MUMBAI: Sony Music has begun to distribute the $750 million in profit it collected from the April sale of 50 per cent of its Spotify shares to the artistes and distributed labels within the Sony system.

Sony Music executives are calling the disbursement the ‘Spotify windfall’, reports variety.com.

Sony, which held 5.7 per cent of Spotify's stock when the streaming service went public, will not count the funds against the artists' and label's unrecouped earnings.

It will be apportioned according to individual artiste and label contract terms and based on earnings over the last 10 years a" or since Sony's initial investment in the Swedish streaming upstart a" divisible against Sony's own revenues from the Spotify stock gain for that time period.

The cheques will arrive by the end of August as Sony had previously stated its commitment to sharing the sum with artists and distributed labels, variety.com reported.

Is this "off-cycle" payment essentially a gift?

"It's a completely voluntary payment," said Maverick's Larry Rudolph, whose management clients include Britney Spears, Aerosmith and Pitbull.

"In other words, had Sony not done this, nobody really could have complained. Theoretically, Sony got this equity on its own. But of course, they've recognized the fact that they couldn't have gotten it but for the artistes.

"And they made a wonderful decision to voluntarily share the wealth, which is rare in the music industry. So, I commend them highly on their decision."

(Source: IANS)