Thieves reveals he’s earned more investing in Spotify than in royalties

Recently, Spotify lost 42% of its market value, but the American, Australian-based DJ and producer Jared McFarlin, better known as Thieves (formerly Party Thieves), recently capitalised on its downward trend. He may have gained millions of streams on Spotify for his tracks such as ‘Chief’, ‘No Gravity’ and ‘Origin’, but the streaming service only offers approximately $0.004 per stream, which is barely viable for any artist to maintain a sustainable wage.

However, Thieves has successfully shorted Spotify stocks, as he explained in a since deleted tweet:

“I’ve made more money shorting Spotify this month than they’ve paid me in royalties thru [sic] my whole music career. Shorting Spotify stock is my new career it seems.”

The point of concern in this case, is that Thieves has apparently earned more income in just a few weeks from shorting stocks, as he has from his streaming royalties. In a recent interview with EDM.com, Thieves gives insight into his recent financial gain:

“It’s no secret that artists get paid very little by streaming services. For the people who read this as a complaint, it’s not—maybe it’s the solution. I’m very grateful for any and all opportunities I’ve had over my music career and money isn’t a driving factor. But when you contextualise what’s happening, music artists aren’t being paid more to do anything besides create music. So my suggestion: invest.”

Spotify had a closing share price of $300.95 USD at the beginning of November, but at the time of writing, it currently sits at $165.92 USD, nearly half of its value only months ago. It’s been a tumultuous period for the streaming giant, with $2 billion of its market value slashed due to Covid-19 misinformation, as well as the increase in artists demanding for their content to be entirely removed from the platform. Not to mention that they’ve delivered a bleak forecast for the amount of projected new subscribers. 

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