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Justice at Spotify

unionofmusicians.org

11–20 of 405 posts

Re: Justice at Spotify

#11

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…

Working till 70? Gosh I don't think that's realistic

Re: Justice at Spotify

#12
post #7

#abolishcopyright. Musicians if you’re listening, find a different way to earn a living than depending upon the enslavement of ideas (and by extension, individuals). Copyright is abhorrent, and needs to go. There are better ways.

This is an interesting take I haven't heard much before. Could you expand on what the alternatives are?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#14
post #7

#abolishcopyright. Musicians if you’re listening, find a different way to earn a living than depending upon the enslavement of ideas (and by extension, individuals). Copyright is abhorrent, and needs to go. There are better ways.

[deleted]

Re: Justice at Spotify

#15
post #7

#abolishcopyright. Musicians if you’re listening, find a different way to earn a living than depending upon the enslavement of ideas (and by extension, individuals). Copyright is abhorrent, and needs to go. There are better ways.

You'll have to enlighten me. What are the better ways? Why should you not own copyright to that which you produce?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#16
post #7

#abolishcopyright. Musicians if you’re listening, find a different way to earn a living than depending upon the enslavement of ideas (and by extension, individuals). Copyright is abhorrent, and needs to go. There are better ways.

Well, in the article it says that they are doing this partly because coronavirus has wiped out a lot of live music. If they can't stream for profit and they can't do live shows what do you suggest?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#17
post #7

#abolishcopyright. Musicians if you’re listening, find a different way to earn a living than depending upon the enslavement of ideas (and by extension, individuals). Copyright is abhorrent, and needs to go. There are better ways.

This is an interesting take I haven't heard much before. Could you expand on what the alternatives are?

Mostly merchandising and touring.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#18
post #7

#abolishcopyright. Musicians if you’re listening, find a different way to earn a living than depending upon the enslavement of ideas (and by extension, individuals). Copyright is abhorrent, and needs to go. There are better ways.

I think this is a bit like the 2A argument.

There's a really happy medium that neither side ever talks about. Just dramatically reduce the legal length of copyrights. One year maybe?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#19
post #10

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…

If this is not sustainable for the artists, how is this different than piracy? I'd say it is even worse, because people is paying but the money goes to a middleware company that is not paying the right price. It is like buying CDs from the street sellers.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#20

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

Exactly. If the record labels thought the price was unfair they wouldn't see the rights to Spotify.

The unfortunate part is that the artists have basically no power when bargaining with the record labels.

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