its royalty model so that a recording only enters the royalty pool once it has been streamed at least 1,000 times in the preceding 12 months. A track below that threshold earns nothing — its fractional royalties are redistributed to everyone above the line.

The two framings

Spotify's case: the company says the change targets fraud and manipulation (bots inflating tiny tracks) and "uploads" that aren't really music, and that 99.5% of all streams are of tracks already above 1,000 plays — so the money simply shifts to working artists rather than being lost to noise. Spotify frames it as paying more to the tracks that clear the bar.

The critics' case: the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers estimated the rule means roughly 86% of all tracks on Spotify will fail to qualify for any payout based on play count. The objection is structural: an emerging artist's early songs, a niche release, or a deep catalog cut now generate zero — the money moves up to those who already have scale. Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor has argued streaming's payouts have "mortally wounded" a whole tier of working musicians.

Why it's on file

Both numbers can be true at once — 99.5% of streams clearing the bar, and ~86% of tracks falling below it — and that gap is the whole story. The change is a documented, platform-wide decision that withdraws income from the long tail of artists and concentrates it at the top. See the streaming royalties explainer for how the pool model works.