Even as the industry it dominates gets a little more crowded, Spotify revealed late last week that it now has 75 million users.  Of those, the streaming music provider says, 20 million are paid subscribers, nearly double the number from a year ago.  The company also revealed it has paid out more than $3 billion to artists and labels for the right to stream their music.  The news comes on the heels of Spotify's latest fund-raising effort, in which it pulled in $526 million.  Spotify still clearly dominates the still-evolving music streaming space, which recently welcomed a pair of promising competitors.  Apple announced its new streaming service on June 30th, developed uot of the remnants of Dr. Dre's Beats Audio which it purchased last year.  And hip-hop mugul Jay-Z recently relaunched a service called Tidal, which hopes to distinguish itself among streaming companies by offering higher-quality audio files and higher payouts for artists.

In addition to new competitors effectively shrinking the streaming market, Spotify is facing the challenge of artists who are unhappy with their compensation for Spotify streams.  Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson are among the artists that have recently pull3ed their music from Spotify's catalog, and Apple made sure to point out that Swift was available on their service when they unveiled it last week.  To prevent future artist defections, Spotify has been actively posting on social media and other press outlets about its latest fundraising round and its payout history.