Spotify has officially demonetised all tracks under 1,000 streams

Spotify has announced that it has already demonetised all tracks with under 1,000 streams in a new policy which launched on April 1.

The decision comes following a report published last year, titled Modernising our royalty system, in which the platform outlined that 99.5% of all streams on the platform "are of tracks that have above 1,000 streams."

Spotify claims that demonetising the tracks will not result in a "change to the size of the music royalty pool being paid out to rights holders" and that it will instead "use the tens of millions of dollars annually to increase the payments to all eligible tracks, rather than spreading it out into $0.03 payments.”

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The statement continues that labels are required to withdraw a minimum amount of royalties, which is usually between $2 and $50 per withdrawal.

This transaction, according to Spotify, has banks charge a fee to make the transaction which it claims is the reason why “money often doesn't reach the uploaders” as “these small payments are often forgotten about.”

Spotify also now requires a minimum number of unique listeners for royalties to apply in an attempt to stop the rise in artificial streaming.

This follows from their report in November last year, which warned of the new changes including fraudulent activity, and to those who upload white noise or nature sounds.

Before this change, these “functional genres” such as white noise or nature sounds could generate income from 30 seconds of play, however, this has been changed to two minutes.

As well as new policies, Bloomberg reports that Spotify will also be raising its subscription prices.

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Last year, Spotify increased its Premium service after more than a decade of a set price for the music streaming service.

According to Bloomberg, Spotify plans to raise its subscription price by the end of April in the UK, Australia, Pakistan and the US later in the year.

Individual subscription plans are claimed to rise by $1 a month, while Duo and Family plans will rise by $2.

Read the full report from Spotify here.

Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Multimedia Editor, follow her on Twitter