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Addressing Spotify’s Claims

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Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#171

Post by newdoctrine »

mehrdadn wrote: post #53
epai wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this infographic (linked below), it seems like Apple Music does give more average revenue per play than Spotify, $0.0060 for vs $0.0044. But in general, Apple Music isn’t _that_ much better than the rest where paying artists goes. It lags far below tidal, for example, which doles out $0.0125 per play on average. https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/spotify-ap...

Holy cow. So you have to play a song 227 times for the artist to make a dollar off the song? Any idea what it's like for just buying the song on Amazon?

Long time reader, first post.

It’s actually more plays than that because Spotify also takes 30% of each stream payout, so it’s odd they would also complain about a 30% mechanical.

The premium accounts payout more per stream than freemium accounts.

This is also assuming the artist owns the master recording outright, wrote the entire song, and administers their own publishing and mechanical royalties. The latter being almost impossible.

More than likely if signed to a label, they will get 10% of sales, the label will get the rest. This is based on traditional album deals where you get 1 point per song. If they are also published, the publisher takes half of their performance royalties, a mere 6-7 percent of stream payout. Also the PRO(ASCAP, BMI, etc) recieves half of the mechanicals, another measly 6-7 percent. To be clear if you don’t speak music payment terms. The people that own the publishing AKA the people that actually write the song, and administer that published writing only get 12-16% per stream payout(not fair). When labels receive around 48%-58% per stream payout, this is for a specialized business loan that pays for the recording + marketing and distribution(way too much). Not to mention this loan has to be totally recouped before the artist sees any of that 10 percent, if they ever do.

To sell anything on Amazon, you are charged $40/month for a professional account, or they have an under 40 item plan with a listing fee of $.99 per item. An additional 15% is taken by them on music sales. So if you have less than 40 songs you pay $.99 a month to list them each.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#172

Post by kkarakk »

thegayngler wrote: post #85
infinity0 wrote: post #15

> What Spotify is demanding is something very different. After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem — including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers — without making any contributions to that marketplace. Please Apple, pay all the open source projects that you use, a fair share of the reven…

Wow! Thats a new one. Pay the open source world who Apple have been heavy contributors to themselves. Apple are such hypocrites indeed.

Forget open source - Apple rips off ideas from devs-and subsequently dumpstering their apps coz why buy an enhancement when your device does it already?- on their platform so commonly there is even a term for it - getting "sherlocked"

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#173

Post by vanderZwan »

hjk05 wrote: post #160
ahmedalsudani wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not exactly. You're free to buy from other stores, and suppliers can sell to them. A very important distinction.

Same story with phones. You are free to buy from other suppliers. But you can’t walk into a Walmart and buy milk from whole foods on their shelf’s, even if you feel that would be great for you personally because Walmart is closer but you prefer Whole Foods.

No, that is not the same story. Physical stores can be swapped out on a whim. Phones are something you change at most every couple of years (and hopefully last even longer, if you give a damn about the environment).

Actually, the "Walmart is a choice" claim also only holds up if there actually are multiple stores nearby, because who is going to drive fifty miles to the next store? Food deserts are a thing.

This is a false idea of "choice" and it is just yet another way producers and sellers try to shift responsibility to the end consumer who is largely powerless in most cases.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#174

Post by mgoetzke »

What about the fact that Apple Music does not compete fairly ? They provide music services like Spotify, if they where a different company they would have to pay and play by the same rules. They do not or do they ? I have no trouble with free apps by the OS developer. But once you have to pay they must compete with alternatives.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#175

Post by ninedays »

askmike wrote: post #157
close04 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has ~15% market share (fluctuating) so it's not really a monopoly situation. Google will give you access to the exact same Spotify service. Whether what Apple is doing is legal or not I guess the courts will decide. But it's certainly factually incorrect to imply that you're not free to buy from anywhere else.

The Apple Store has 100% market share on all iPhones, iPads and iWatches. I really don't see this being that much different from the famous United States v. Microsoft Corp. case[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... . EDIT: comments have made clear that Windows had a monopoly on the personal computer space, whereas Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the smartphone or tablet space.

Although I don't disagree, the difference was that Microsoft had a monopoly on computing. Not just on PC but take computing as a whole and microsoft was hugely dominant. From a legal standpoint there is a huge difference.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#176

Post by emsy »

I've mentioned this in a reply but I think it's worth pointing out as its own comment to gather thoughts on this: What if Microsoft would take 30% of every transaction that is done via Windows? And if the sellers don't comply they gets kicked off the platform. That's essentially what Apple is doing, but I'm pretty sure if Microsoft was the one doing it the would be far fewer apologists.

In fact, I very much think Microsofts business model, that is decades old, is far better for customers and developers, and helped Microsoft become so successful in the first place. Microsoft provides a platform for others to make money on. The profit their customers make on Windows exceeds Microsoft's by an inestimable factor. I'm not aware that MS ever provided a case for regulation on that basis, and I think that's worth pointing out.

If your company controls a platform that affects a sizeable part of the population, it should not be able to act on their whim. And if the company doesn't play fair it needs to be regulated.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#177

Post by Sholmesy »

ulfw wrote: post #94
jraedisch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the problem was, that their own apps do not have to pay 30%, so they can easily replace any app with their own, if they choose to.

But that's a too simple way to look at it. I am not trying to defend the 30%, but just saying 'their own apps do not have to pay 30%, so they can easily replace any app with their own' doesn't go far enough. They got two options: a) make a 30% on $10/month from Spotify -> $3 in Apple's bag for no work or effort at all. Almost pure profit. b) sell their own music solution for $10/month (INSTEAD of that customer going…

  $3 in Apple's bag for no work or effort at all
I agree with most of what you said, but come on. Running (one of?) the biggest software distribution and payment processing systems on the planet is hardly "no work or effort at all".

This is the same sort of rhetoric that calls dropbox a weekend project.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#178

Post by [deleted] »

close04 wrote: post #139
ahmedalsudani wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not exactly. You're free to buy from other stores, and suppliers can sell to them. A very important distinction.

Apple has ~15% market share (fluctuating) so it's not really a monopoly situation. Google will give you access to the exact same Spotify service. Whether what Apple is doing is legal or not I guess the courts will decide. But it's certainly factually incorrect to imply that you're not free to buy from anywhere else.

[deleted]

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#179

Post by close04 »

askmike wrote: post #157
close04 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has ~15% market share (fluctuating) so it's not really a monopoly situation. Google will give you access to the exact same Spotify service. Whether what Apple is doing is legal or not I guess the courts will decide. But it's certainly factually incorrect to imply that you're not free to buy from anywhere else.

The Apple Store has 100% market share on all iPhones, iPads and iWatches. I really don't see this being that much different from the famous United States v. Microsoft Corp. case[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... . EDIT: comments have made clear that Windows had a monopoly on the personal computer space, whereas Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the smartphone or tablet space.

MS had a monopoly in the personal computer industry. Apple does not have one in the mobile industry. By this logic Mercedes has a monopoly on all Mercedes cars but they're clearly not one in the auto industry. If Mercedes ever decides to ban or squeeze a supplier, monopoly will not be the argument to nail them.

I'm not saying Apple is right to do this. I'm saying the monopoly on their own product is not the correct argument. Apple is not a monopoly. If they lose this case it won't be based on this.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#180

Post by mehrdadn »

newdoctrine wrote: post #171
mehrdadn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow. So you have to play a song 227 times for the artist to make a dollar off the song? Any idea what it's like for just buying the song on Amazon?

Long time reader, first post. It’s actually more plays than that because Spotify also takes 30% of each stream payout, so it’s odd they would also complain about a 30% mechanical. The premium accounts payout more per stream than freemium accounts. This is also assuming the artist owns the master recording outright, wrote the entire song, and administers their own publishing and mechanical royalties. The latter being…

Damn, this sounds so brutal. Thank you for explaining.
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