Justice at Spotify

Here some photos of the demonstration: https://www.hotpress.com/music/union-of-musicians-and-allied...

This point is illegal in Norway, because you can’t make noise without applying for it first: “At the action:

DO make noise. We are musicians after all.”

Recommending people to do something illegal is also illegal, so it seems that the creators of this webpage is already breaking Norwegian law.

And Tordenskioldsgate 2 in Oslo/Norway is just a coworking space, so you only find employees from Spotify there a couple of times a year on events or meetings.

As a creator, relying on these platforms is problematic because they are the #1 target for Government taxation. Depending on the country, 20% of customer spend is swallowed up immediately by sales taxes. Another 30% is potentially swallowed up by Google and Apple.

The solution is really to go direct-to-consumer, through things like Crowdfunding (unfortunately Patreon now charges VAT). Though of course this adds a lot of overhead.

Alternatively, petition Governments to be leaner, and to increase retirement ages to 70 (pensions are the single major and fastest increasing Government expense), and to lower taxes (including sales taxes) with the savings.

Pressure on Google and Apple (via regulation) to reduce commissions is another avenue.

The record labels are a bigger problem than Spotify; they set the streaming prices and take a big cut.

The ask is 1p/stream. I'm not sure that that's actually sustainable without a massive rise in spotify prices, given the proportion of free users and even paid users that listen to more than 1000 tracks a month. If spotify raises prices, consumers go back to piracy. I'm not sure this will have the effect they want.

Let's imagine a radio station. Something medium sized, about a million listeners. They play a track. Are they paying 10,000 per play, which would be the equivalent rate? I suspect not.