A study from the Oxford Internet Institute and the University of Groningen surveyed approximately 1,200 musicians across five countries and found a pattern the researchers call a “streaming paradox”: artists say digital platforms are essential for visibility, but that the income streaming generates remains out of reach for most.
The report, titled “Musicians at Work in the Platform and AI Era” and co-authored by Dr Femke de Rijk and Dr Robert Prey, draws on a survey of 1,198 musicians conducted in collaboration with IPSOS in March 2025, followed by 27 follow-up interviews in November 2025. The five countries studied were Brazil, Chile, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and South Korea.
What the survey found
The central finding is a shared contradiction: nearly all surveyed musicians agreed that streaming platforms are now necessary for their careers, and nearly all agreed those platforms do not pay enough. The study also found that artists face growing pressure to function as content creators — posting, engaging, and promoting across social media — not only to build audiences but simply to remain discoverable.
The country-level differences, however, are the study’s most striking finding. In Nigeria, 83% of musicians surveyed said their careers had improved since streaming became dominant. In the Netherlands, just 14% said the same. The report also documents differences across genres and between generations, though it does not specify which genres or age brackets showed the largest divergences in the published summary.
Dr Robert Prey, Associate Professor of Digital Culture at the Oxford Internet Institute and co-author of the report, is quoted in the OII’s announcement: “Artists rely on digital platforms to be seen, to grow their audiences, and to stay relevant. Our report shows that while streaming and social media contribute very little to artists’ actual income, the work they require is changing what it means to be a musician. These changes generate different reactions in different countries around the world.”
Context and framing
The researchers interpret the Nigeria-Netherlands gap as evidence that economic context, cultural expectations, and baseline career conditions shape how musicians respond to the same platform structures. In countries where the pre-streaming industry was more accessible to a wider range of artists, the shift to platform-mediated distribution may have reduced income that once existed. In markets where formal recording industry infrastructure was historically limited, streaming may represent net new reach and revenue, even at low per-stream rates.
The research is conducted as part of the PlatforMuse project, a five-year initiative running from 2023 to 2028 and funded by the European Research Council. The project is based at the University of Groningen. The OII notes that the study is intentionally focused on countries outside the UK and the US — markets where most prior research on the streaming economy has been concentrated.
What the study does not settle
The published summary does not report the exact distribution of streaming income as a share of total musician income, nor does it name the specific platforms assessed. The 83%-versus-14% figure on career improvement is notable, but the study does not claim to identify a single cause for the difference. The researchers frame it as a prompt for further investigation into how culture and economic context mediate platform effects — not as a conclusion about platform policy.
The report does not extend its findings to the UK or US, and the researchers do not draw policy recommendations from the cross-country data in the public-facing summary. Further findings are available in the full report, which the OII says is accessible via its site.
The study arrives as debates over streaming royalty rates and the role of algorithmic curation in determining artist income have continued in multiple jurisdictions, including the UK, France, and South Korea — three of the five countries represented in the research.