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Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

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Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#171

Post by dmitriid »

criley2 wrote: post #89
dmitriid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that advertising business is good and imploding ad business means privacy regulation is bad for small businesses in general? Besides, GDPR is an extension of similar laws that have existed for years .

* I didnt say ad business was good or bad, but from the perspective of a European I would want European firms competing against American firms and keeping money and talent in my borders to boost my communities. * I didn't say that imploding ad business means privacy regulation is bad for small business, but I did demonstrate that big regulation chokes out small business and strongly correlates with big business succe…

> I didnt say ad business was good or bad, but...

But that's the business you chose for your illustration.

> I didn't say that imploding ad business means privacy regulation is bad for small business, but ...

... you specifically talked about ad business alone and drew the conclusion that "big regulations create big business moats ... which demolish smaller businesses."

It's a good thing that GDPR destroyed ad business that existed only by selling user data without consent. And there's nothing big about GDPR. It's very small and easy to comply with.

If your business is built upon selling and profiting from user data without user's consent, good riddance. If not, GDPR doesn't affect you in the slightest.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#172

Post by dmitriid »

xtracerx wrote: post #140
TeMPOraL wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I literally cannot imagine supporting monopolies/oligopolies over healthy competition. Implicit in my post was that I don't want to support healthy competition in adtech, or any competition at all. I want this industry to disappear entirely. I have no tears for the small adtech businesses whose market got scooped up by Google; I only hope that by presenting a bigger target, Google's adtech activities will be easier…

So if I open a new small business and want to advertise it on AdWords or elsewhere on the internet I have no recourse? Word of mouth is random and unreliable even if you have a good product. Advertising is a healthy and essential signalling mechanism to broadcast the availability of a new service and there is absolutely nothing morally wrong with it in its self. The non-benneficial side-effects like extensive user tr…

> So if I open a new small business and want to advertise it on AdWords or elsewhere on the internet I have no recourse

Ad tech was extremely profitable before personalisation and wholesale trading of private data.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#173

Post by dmitriid »

lukeh wrote: post #70
dmitriid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These companies are not against independent artists. The big rights holders are. Allowing artists to upload directly is a legal clusterfuck of minefields and business risks (pardon the language): - what happens when an artist who is signed with Warner Music starts uploading their music directly? - what happens when the Big Three start viewing Spotify (or Google, or anyone, really) as their competitor in music distrib…

If you did the first thing, you’d be stupid, and in breach of your contract, just as if you shared it elsewhere. And it’d get taken down pretty quickly, algorithmically or not.

Ah, herein lies the devil in the details. The contracts may or may not specify worldwide distribution rights, may concern distribution rights in some countries only, may or may not leave leeway for the artist to distribute their own stuff etc. etc. etc.

It's a legal minefield, and the big three love it.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#174

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

cwkoss wrote: post #157
njl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify has internal fingerprinting stuff that can handle this easily enough. The shutdown is entirely due to pressure from the record labels. It's a shame; this was a surprisingly difficult product to get off the ground, and a lot of folks put in heroic efforts to make it work.

Music labels are strangling culture in America. Please pirate music to avoid funding music industry lobbyists in their efforts.

I donate lots of money monthly to my private music trackers because it's such a superior experience for music lovers, far better than Spotify and the like. I wish the labels would let these ecosystems emerge into the light, because I'd pay $100 a month for a legitimate version of Redacted...

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#175

Post by Jeff_Brown »

cwkoss wrote: post #157
njl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify has internal fingerprinting stuff that can handle this easily enough. The shutdown is entirely due to pressure from the record labels. It's a shame; this was a surprisingly difficult product to get off the ground, and a lot of folks put in heroic efforts to make it work.

Music labels are strangling culture in America. Please pirate music to avoid funding music industry lobbyists in their efforts.

Maybe labels are bad, but piracy is far worse for artists -- it reduces their incentive to produce. That's why, for instance, big bands have become such an endangered species. Almost nobody can afford to hire, say, a horn section today.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#176

Post by lukeh »

dmitriid wrote: post #173
lukeh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you did the first thing, you’d be stupid, and in breach of your contract, just as if you shared it elsewhere. And it’d get taken down pretty quickly, algorithmically or not.

Ah, herein lies the devil in the details. The contracts may or may not specify worldwide distribution rights, may concern distribution rights in some countries only, may or may not leave leeway for the artist to distribute their own stuff etc. etc. etc. It's a legal minefield, and the big three love it.

The contracts are long but clear (I’m on Universal).

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#177

Post by itronitron »

ptd wrote: post #168
creaghpatr wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently not, because it's number one streamed track "Old Town Road" never cleared the Nine Inch Nails sample it used. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/05/29/lil-nas-x-sample...

Think about it from the artist's point of view. What financial incentive does an unknown artist have to clear samples? On one end of the spectrum, you create a song using an uncleared sample and it goes nowhere. Nine Inch Nails never hears about your song, and neither does the public. On the other end of the spectrum, your song goes viral and makes you one of the most popular artists in the country. Even if Nine Inch…

You make an excellent point, and even if the song goes viral they are still unlikely to make any money from the song itself, regardless of whether they cleared samples. Presumably any physical merchandise they sell is clear of anyone else's copyright.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#178

Post by logfromblammo »

magduf wrote: post #153
criley2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It keeps happening with their draconian regulations. After the privacy/data protection bill, I hear that the european market for online advertising imploded trying to meet regulations and Google Ads gobbled up some 30-40% more market share in Europe. It came down to the fact that Google was able to meet the regulations fastest, and achieve informed user consent across a wide userbase dramatically faster than small lo…

Yep, we see this in government contracting too: selling stuff to the government, or bidding on government contracts, means jumping through all kinds of crazy hoops. So small firms for the most part don't bother, and the only companies that do are ones (usually large ones) that are specialized for that task, but can't compete in the private sector, so people wonder why toilet seats cost $600. The only companies willin…

Such as, for instance, a business 51% owned by a disabled, veteran, and Native American woman, that takes a percentage and then subcontracts all their work to a public company controlled by old, able-bodied, and white men.

Working the system yields better profit than doing the actual work.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#179

Post by munk-a »

logifail wrote: post #138
criley2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, America has a long history of busting monopolies, and while we haven't gone on a busting spree this generation, we're awfully close to doing the one thing that Europe would never, ever be able to accomplish: Break up companies like Google and Facebook. (As this thread demonstrates, Europeans would potentially be against us doing so, and would be pro-monopoly?) I actually think the Google reorgan…

> we haven't gone on a busting spree this generation, we're awfully close to [..] break[ing] up companies like Google and Facebook Source?

Don't you recall when we got really close to breaking up microsoft? I mean, in the end we didn't, but we sure did send a lot of _very_ strongly worded letters.

Outside of tech there are a lot of anti-competitive practices that have been left to grow while the cops been off the beat - I'd love to see the Pharma industry shaken up especially with PBM & Manufacturer relationships... additionally, Walmart.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#180

Post by sfifs »

dmitriid wrote: post #172
xtracerx wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I open a new small business and want to advertise it on AdWords or elsewhere on the internet I have no recourse? Word of mouth is random and unreliable even if you have a good product. Advertising is a healthy and essential signalling mechanism to broadcast the availability of a new service and there is absolutely nothing morally wrong with it in its self. The non-benneficial side-effects like extensive user tr…

> So if I open a new small business and want to advertise it on AdWords or elsewhere on the internet I have no recourse Ad tech was extremely profitable before personalisation and wholesale trading of private data.

> Ad tech was extremely profitable

That was the era when marketers were dumb, drank the internet look aid and were taken for a ride by the industry. That's not quite true anymore.

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