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The Internet Saved the Record Labels

bloomberg.com

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Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#21

Post by schrijver »

teampondobo wrote: post #2

Honestly, I did not see the paid streaming model succeeding. But damn did Spotify and Beats/Apple knock that out of the park. I wonder if the younger generation even considers illegal downloading or if they just go straight to the streaming platforms?

From anecdotal observations: Where I live everything‘s streaming for people under 35, because it’s so convenient. I do imagine it depends on whether your region has affordable and quick cellular internet access.

There are also download stores (DRM-free and lossless, which didn’t exist in file sharing’s prime days), which are popular with music enthousiasts and DJ’s. Coincidentally these also seem to be the people still using file sharing platforms to track down remixes and demo’s etc. that were never released commercially. However most users who need MP3’s for some reason or another (dj’ing at a house party, a trip with with bad cellular reception) nowadays use websites that rip from Youtube. It’s become such a rare event that people wouldn’t bother downloading software for it for example.

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#22

Post by teknopaul »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #6
0898 wrote: post #5

You see record labels promoting new albumns on posters and billboards - with the call to action being to listen on Spotify. How can that make financial sense if they're not even getting a penny a stream?

Who said you could only do things that make financial sense? If you believe it does, then the answer can only be that the costs of the advertising are covered by revenue from other sources. A simple model is: 1. Taylor Swift advertises a new album, which everyone listens to for free on Spotify. 2. Taylor Swift is beloved by the people, who have all heard her album. 3. Taylor Swift makes a lot of money selling concert…

The point of the article is people do pay to listen to Taylor Swift on Spotify. Now, and more so predicted in the future.

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#23

Post by 3xblah »

dexen wrote: post #16
3xblah wrote: post #4

Is Bloomberg blocking the Internet Archive? http://web.archive.org/web/20190206043030/https://www.bloomb...

>We've detected unusual activity from your computer network To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot. Looks more like automated protection against scrapping, or perhaps DDoS-like access patterns. Bloomberg certainly could, and ought to, add an exception for Archive.org, but iI wouldn't read any nefarious intent to the current state of affairs. On the other hand, Archive.is and similar…

It looks like they may be using Perimeterx Bot Defender.

Note Bloomberg is not blocking any access without Javascript or cookies enabled.

Perimeterx is a service that purports to stop "bots" by using heuristics to produce a "risk score". The result is that it allows some bots (e.g. Googlebot) and blocks others (e.g. Archive.org_bot). It gives preferential treatment to some http clients such as Chrome while blocking others such as curl or wget. Not only that, as you mention, these blocks are bypassed simply by using an open redirect.

The page you quoted is telling the user to enable Javascript and cookies, making it sound like that is the reason for the block. The truth is that javascript is only needed so the user can solve captchas and send data to Google. One does not need JS or cookies enabled to read Bloomberg articles.

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#24

Post by tyingq »

Sounds something like "reduce search and purchase friction and people will stop pirating your stuff".

Seems like the fragmentation for video streaming is heading in the opposite direction. Too many different providers, and too much unwanted behavior, like the Netflix autoplay anything you hover over feature.

Is there a "amount of pirate downloading" history chart somewhere?

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#25

Post by tremon »

teknopaul wrote: post #22
thaumasiotes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said you could only do things that make financial sense? If you believe it does, then the answer can only be that the costs of the advertising are covered by revenue from other sources. A simple model is: 1. Taylor Swift advertises a new album, which everyone listens to for free on Spotify. 2. Taylor Swift is beloved by the people, who have all heard her album. 3. Taylor Swift makes a lot of money selling concert…

The point of the article is people do pay to listen to Taylor Swift on Spotify. Now, and more so predicted in the future.

I don't think Spotify's revenue model allows for billing per song? FAFAIK people's listening habits have no impact on their Spotify bill, so it's more accurate to say that people pay for having access to Taylor Swift's songs.

It's the catalog that drives the revenue, not the listening metrics. I'm sure the metrics are important for Spotify's market position, as they drive its licensing fees and negotiating position. But as the parent says, people don't pay extra for listening to Swift's new album instead of the previous.

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#26

Post by KozmoNau7 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #15
coldtea wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes financial sense by being a loss-leader product, which the make up with tshirts, ticket sales, lunch boxes, and whatever the kids buy from singers these days...

yeah but don't the artists make that money? I thought it was the albums etc. the record companies made the money on. Of course they probably also put the promotional stuff of the billboards into a list of things the artist needs to pay them for.

Some bands handle their own merchandising, in which case they get all the profit. But most bands that reach a certain level either hire a dedicated merch partner or have their record label handle it, who take a certain cut of the profits.

Using a merch partner/label can be useful, because they have better deals on bulk purchases on t-shirts and so on, which may or may not be worth it for the artists.

The best way to support artists is still to attend their shows and buy some merch while you're there. Online shops, payment processors etc. all take a cut, so direct physical sales are best for the artist.

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#27

Post by ReptileMan »

tyingq wrote: post #24

Sounds something like "reduce search and purchase friction and people will stop pirating your stuff". Seems like the fragmentation for video streaming is heading in the opposite direction. Too many different providers, and too much unwanted behavior, like the Netflix autoplay anything you hover over feature. Is there a "amount of pirate downloading" history chart somewhere?

A common story - when we started making bigger money we started buying games. True among my circle of friends.

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#28

Post by ReptileMan »

teampondobo wrote: post #2

Honestly, I did not see the paid streaming model succeeding. But damn did Spotify and Beats/Apple knock that out of the park. I wonder if the younger generation even considers illegal downloading or if they just go straight to the streaming platforms?

Judging by the "great payouts" to artists Spotify is probably making content creators just slightly more money than pirate sites.

So probably some middlemen get fatter, but not sure it is better for the music and culture.

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#29

Post by ReptileMan »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #19
naivefool wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the spotify model is artists share = total spotify payments * (total number of this artists plays / total number of listens to all artists) so if i only listen to 5 artists but they are some of the least listened to artists then they get basically none of my money and taylor swift, beyonce etc. get it all... what is worse spofity have been gamin gthe numbers to make sure even more money goes to a few big players.…

Yes, they pool all payments, then portion out according to the share of plays compared to the total number of plays on the platform. That obviously favors popular artists, but it is a reasonable way of portioning payment, based on absolute popularity. Exactly as with traditional record sales, highly popular artists get the lion's share of the total revenue. In that sense, they payment scheme behind Spotify is absolut…

No. Reasonable is to split each individual sub proportionally to the artists listened by it. If I listened only to Gojira and Satyricon this month - I want them to take my mpney and spotify their cut, not Cardi B.

Re: The Internet Saved the Record Labels

#30

Post by jdietrich »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #14
isostatic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend more on Spotify than I ever did on buying music, so someone’s winning

Conversely, I used to spend $75-100/month on CDs and downloads before I signed up for Spotify Premium, so I do save money. People like me are probably outliers in the grand scope of streaming vs buying, though. I still buy a lot of music from sites like Bandcamp, to support artists directly, especially after learning how small of a cut the artists get from streaming services. Someone's winning from the average person…

Back in the noughties, the British record industry talked a lot about "fifty quid blokes" - professional middle-aged men who would leave work on Friday, go into HMV or Borders and buy a couple of CDs, a DVD and a book, totalling about £50. They were very well known in retail and were catered to with music magazines like Q, Mojo and The Word. They were hugely important to the record industry (hence all the classic rock reissues at that time), but their spending has mostly dried up thanks to streaming. £20 a month for Spotify and Netflix is a bargain compared to what they were spending on physical media.

I think it's fairly clear from the revenue numbers that the move to streaming has been a net loss for the recording industry. If they are to sustain the growth in paid streaming and return to 1990s levels of revenue, they need to either substantially grow the overall market for paid streaming or substantially increase subscription fees. The big problem they face is segmentation - there's no practical way of charging a hardcore music fan $40/mo and a casual listener $10/mo for the same unlimited service.

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