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Back in the early 2010s, the music industry was at a low point.

Piracy was rampant. Compact disc sales were on a steady decline. And the then-new audio streaming services, like Spotify, were taking hits from creators for paying low royalty rates.

Today, Spotify has grown into the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service and the highest-paying retailer globally — paying the music industry over $11 billion last year. The Swedish company said in a recent post that the payouts aren’t strictly going to ultra-popular artists, but that “roughly half of royalties were generated by independent artists and labels.”

“A decade ago, a lot of the questions were really fair. Spotify had to be able to prove out if it could scale as an economic engine. People didn’t know if streaming would scale as a model,” said Sam Duboff, Spotify’s global head of marketing and policy of music business.

Duboff said Spotify’s payouts aren’t “plateauing — we’re still growing that royalty pool on Spotify more than 10% per year.” He credits the streaming platform’s growth to “incentivizing people to be willing to pay for music again” by providing personalized experiences and global accessibility.

The company, founded in 2006, serves more than 751 million users, including 290 million subscribers, in 184 markets.

“The average Spotify premium subscriber listens to 200 artists every month, and nearly half of those artists are discovered for the first time,” Duboff said. “When you build an experience where people can explore and fall in love with music, it inspires them to upgrade to premium and keep paying.”

The platform offers a wide variety of playlists, curated by editors like the up-and-comer-driven Fresh Finds or rap’s latest, RapCaviar. There are also personal playlists generated for users, such as the weekly round-up Discover Weekly and the daily mix of tunes called the “daylist.”

The streamer considers itself the first step toward “an enduring career” for today’s indie artists. Last year, more than a third of artists making $10,000 on the platform in royalties started by self-releasing their music through independent distributors.

“Streaming, fundamentally, is about opportunity and access. It’s artists from all over the world releasing music the way they want to and reaching a global audience from Day One,” Duboff said. He adds that when fans have a choice, they will discover new genres and music cultures that may have otherwise languished in obscurity.

In 2025, nearly 14,000 artists earned $100,000 from Spotify alone. The streamer’s data also show that last year the 100,000th highest-earning artist made $7,300 in Spotify royalties, whereas in 2015, an artist in that same spot earned around $350.

The company, with a large presence in L.A.’s Arts District, emphasizes that the roster of artists on its platform who earn significantly more money — well into the millions — is no longer limited to the few. A decade ago, Spotify’s top artist made around $10 million in royalties. Today, the platform’s top 80 artists generate over $10 million annually. Some of 2025’s top artists globally were Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift and the Weeknd.

Spotify claims those who aren’t household names can earn six figures, with more than 1,500 artists earning $1 million last year.

For some musicians, the outlook is not as clear

Damon Krukowski, a musician and the legislative director for United Musicians & Allied Workers, argues that Spotify’s money isn’t necessarily going to artists — it’s going to their labels.

Those without labels usually upload music through distributors such as DistroKid and CD Baby. These platforms charge a small fee or commission. For example, DistroKid’s lowest-level subscription is $24.99 a year, and the site states users “keep 100% of all your earnings.”

”There are zero payments going directly to recording artists from Spotify,” Krukowski asserts. “Recording artists deserve direct payment from the streaming platforms for use of our work.”

The advocacy group, which has mobilized more than 70,000 musicians and music workers, recently helped draft the Living Wage for Musicians Act to address the streaming industry. The bill, introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives last fall, calls for a new streaming royalty that would directly pay artists a minimum of one penny per stream.

In the Q&A section of Spotify’s Loud and Clear website, the streamer confirms that it “doesn’t pay artists or songwriters directly. We pay rights holders selected by the artist or songwriter, whether that’s a record label, publisher, independent distributor, performance rights organization, or collecting society.”

Instead of following a penny-per-stream model, Spotify pays based on the artist’s share of total streams, called a “streamshare.”

“Streaming doesn’t work like buying songs. Fans pay for unlimited access, not per track they listen to,” wrote the company online. “So a ‘per stream’ rate isn’t actually how anyone gets paid — not on Spotify, or on any major streaming service.”

SEOUL, Feb. 19 (UPI) — South Korea’s Samsung C&T said Thursday it would invest up to $6.5 billion during the next three years to nurture future growth engines.

Samsung C&T is a diversified Samsung affiliate that builds major infrastructure, trades global materials and energy, and operates fashion and resort businesses.

Through 2028, the Seoul-based company is scheduled to allocate between $4.5 billion and $5.2 billion to next-generation growth areas, including energy and bio. However, it did not disclose further details.

In addition, Samsung C&T plans to spend a maximum of $1.3 billion to beef up competitiveness in its existing operations by shifting toward a high-margin business model and expanding into overseas markets.

The firm also unveiled a three-year plan to raise its dividend per share by 25%.

“Over the next three years, we will focus on delivering results from growth businesses centered on energy and bio while strengthening our existing portfolio,” Samsung C&T said in a regulatory filing.

“On the back of a stable financial structure, we strive to pursue investments in future growth areas alongside shareholder returns,” it added.

The construction unit is one of the country’s leading contractors. It was lead builder of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates, the world’s tallest skyscraper.

The company saw its 2025 operating profit rise 10.4% to $2.27 billion, while annual sales edged down 3.2% to $28 billion year-on-year.

The share price of Samsung C&T climbed 0.47% on the Seoul bourse Thursday.

The tunnel will become the world’s longest underground railway connection at 64km long when it opens

The Brenner Base Tunnel is presently being built to link Austria and Italy. This remarkable tunnel, destined to become the world’s longest, is due to open in 2032.

The railway tunnel will join the Austrian city of Innsbruck with Franzensfeste/Fortezza in Italy, connecting two nations across different time zones. Construction expenses are projected at 8.54billion euros (£7.4billion). The extraordinary BBT will stretch for 55km (34 miles) as a cutting-edge railway tunnel.

BBT explained: “In May 1994, a railway bypass was opened south of Innsbruck, known as the Inn valley tunnel. This 12.7 km tunnel links to the Brenner Base Tunnel.

“Passenger and freight trains along this stretch will therefore not only travel through the Brenner Base Tunnel, but for a few kilometres, through the Inn valley tunnel as well. This line, totalling 64 kilometres, will become the longest underground railway connection in the world.”

An unusual characteristic of the Brenner Base Tunnel is the “exploratory tunnel running from one end to the other”.

“This tunnel lies between the two main tunnels and about 12m below them and with a diameter of 5m is noticeably smaller than the main tubes.

“The excavations currently underway on the exploratory tunnel should provide information on the rock mass and thereby reduce construction costs and times to a minimum.

“The exploratory tunnel will be essential for drainage when the BBT becomes operational.”

Additional remarkable railway projects include the globe’s lengthiest train route, which links three nations spanning eight time zones.

In a historic gain, Spotify saw a record increase of 38 million monthly active users at the end of 2025.

According to the streamer’s fourth-quarter earnings report released Tuesday, the Sweden-based company reported an 11% increase in monthly active users, bringing the total to 751 million. It’s the biggest net add in the company’s history. There was similarly a 10% increase in paid subscribers, rising to 290 million. Spotify’s total revenue also topped $5.3 billion, up 7%.

The company credits much of last quarter’s success to what it says was its biggest Wrapped campaign yet, which engaged 300 million users globally and had 630 million shares in 56 different languages. Spotify also expanded and enhanced tech features globally, like adding music videos and more access to audiobooks, for both premium and free subscribers.

“Today, what we’ve really built is a technology platform for audio — and increasingly, for all the ways creators connect with audiences. And this identity will matter even more going forward,” said Daniel Ek, Spotify’s founder and executive chairman, in a press release.

“The next wave of technology shifts — AI, new interfaces, wearables, new ways of interacting with content — these will reshape how people discover and experience audio and media. The hard problems ahead — in music, in podcasts, in books, in video, in live, and in things we haven’t built yet — we’re going to keep building the technology to solve them.”

The company’s operating income rose 47% to $834 million. At the end of the fourth quarter, there were 7,323 full-time employees globally.

Spotify’s ad-supported revenue was down 4%, with the company looking at a partial “offset by softness in pricing” for its music advertising. Its podcasts’ expansion was led mostly by sponsorships. But the revenue was similarly “offset by optimization of our podcasting inventory.”

Just in the last few months, Spotify has focused heavily on its podcasting services — in part by opening a new Hollywood studio, expanding creator monetization programs and premiering select video podcasts on Netflix in a new partnership.

On the music side, the streaming platform previously reported that it paid out more than $11 billion to the music industry last year. That sum was the “largest annual payment to music from any retailer in history,” according to Spotify.

When the music streaming business model was first introduced, there was controversy about how much artists would earn from streams. But the company said independent artists and labels accounted for half of all royalties.

Founded in 2006, the company maintains a large presence in L.A.’s Arts District. Over the last two decades, it has become the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service. Beyond its music library, it now reports having more than 530,000 video podcasts and over 500,000 audiobooks in English-language markets.

Starting this month, Spotify also raised its prices for premium users to $12.99. For the first quarter of 2026, the company expects an increase of 8 million monthly active users, bringing its total closer to 759 million users and a smaller, 3-million bump in paying users. The company projects total revenue to stay consistent at around $5.3 billion.