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Justice at Spotify

unionofmusicians.org

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Re: Justice at Spotify

#81

Post by jsiepkes »

barbazoo wrote: post #66
Eridrus wrote: post #27

So 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…

It makes me sad to time and time again learn that the low prices of services I love are unsustainable and instead subsidized by treating someone unfairly downstream. I wish I could be told what the ethical price for something is and I might actually pay it. And if that price is too high, then maybe that service shouldn't exist in the first place.

I think the 90's (Napster, Kazaa, etc.) has proven people are simply not going to pay that kind of money for the product (music).

The music industry also seems a bit like a "winner takes all" market where there are a bunch of top grossing artists which make an insane amount of money and a much, much larger part which can't make a decent living out of it.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#82

Post by Hamuko »

kjakm wrote: post #33
3saryHg6LP2e wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's also still remarkably cheap for unlimited access to all the music ever recorded.

The problem is that people don't care about "all the music ever recorded". They mostly care about a very limited selection of music. And if Spotify starts costing like $45 a month, how many people still think it's worth it? You can buy like four albums off of iTunes for that and then listen to them as much as you want.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#83

Post by AlwaysRock »

breck wrote: 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.

Your bringing up another issue entirely. What do you think about the unionization effort?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#84

Post by efsavage »

101008 wrote: post #19
Macha wrote: 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.

"sustainable for the artists"

There seems to be some idea of what musicians "should" make that other professions don't benefit from. I would like to make the same money from making furniture as I do from writing code, but I can't. I could blame the furniture stores for not promoting me or taking too big a cut or any number of other factors, or I could accept the fact that I'm not an amazing woodworker. But I still make my art/craft because I enjoy it and it's important to me.

There are plenty of ways for musicians to make a living, but I don't see a problem with the fact that spending a month or two a year recording an album is a privilege available to only the most talented subset of them.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#85

Post by falcolas »

ccsnags wrote: post #67
mchusma wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Constitution set copyright originally as 14 years, extendable by another 14. This sounds about right. I think artists would not be dissuaded from working and would monetize the roughly the same with 20-30 year copyright terms.

Most artists work for free. Some of the best artists I know have day jobs. The promise of fame and fortune is a product of an industry that is based on physical media being the only way to share information. The bit has liberated music for everyone yet we cling to the past.

> Some of the best artists I know have day jobs.

Most artists with regular output do not. The problem with a day job is it takes away from what a person can produce. For example, a content creator (i.e. YouTuber) with a day job is lucky to get out one-two videos a week. A full time content creator can produce one to two videos a day, often with better quality since they can focus on the work.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#86

Post by CivBase »

As I understand, artists haven't made much from record sales or radio deals historically. Most of that money goes to publishers. Instead, artists used those mediums to boost their popularity and made most of their income from merchandise and live performances.

If I had to guess at what's going on here, I'd bet this is driven more by publishers than artists. Music publishers are becoming increasingly irrelevant as platforms like Spotify enable artists to distribute their work more directly at similar margins. Artists are probably just the poster child used to garner sympathy for the cause from the public.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#87

Post by moistbar »

SCHiM wrote: post #72
moistbar wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what do you expect to happen to Spotify when the musicians leave for someplace that pays them appropriately?

The answer is piracy again. For a moment in time, piracy of movies and series was at a low point. Recently, with the fragmentation of all the different streaming services it's rising again.

The real answer is that Spotify will melt under its own inadequacy and the new platform will thrive. You adapt or you die, and I would have no sympathy for Spotify if they couldn't adapt.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#88

Post by cratermoon »

punnerud wrote: post #4

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 t…

'You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern.... One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."'

Re: Justice at Spotify

#89

Post by Hamuko »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #48
Hamuko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is really to go direct-to-consumer How do you go direct to consumer without collecting VAT (while not breaking tax laws)?

International sales are counted as exports (not subject to VAT) and domestic sales thresholds for VAT are typically $80,000+/year Of course, this varies by country, but its possible to incorporate your business in a country where this is the case.

The thing about exports is that they're also imports - and imports are subject to VAT. So if I buy something internationally, I need to declare it and then pay VAT on it.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#90

Post by bogomipz »

macspoofing wrote: post #13

>Pay us at least one cent per stream I bet if Spotify adopted it, the publishers would still want a cut of that.

Music publishers work for the songwriter. Songwriters hold the publishing. Record labels are the copyright holders. Streaming companies license from the latter.
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