Does anyone know if this so-called union is an actual union? As in, do they collect dues, do they represent a substantial % of artists, and do its members already collectively bargain with Spotify and similar publishers? If Spotify says no, do these demands have any teeth?
Justice at Spotify
21–30 of 405 posts
Re: Justice at Spotify
#22As 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…
Thats the stupidest idea ever. No thank you. I do not want to work till 70 and I am sure no one else does either.
VAT is there for everyone, you can't avoid it because you are a 'creator' thats insane.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#23Penny per stream? That's an awful lot in most countries.
If I stream a record twice I cover my spotify premium fee (US is more expensive than Argentina or India, because people can pay more).
Copyrights create artificial scarcity, if you don't like it, just don't put your music on the platform, you have an effective monopoly.
Most music is not that valuable, prices used to be high due to cartelization of the publishers and because the media was difficult to produce (records, CDs).
Cassettes started changing that, and the internet completely destroyed it. There's no going back. If prices go up, piracy will too, and you'll likely end up making less money.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#24The 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…
Let's do some back-of-the-envelop calculations:
Let's say people stream for 4 hours a day on average.
4 * 60 = 240 minutes
Let's say a song is 3 minutes.
240 / 3 = 80 streams == 80p/day
80p * 30 days per month = 2400p
2400p == £24
So that would be ~2.4x increase in price for end users without including Spotify cut or taxes.
Doesn't seem possible to me.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#25#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?
It's an exciting time for alternatives.
Patreon, Twitch, Cameo, OnlyFans, et al, are providing ways to connect with your community and earn a living through their support, which is not only very important during shutdowns when live events are harder, but will be a long term trend.
On the production side costs continue to drop, and if we #abolishcopyright cost of living across the world will drop dramatically, so will be easier to balance the budget.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#26The problem here is not the platform itself (Spotify). It'd the overall concept of needing a middle man to distribute your work.
I believe blockchain can be a good remedy for unnecessary middlemen.
Audius [1] is a good example applied to the music industry.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#27So I wanted to try put this into perspective since "a penny per stream" is intentionally meant to sound insignificant.
This seems like it would roughly double Spotify's costs: https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/apps/how-much-...
And Spotify is already paying out 75% of it's revenue to royalty holders: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/spotify-pr...
So unless you believe that Spotify is bad at business and there's an extra ~75% of revenue Spotify could pull out of a hat, this is basically impossible to satisfy without cratering the total revenue by doubling prices, which is probably not in artist's interests.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#28As 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…
Going after the pensions is probably the single quickest way to find yourself unelected. Old people vote, and there are a lot of them.
Also direct-to-consumer hardly absolves you from following tax law. I agree that sales tax is bad, but only because it is regressive and disproportionately taxes the poor. Raise income taxes and abolish sales tax.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#29#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.
Artist and Dev here.
Yes to this. Having an imagination means you can think of different ways to monetize your work that isn’t trying to put an imaginary wall around ideas and information.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#30The 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.
Right, but the money has always gone to a middleman, be it record companies or Spotify. If Spotify gets any more expensive I can guarantee people will go back to privacy, music will become less accessible and those niche bands that Spotify knows I may like will never get found.
I understand the need to get paid more, but I am not sure killing Spotify is the solution.