At today’s Vanity Fair Summit in San Francisco, musical artist Jimmy Buffett made a quick appearance to ask a question from the audience to Daniel Ek, CEO and founder of Spotify: “When can we get a raise?”
Buffett opened his question by noting that he’s been in the music business for a while, and that payouts that trickle to artists from music streaming services are lower as a proportion of total amount spent by consumers than under previous music media paradigms.
Ek responded by noting that Spotify has a site for artists that allows for “transparency” in the process and, after prompting from the panel moderator, pointed out that Spotify paid out $1 billion to “the music industry” last year.
Neither Buffett nor the audience seemed particularly satisfied by the response.