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Justice at Spotify

unionofmusicians.org

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Re: Justice at Spotify

#111

Post by disgu »

moistbar wrote: post #62
Milner08 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Musicians have complained in the past and threatened to leave and some have left... just to then come back.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#112

Post by falcolas »

kmeisthax wrote: post #107
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.

We've had two decades to envision alternative funding models for music production, and all of them are substantially worse for the musician than "assign a creator's monopoly to the musician and civil liabilities for those who fail to negotiate proper licenses to it". Free markets are designed to allocate scarce goods; with the corollary any person whose work is not scarce does not get to eat. Ergo, if you want certai…

I largely agree with this.

If you want music to be libre, someone needs to subsidize the cost of creation: The wages for the musicians for one-two months, the wages of the technicians, the rent for the studio, and also subsidize the cost of writing the song in the first place.

The current paradigm amortizes those costs among all listeners of a song, with some profit for the facilitators.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#113

Post by nindalf »

What was it like being a median artist in the 90s, before and after Napster? The music industry has always been top heavy, then and now. But does anyone have data on artist earnings? It'd be interesting to know if the earnings of the median artist have increased or decreased in the last couple of decades.

I totally empathise with their demand for a cent per stream, but they could be asking for a share of revenue that doesn't exist. And if the median artist is making more now than they did before Napster, they could be asking for a cut of revenue that has never existed.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#114

Post by dbsmith83 »

So, if I listen to music for only ~2 hours (120 min) a day, and the average song is 4 minutes, that would be ~30 songs a day, which would be 30 cents a day. $0.30 * 30 days in a month is about $9/month...which is basically my entire subscription fee--probably more. Also, there's like 4 people per account if I remember correctly.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#115

Post by falcolas »

toyg wrote: post #35
jmercouris wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Why should you not own copyright to that which you produce? You don't want to use that line of argument, since authors and musicians are among the very few categories of workers with that privilege. As much as I agree with you (and actually think that privilege to be expanded to all workers), you won't find any solidarity from the common public on that line.

> since authors and musicians are among the very few categories of workers with that privilege

Don't forget software developers. All of our various licenses (and even our work-for-hire for various companies) relies upon copyright as well.

There's also reporters, photographers, journalists, YouTube content creators, TV, and movies, just to name a few off the top of my head.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#116

Post by disgu »

Barrin92 wrote: post #100
efsavage wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 ma…

> I could blame the furniture stores for not promoting me or taking too big a cut or any number of other factors not only could you but you should. Of course workers over the last few decades have internalised the mindset that they cannot use their power to bargain and that whatever they get is fair and they should just shut up, which is why we tolerate corporate middlemen eating our lunch. I don't know if a penny pe…

Spotify is not the corporate middle man. The big record companies are. Any musician is free to not put their music on spotify and to not sell the rights to a record company. They can then let you stream a song for $50 on their website.

It's also absolutely ridiculous that you champion those who want to make more money while also saying that everyone on the other end who wants to spend less should "stop whining".

Re: Justice at Spotify

#117

Post by Macha »

kjakm wrote: post #80

I would be interested to see what would happen if Spotify changed the free account to something really small (and maybe annual). For example $10 a year. I'd guess that's still small enough that most people will pay it. There are a lot of comments saying Spotify can't raise prices - but Netflix has repeatedly raised prices successfully. I'm now paying them double what I originally did when I signed up.

And when you signed up, people likely just signed up to netflix and left it at that.

Looking at my local pricing, the lowest plan (€7.99) is $2 cheaper than the single plan that was available when I signed up (€9.99), and the equivalent plan to what was available then is (€12.99). So that's a 33% increase in 5 years, which is much less dramatic than the 100%-200% increase spotify would need for the suggested payouts.

There's a lot of account sharing or rotating streaming service or plain old fashioned piracy (the "dodgy box", formerly a pirate satellite receiver and now usually a kodi box with a frontend to some pirate stream provider, has been more common in Ireland the last few years than since digital TV was just coming in and competing with free to air broadcast TV).

Re: Justice at Spotify

#118

Post by ccsnags »

falcolas wrote: post #85
ccsnags wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With the state of advertising on youtube, patreon, ad reads and super chats are a more reliable way to monetize than copyrighting the video.

Youtube content creators are a good example of people monetizing art without the need for copyright. Donations and voluntary funding are key parts of the content creator world already. Copyright is not particularly important unless they are getting strikes from a copyright troll.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#119

Post by bryanrasmussen »

so streaming music has eaten several different cakes - it has eaten the cake of radio in which I doubt the artist got 1p per play, it has eaten home taping in https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/21/arts/issue-and-debate-roy... in which there was some money paid out for the purchase of home taping equipment but which I think would not at all reach 1p per listen, it has eaten into the album which often cost enough that people bought them intermittently as a few albums could represent a significant part of disposable income, and it has eaten into the singles market (a small record with a b-track on the opposite side - already quite killed by cassettes and CDs)

The people fighting for 1p per stream want to focus on the killing of the album because in that way they look like poor mistreated artists who are just asking for crumbs considering what was taken from them.

And spotify etc. want to argue they are the ones who killed the radio, and thus it should cost them hardly anything and they are already paying way too much.

But at any rate 1p per stream is actually quite a significant increase in price considering what the user gets.

With an album one got album art etc. Lyrics / liner notes. And a number of songs - let us say 16 songs.

Nowadays you have to do your own work for the album art and lyrics, and could conceivably be asked to pay separately for them.

This is all a long time ago but I would think it was $10 dollars per average CD during the heyday. (somebody here surely knows the actual number)

So 62.5 pennies per song if 16 songs.

Perhaps it should be 1p per stream, max cost 63p per song per user?

that of course still means spotify eats the part of the market that buys more than one version per year, as someone with ADHD I have had to buy London Calling about 20+ times in my life. At some point I think I should get it for free.

so 1p per song streamed, max 63p per person per song every two years. If they asked for that I would think that is maybe a bit more than its worth, but also approaching fairness.

But they aren't asking for that, even though they should be able to think these things through easier and quicker than I can - so until they start asking for something resembling an actual fair deal I say screw them.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#120

Post by breck »

adwn wrote: post #97
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.

> #abolishcopyright This isn't Twitter. I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish by using hashtags on HN, but it makes you look like an immature child – similar to writing "M$" in the 90s and early 00s.

Thanks for the feedback. I understand that Twitter supports hashtags better, so that will be my preferred place to post things like #AbolishImaginaryProperty #EndPatents #BringBackNapster #LiberateIdeas
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