TIDAL changes its royalties policy

Since its inception, TIDAL has pursued the same goal: to create a friendly space for music, artists and fans. This has resulted in bringing to life a more sustainable business model within the music industry. A system that provides the highest quality listening, payment transparency and, most importantly, fairer and more equitable ways to pay artists for their work. In fact, a few days ago TIDAL took a very important step in fulfilling this commitment.

In January 2022, TIDAL will implement a plan to achieve more transparency and equity in streaming. Until now, this platform worked like the rest of its competitors in terms of royalty payments. The artists receive the money through a massive royalty fund based on the listening patterns of the subscribers. This means that the most listened to artists receive a higher percentage of royalties. A situation that leaves small and independent artists at a clear disadvantage and which TIDAL wants to put an end to.

And it wants to do it through a royalty model based on the listening of each user. In this way, the royalties will not be counted in an aggregate way, but each artist will receive those that they have generated individually. An initiative that is already operational also on platforms such as SoundCloud. And that’s not all, since TIDAL will also incorporate direct payment to artists, 10% of each user’s subscription will go to the artist who has most been listened to during that month. Therefore, through these two systems, fans have the real possibility of directly supporting their favorite artists. In fact, in the “My Activity” tab, each user will be able to know exactly what their streams have been for that month.

These options will be available only and exclusively to subscribers of the new HiFi Plus payment plan. TIDAL has modified its subscription plans, which now are three: the aforementioned HiFi Plus, which offers all services for less than $20 per month; HiFi, which for less than $10 per month includes several advantages, although not those mentioned in the previous paragraph in relation to direct payment to artists; and, for the first time in its history, TIDAL offers a free subscription plan subject to ads.