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The music business

Where the money goes, and how little of it goes to musicians.

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9:49

Daniel Ek

Daniel Ek didn’t build a music company — he built a licensing wrapper for peer-to-peer infrastructure.
10:21

Spotify

Daniel Ek & Martin Lorentzon · 2006

Spotify is a Swedish music streaming service founded in April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It operates under a freemium model, offering DRM-protected audio content—including over 100 million songs and 7 million podcasts—from record labels and media companies. Royalties are distributed based on stream share rather than fixed per-unit payments, with ~70% of revenue going to rights holders. It became publicly traded on the NYSE in April 2018 and reported its first profitable year in fiscal 2024. As of March 2026, it served over 777 million monthly active users and 300 million paying subscribers.

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