YouTube Payouts to Music Industry Surpass $8 Billion in 12 Months

YouTube announced it paid over $8 billion to the global music industry between July 2024 and June 2025, marking its largest annual payout to date and a significant increase from $6 billion in 2022. This growth reflects YouTube's successful dual revenue model combining advertising and subscription income, supported by over 125 million Music and Premium subscribers and two billion logged-in monthly music video viewers worldwide. The platform's payouts benefit a wide range of rights-holders including artists, labels, publishers, and songwriters, with revenue also generated from user-generated content like covers and remixes, which is a unique advantage for YouTube. Despite this milestone, debates continue around how fairly these earnings are distributed among independent musicians compared to other streaming services such as Spotify, which reported a $10 billion payout in 2024. YouTube's global footprint spans over 100 countries and supports 80 languages, helping artists monetize music on an unprecedented scale. The company aims to become the top revenue source for the music industry, with music accounting for roughly 28% of its total payouts to creators, artists, and media organizations over the past four years.