Panelists at the Future of Music Policy Summit’s “Cracking the Streaming Code” explained that the current pro-rata model incentivizes clicks, which favors big-name artists rather than those with a smaller but devoted fan base. The pro-rata system counts the total number of clicks in a given period, then divides the subscriber fees proportionately based on artists’ total clicks. If a subscriber pays $10 per month to use a streaming service and exclusively listens to a non-mainstream band, most of that money goes to other artists that get more clicks.

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