Apple reveals how much it pays for each song on its Music service

---

Apple revealed that it pays artists 1 cent for every song broadcast on its Apple Music service, nearly double the price Spotify pays. The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple's live streaming service revealed its payment structure in a Friday speech to artists and production companies, in an effort to show that it is a friend of the artist and with the goal of gaining more subscribers.

The move is seen as a competition with Spotify which pays roughly a half to a third of a cent per song, although it generates significantly more revenue overall, with a large number of users streaming more songs.

Spotify says it has about 155 million paid subscribers, and 190 million others use the free, ad-supported version, while Apple Music's paid subscriber base is estimated to be around 72 million.

Apple Music was launched in 2015 and immediately became involved in a major dispute with Taylor Swift, who said that she would withhold her latest album from the service due to Apple's policy of not paying artists a fee for songs that were broadcast during the free trial period for new users. Apple was quick to amend its policy and announced that it would pay artists for the songs during a trial period.

And the live-streaming services don't pay the artists directly, but rather send the money to record companies, publishers, and distributors who share the revenues with the artists based on their various contracts, and Apple said it pays 52% of the subscription revenue, or 52 cents of every dollar, to all record companies.

Spotify pays roughly 50 to 53 cents on the dollar for the posters, and roughly 75 to 80 percent of all its revenue goes to rights holders, including publishers and distributors, according to the British Daily Mail.