Spotify’s chief content officer Ken Parks has claimed that the royalties that record labels currently pay out to artists are “all over the place”.

He explained that as a company, Spotify treats all labels equally in terms of the amounts they pay out in royalties but this doesn’t always transfer directly to artists.

"We don't want any artist who's signed to label x to feel cheated because they're getting paid less for exploitation on Spotify," Parks said

"What that artist's deal is with that label is a different matter. But in terms of how we treat those payouts? We feel they should be the same.

"We don't really know too much about individual contracts, but from what we know [label streaming payouts to artists] are kind of all over the place. That I think is not sustainable long term."

“Advantages shouldn't be gained on any side based on how smart your lawyer was", adding that it's "a fact of business life that that oftentimes is the case, but that probably shouldn't be these radical differences between payouts from Beggars Group for instance or label x".

"We don't think that's a great thing either.”