YouTube claims it paid out over $1.8bn to music rights-holders

Google-owned video streaming platform YouTube just claimed that it paid out over $1.8bn to music rights-holders in the 12 months to the end of September this year, in advertising revenues alone.

The figure was revealed in Google’s new "How Google Fights Piracy" report, in which it’s also claimed that YouTube has paid out more than $6bn to the music industry to date – $3bn of which has come from the monetized use of music in videos via Content ID.

"Music Business Worldwike" compared these figures Spotify’s industry payouts and it writes:

YouTube’s $1.8bn claim suggests that it’s been paying out circa $150m per month to the music business in ad money over the past year.
Spotify recently revealed that it had paid out €10bn to music rights-holders from its launch in 2008 all the way up to August 31 this year.
In Spotify’s own F-1 filing with the New York Stock Exchange, it revealed that it had paid the music business €8bn from the platform’s launch to the end of 2017, meaning that, in the first eight months of this year, Daniel Ek’s firm handed over circa €2bn to labels and publishers etc.
Spotify, then, is running at an average per-month payout rate of €250m, which, according to an average exchange rate across the period, handily translates into USD at $300m (or $299.66m, to be more precise).

In the end, YouTube is paying rights-holders around $150m a month in ad money, while Spotify is paying out $300m a month in ads plus premium subscriptions.