Where do the profits of Deezer go to? How ethical is it? Do profits go to Trump administration or any other politicians or to cause other human rights violations
Executive summary
Deezer is a Paris‑based, publicly listed music streaming service whose revenues are distributed across operating costs, royalty payments and returns to investors; the company publishes a Code of Ethics and has made public moves toward an “artist‑centric” royalty model [1] [2] [3]. None of the provided reporting documents or disclosures link Deezer’s profits to the Trump administration, named U.S. politicians, or to financing human‑rights abuses; community forum claims that a large U.S. investor “owns ~38%” of Deezer appear unverified in these sources and should be treated as anecdote [4] [5].
1. What Deezer earns and where those revenues are allocated
Deezer is a commercial streaming service that generates revenue from subscriptions and advertising and is required by financial and market rules to disclose share and voting‑rights information as a publicly listed company on Euronext Paris [1] [5]. Like other streamers, its gross income is allocated to operating expenses (staff, R&D, platform costs), licensing and royalties to labels and publishers, and to investors or retained earnings; recent reporting highlights specific shifts in how Deezer calculates and pays royalties — notably its artist‑centric deals and exclusions of “functional sounds” from royalty pools — which redistribute a greater share to certain rightsholders [3].
2. Corporate governance, ethics and public commitments
Deezer publishes a formal Code of Ethics that emphasizes transparency and open communication, and the company maintains an investor relations and governance page describing its leadership and finance functions, signaling an intent to follow corporate‑governance norms for a listed firm [2] [6]. Independent coverage portrays Deezer as positioning itself as a smaller, more artist‑friendly alternative to larger platforms, advancing features for algorithmic transparency and experimenting with rights and payout structures [7] [1]. These are policy choices and public relations positions that speak to corporate intent, not definitive proof of fully ethical practice in every dimension.
3. Royalties and artist‑centred policy changes — ethics in practice
Deezer has publicly negotiated artist‑centric deals (for example with Universal and the French PRO SACEM) and has taken steps to exclude certain “noise” or “functional” tracks from the general royalty pool, reallocating payouts in ways the company says favor artists with active listeners [3]. Critics and supporters debate whether such models are more equitable in aggregate; reporting from The Independent and Billboard shows the company is responding to regulatory pressure and industry criticism about how streaming platforms pay creators [8] [3]. These changes are material evidence of an ethical posture toward creators, though independent audits and longitudinal data would be required to measure outcomes.
4. Ownership, investor claims, and unverified assertions about political donations
Public filings disclose Deezer’s share counts and voting‑rights details, consistent with Euronext listing obligations, but the provided documents do not identify any payments or political donations to the Trump administration or specific politicians [5]. A community forum post claims roughly 38% U.S. ownership, but that is an anecdotal thread on a user forum and not a verified corporate disclosure in the provided reporting; it cannot be relied on as proof that Deezer’s profits are flowing to U.S. political actors [4]. No source in the set links Deezer’s profits to financing human‑rights violations or to donations to political campaigns, and the company’s own ethics and investor pages make no such admissions [2] [6].
5. Caveats, alternative viewpoints and what remains unknown
The available sources document corporate policy commitments, investor disclosures and coverage of royalty reform, but they do not offer forensic accounting tracing of ultimate profit beneficiaries or political donations; absence of such evidence in these sources is not definitive proof that none exist, only that the provided reporting does not document them [5] [2] [3]. Alternative viewpoints include consumer and activist skepticism toward streaming platforms’ opaque revenue flows, and forum posts that allege foreign or U.S. investor influence [4] [7]. To establish any direct financial ties to specific politicians or human‑rights abuses would require party‑by‑party donation records, audited ownership breakdowns and investigative accounting not present in the supplied material.