Spotify’s Creator Cash Grab

Spotify is offering creators ad revenue, subscription share, and bonuses, without demanding exclusivity.

Author

Jim Louderback
June 30, 2025

This Week: Leaked plans show Spotify is paying creators to produce video, plus tools for journalists, MrBeast's AI stumble and more! I know I promised trends, but let’s hold that for next week. Too much going on!

Hi, I’m Jim Louderback and this is my weekly creator economy newsletter. If you’ve received it, then you are either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.


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💡 TOP STORIES

GET YOURSELF SOME SPOTIFY GREEN

They’ve clearly moved beyond just audio – but in a leaked presentation obtained by The Ankler’s Natalie Jervey, their ambitions are MUCH higher.  They’re promising money, promotion and infrastructure to YouTubers making all kinds of video…  not just podcasts.  Two other details stand out: Spotify’s sharing both ad and subscription revenue, along with performance bonuses.  Some creators have earned up to $75k over the last three months.  And they’re not asking for exclusivity either. Unclear whether they want to disrupt YouTube or augment it, but the takeaway is clear: creators should jump in now and cash in.

Aside: With Spotify, Tubi, Prime Video, and others embracing non-exclusive deals with video creators, there’s a huge opportunity to cash in without sacrificing IP or YouTube revenue. No one knows how long this land-grab will last, but now’s the time to jump in.  Just make sure you have a good lawyer scrutinize any agreement.

HELPING PRINT JOURNALISTS BECOME CREATORS

More than half of US adults turn to social platforms for news, according to a 2024 Pew poll.  But how do we teach traditional print journalists to make the transition to a social-first world?  That’s the goal of journalist @Sophia Smith Galer, with her new app called Sophiana.  Paste a story in and the app gives you 3 hooks and condenses it into a short-form video script.  It then fires up your mobile device and doubles as a teleprompter to help you record your story.  Galer leans on her six years of experience at Buzzfeed to inform the story-script piece.  Try it today!

Related: Sophia’s timing is impeccable, as TikTok last week said it’s hiring a creator manager focused on journalists. (ht @lia Haberman).

TikTok Giveth and Capcut Taketh: New worries about Capcut’s updated terms of service, which could affect sources and copyright too.

SUBSCRIPTIONS ‘R’ US

YouTube’s shift to subscriptions was the focus of my 2-12-2024 issue of this newsletter.  In that issue I warned:

“Mohan also leaned into subscriptions, which worryingly distorts the democratization of media with a posh layer of exclusivity… .  I’d hate to see all the good stuff created by real people sequestered behind a paywall, while the plebes get fed cheap AI-generated crap. “

Now, 16 months later, my fears are coming true.  According to a story from @Sahil Patel in The Information, YouTube expects subscriptions to outpace ad revenue growth going forward.  The locked-down future of YouTube will arrive even faster than I predicted.  Sure, subscription revenue gets shared with creators.  But it’s also likely to increase the gap between haves and have-nots.

AI BACKLASH BITES BEAST

Last week, MrBeast’s Viewstats tool added an AI thumbnail feature. Creators pounced, accusing it of stealing their styles, logos, and more. The feature was yanked almost immediately. Ludwig leaned into the debate, asking “Is MrBeast ruining YouTube?” Expect this to be just the first wave in an AI backlash that could rival the crypto mess.

Related:  Meanwhile, Nas Daily is releasing 100 AI-generated videos in 100 days.

JOIN ME AT OPEN SAUCE!

Want to hear from execs at Patreon, GM, Invisilign, Home Shopping Network, NASA, Crunchbase—and creators like Michael Reeves, William Osman, Matty Benedetto and more? Check out my Creator Industry Day at Open Sauce on July 18. We’ve got workshops, roundtables, and backstage chats with YouTube’s algorithm execs and Mark Rober’s team, Tyler Chou, Smooth Media and more.  Special for my readers: use code OSICE1025 for 10% off your 3-Day Industry and festival ticket. Just 42 discounted tickets left—get yours now.

Finally, you are all welcome to join our Bay Area Creator Economy meetup Thursday night just across the highway from the event. It’s free and open to all!  Register today!

💡 PLATFORMS

YOUTUBE

META

  • Meta and TikTok developing TV apps:  I called this months ago, and now @kaya Yurieff at The information confirms it.

  • Huge Tracts of Land: Meta lures talent from OpenAI with massive pots of money.  OpenAI plans to fight back.

  • Uh-Oh:  Looks like Meta’s AI Llama LLM really did memorize full books.  Or maybe it’s just a Hermonie Granger fan.

TIKTOK

LINKEDIN

💡 QUIBIS

MEDIA DISRUPTION

  • Experiment By Default: How legacy media execs should approach creators.  TLDR, work with them on THEIR terms, not yours.

  • Trust Emerges Again: As the power of raw attention fades, @Doug Shapiro argues trust is the new oil. It echoes the era of “special interest publishing,” and reminds me of my media roots running computer magazines.

  • IP is the New Currency:  How AI and digital twinning are changing IP.

  • Getting Baked with the Gray Lady: The NYT is making  creator-led cooking shows, including a weekend baking series. Doubt they’ll call it “Munchies”.

  • The Land Grab Begins:  Bit late to the party, but I just discovered “Creator Television®”.  Launched by CTV ad-tech company Sabio, they just announced distribution on FAST service Xumo.  They call themselves “the first creator-led streaming network and content studio.”  By “creator-led,” they apparently mean five execs with almost no actual creator experience, but plenty of chops in advertising, video games, and traditional TV.    Was I the last to know about this?

This is an actual show on Creator Television

CREATOR MONETIZATION

OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

MARKETING AND BRANDS

CREATOR TECH – AI, AR, VR, MORE

  • Copyright Evolves: Denmark will let people copyright their own NIL in a battle against AI deepfakes.

  • Save the Share: Creative Commons launches new “signals framework” to help creators flag how (and whether) they want their content used by AI.

  • Connect EVERYTHING to EVERYTHING: The Model Context Protocol used to connect AI models to each other is poised to actually connect everything to everything.  That’s a good thing, and maybe next week I’ll discover a non-obvious creator economy angle.  Until then, just read about it and enjoy.

📊 RESEARCH

  • AI SEO Study:  By 2028, AI SEO will be more valuable than traditional SEO. And visitors from AI search are 4.4x more valuable today. The Google vs. LLM results will surprise you too.

  • Regulating Kids and Social: JAMA, study says it’s not about screen time, it’s about the inability to stop.  Unfortunately, platforms are designed to addict.   At least Brazil might fix this.

📍 Where’s Jim? Getting ready for Open Sauce! See you there! Oh, and also headed to Phish in Charleston. Say hi if you see me!

100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (except for the cover art!).

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I've built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies - including Discovery and Paramount. Subscribe for free to get this newsletter every Monday.

Let me know what you think – email me at [email protected]. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.