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Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

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Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#111

Post by lucb1e »

thirdsun wrote: post #84
lucb1e wrote: post #79

As a paying Spotify member, practices like these only make me want to switch to DRM-free music more. Blackmailing artists with "we won't promote you if you don't lower your prices" and wasting half a million on 2 weeks of exclusivity. That's not what I'm paying them for; I pay them because I want to compensate artists.

> I pay them because I want to compensate artists. You're paying the wrong people then. If you want to help artists buy their music instead of renting it from streaming services, which may lose access to it at any time.

> If you want to help artists buy their music instead of renting it from streaming services

I'd be paying twice: the artists themselves and the streaming service (which gives part to the artist again).

From my all-time favorites I did try buying directly, but they usually don't even have a contact method other than through the label or on a public channel like Twitter. And if I manage to send an email, they don't bother with individuals and just ignore it. Only a few artists have online shops where you can buy directly.

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#112

Post by tjoff »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #110
tjoff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood it correctly about 50% (old and perhaps quite obsolete figure) of the monthly fee goes to labels and artists. That sounds reasonable to me, and given that that means roughly $5 goes directly to labels and artists from my subscription. A Spotify subscription is more than I have ever paid for music, even half of it is - and the moment I stop my subscription I loose access to all of it. To me it sounds l…

I'm not sure I understand. The numbers I quoted were for someone not signed to a label. They get the stream rate that Spotify sets. Your original question was do artists not make much money because of bad deals with labels. The numbers clearly show that they don't make much money even if a label isn't involved because stream rates are less than 1¢ and subscription prices are very low.

It isn't hard to imagine that spotify needs to recoup the costs lost by having to please the labels. My point was that I'm paying a fair price and Spotify are relaying a fair share of that.

Now where the money actually ends up seems to be up to the labels.

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#113

Post by btschaegg »

andymurd wrote: post #88
dom96 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While i have discovered a couple good songs in Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist, i do find it a common occurrence nowadays that songs which i have listened to in the past are included. Does anyone else have that experience? Perhaps Spotify is just having a really hard time finding music related to my tastes?

Discover weekly is the reason that I pay for Spotify. I'm an old guy that prefers vinyl to mp3s, misses the local record store terribly and hates radio, so modern music distribution sucks for me. I first tried Spotify many years ago, back when playlists were quite new. At the time, I was living in the UK and a big user of last.fm but, out of curiosity, I spent an afternoon building one playlist out of the few tracks…

Funnily enough, Discover Weekly almost never works for me. I like the overall service Spotify provides, but the discovery features don't really cut it for me.

As an example, I usually don't really like most music that goes into the house, techno, electronica or even dubstep directions. Most songs I find to be horribly repetitive and lacking in good buildup/melodies. However, there are exceptions I can enjoy very well (say the Soundtrack to Tron Legacy[1] or a few tracks from Overwerk).

But after listening to stuff like this, Spotify keeps recommending the other kind to me, which I just find tiresome.

I've got the same problems with other music directions (Tool and Rishloo vs. countless rather dull prog rock tracks, or black metal recommendations after listening to In Flames/Dark Tranquility).

The whole artist radio does the same for me. If I start it up, it's because I'm interested in more similarities than "well, it's ordered in in the same genre somewhere"...

[1]: Yes, I'm aware that has pretty much nothing to do with what Daft Punk usually do, but that's frankly the reason I like it.

Edit:

An interesting thing, come to think of it, is that Spotify never recommends classical music to me in their "Discover Weekly" list, although I do listen quite a bit to such recordings. I wonder if this is because they realized that "Classical Music" as a genre is mostly not good at all (I don't know how many people who like Vivaldi's music would also like Arvo Pärt's works as much, but I doubt that they're in different internal genres in the Spotify database).

Other explanations could also be that such recordings don't make enough "buzz" or that the attribuition to specific composers is more difficult (since the performing musician/orchestra is usually included as "artist").

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#114

Post by Freak_NL »

lucb1e wrote: post #108
virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to compensate artists, buy their albums on Bandcamp. If they're not on Bandcamp, tell them to get on :)

It doesn't scale to seek them all out individually. I've tried this in the past but it just doesn't work. Usually they don't even have a proper contact method other than through the label or a public channel like Twitter.

If enough fans ask for it you can be sure that someone in their entourage will pick up the signals (and either act on or ignore them). For smaller acts you can usually find a direct way to contact them somewhere on their website.

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#115

Post by guitarbill »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #20
SteveNuts wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the convenience of having access to an effectively unlimited music library, on demand, for a flat cost per month. I can see how it would be a fun hobby to curate your own collection, but for me it's really hard to beat services like Spotify, Steam, Netflix - DRM or not.

I like Netflix and Spotify, but dislike Steam. I just find it different to rent me content transparently, eg Netflix and Spotify, versus rent-by-pretending-to-sell, eg Steam. If you sell me something, I should be able to use and transfer it at my discretion without your permission. Steam, instead, leases you something on no fixed term and presumably without any guaranteed lifetime.

By the time Steam goes out of business, several things might have happened:

* I'll have stopped gaming

* Most games need emulating because they won't run on our hardware in the future

* The games are dirt cheap to buy on GOG

* Someone will release a pirated collection most of them

So I'm not too worried about my personal Steam collection. Preservation, that's a different story...

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#116

Post by Freak_NL »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #20
SteveNuts wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the convenience of having access to an effectively unlimited music library, on demand, for a flat cost per month. I can see how it would be a fun hobby to curate your own collection, but for me it's really hard to beat services like Spotify, Steam, Netflix - DRM or not.

I like Netflix and Spotify, but dislike Steam. I just find it different to rent me content transparently, eg Netflix and Spotify, versus rent-by-pretending-to-sell, eg Steam. If you sell me something, I should be able to use and transfer it at my discretion without your permission. Steam, instead, leases you something on no fixed term and presumably without any guaranteed lifetime.

Interesting. For me Netflix and Steam are completely acceptable(ish), but Spotify is right out.

With Netflix the backlog situation (region blocks, limited catalogue) is pretty dismal, but with Netflix at least I know that a good part of my money goes to creating content.

With Steam most of the money ends up with the developers, again supporting content creation. I do buy games if, and only if, I find the price is right for playing the game once (or for a couple of weeks, depending on the type of game). If my Steam library is still accessible in ten years time than that is an added bonus. I do admit that a lot of the games I buy come with a Steam key, but are purchased from DRM-free stores (e.g., Humble Store).

But music is a completely different beast. If I like a song or an album, then there is a good chance that I will listen to it periodically for a good deal of my life. I buy music for keeps. With Spotify my money doesn't end with the content creators themselves for the most part, and I don't get to keep the music. It just doesn't work for me.

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#117

Post by golergka »

andymurd wrote: post #88
dom96 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While i have discovered a couple good songs in Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist, i do find it a common occurrence nowadays that songs which i have listened to in the past are included. Does anyone else have that experience? Perhaps Spotify is just having a really hard time finding music related to my tastes?

Discover weekly is the reason that I pay for Spotify. I'm an old guy that prefers vinyl to mp3s, misses the local record store terribly and hates radio, so modern music distribution sucks for me. I first tried Spotify many years ago, back when playlists were quite new. At the time, I was living in the UK and a big user of last.fm but, out of curiosity, I spent an afternoon building one playlist out of the few tracks…

> I was/am into house and techno but the tracks were not yet available on Spotify back then

That's a very common problem - a lot of tracks are unavailable anywhere except Beatport and Juno, and even more are on vinyl-only releases.

I have actually subscribed to Apple Music just a few hours ago, after spending couple of hours trying to give Spotify money from a non-supported country with no avail. And, of course, the music selection is... limited, for a lack of a better word.

Is Spotify better in that regard?

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#118

Post by btschaegg »

lando2319 wrote: post #102
dom96 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While i have discovered a couple good songs in Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist, i do find it a common occurrence nowadays that songs which i have listened to in the past are included. Does anyone else have that experience? Perhaps Spotify is just having a really hard time finding music related to my tastes?

I've noticed they added "daily mixes", these are on the Home tab, these are playlist made up of songs within your collection, grouped by genre, then they add new songs, based on that, that they anticipate you will like. Also I noticed if you're listening to a playlist when it ends it will automatically start a Radio based on the songs within that playlist. I love the Alexa and Google Home Integrations.

> Also I noticed if you're listening to a playlist when it ends it will automatically start a Radio based on the songs within that playlist.

My phone has started doing that recently, which has left me puzzled a few times. I like listening to music at work, and while I'm concentrating on something, I don't really realize the playlist has run out until I get a track that really makes me wonder how I ended up listening to it.

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#119

Post by dilemma »

yladiz wrote: post #99

I would rather pay slightly more per month (let's say $12 USD rather than the current $10) than pay the artists less, even if the effect is relatively small due to the labels taking so much cut out of the payout. But in any case, I do believe that the way Spotify will be able to have real leverage is for it to start being their own label, not just getting exclusive content. I feel like it would be cheaper to just bri…

Yes. They should buy Soundcloud and set up a semi-automated publishing system for that pipeline. That's a new generation of artists that the corporate labels have no way of reaching, generally. Some of that IP will be enormously valuable, like seed equity.

Re: Spotify is gaining leverage over record labels

#120

Post by Vinnl »

iUsedToCode wrote: post #72

Spotify is the only content provider i pay for gladly, due to their Family accounts and Discover Weekly. I listen to music 5-6h a day now, all for dirt cheap (less than $2/month/person). I wish somebody would do the same for video content. Right now you have to subscribe to many different providers to get all the good content. So pirating is still more convenient and i still download rather than just pay a small, fix…

I really hope the music industry isn't going that way as well...
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