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Justice at Spotify

unionofmusicians.org

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Re: Justice at Spotify

#121

Post by Barrin92 »

disgu wrote: post #116
Barrin92 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

I champion people who produce things, be that artists, software developers, woodworkers or anyone else who builds stuff. Spotify and labels are both distributors and middlemen who profit from the work of others, it's consumers and large platforms that squeeze creators with their greedy mindset of 'as much as possible, for as little money as possible'.

It's long overdue that we move away from this sleazy consumer mindset and start valuing creators.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#122

Post by xoa »

mchusma wrote: post #39
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

>The US Constitution set copyright originally

No, that's not correct. 14 years was the original term set by law not the Constitution, and the difference is important. Copyright and patents do not formally exist in the US Constitution, because IP was a contentious issue even then. Instead there is a clause that empowers Congress to decide to do so if they wish, but there is no requirement. Article 1 Section 8 Clause 8 says Congress shall have the power:

>"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

But there is nothing specific set out in the Constitution. If there was, it'd be near impossible to change at this point, for better or worse. On the one hand that might mean we'd have much shorter terms then now. On the other hand, it would also mean that if the courts had gone similarly badly in deciding stuff like software patents it'd be near totally hopeless, rather than merely very difficult, to reform. But since it's all down to "merely" legislation Congress could completely change things around on a dime through normal law if there was the political will for it. Though note another complexity is that the US has signed treaties around certain parts of IP as well, including minimum terms. While those too can be renegotiated, or revoked by Congress, it's a higher domestic political and geopolitical bar.

There are lots of interesting reform proposals, within various bounds of feasibility. Hopefully one of them can take off at some point and momentum can slowly start building to go in the other direction then the maximalist positions taken for the last few decades.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#123

Post by RHSeeger »

Reason077 wrote: post #77
RHSeeger wrote: post #45

> Pay us at least one cent per stream > Spotify generally pays between $. 003 and $. 005 per stream Is Spotify making so much money that paying 3 orders of magnitude more money per stream is a realistic option?

They're not asking for "orders of magnitude" more, but 2-3X more. The current average royalty is 0.38c per stream, and they want 1c per stream. That said, apparently most of Spotify's revenues already goes to pay artists, so it would not be achievable without significant increases in Spotify's fees. This would in turn reduce user numbers, leading to fewer streams, more users turning to piracy, etc.

The places I'm looking show much, much lower numbers.

> Spotify generally pays between $.003 and $.005 per stream

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-spotify-pay-pe...

> Spotify paid the artists $0,0032 per stream

https://soundcharts.com/blog/music-streaming-rates-payouts

It's also worth noting, we're not talking about the total amount payed per stream, we're talking about the amount that makes it specifically to the artists. From the article being discussed

> To pay the median American monthly rent ($1,078) an artist needs to generate 283,684 recurring streams monthly.

Those number directly align with 0.38c per stream going to the artists (283,684 * 0.0038 = 1078). And since everywhere else seems to indicate that somewhere around 3-5/100th of that amount actually goes to artists, I'm curious what the disconnect it.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#124

Post by falcolas »

ccsnags wrote: post #98
justynadorsz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, artist and dev here. I don't agree. First, ideas are not copyrighted anyway. Second, you are both vague about those "different ways" of earning. Please expand on that.

Patrons. Sell merch. Sell tickets. Super chats. Patents and copyrights are literally ideas put on paper that one is claiming legal dominion over. Unless you are making physical media, your products are your ideas. It’s a tradeoff, not a cure for problems artists face. The current system favors wealthy institutions over artists. No one is willing to donate to a giant record company but fans of the work will readily gi…

> Patrons. Sell merch. Sell tickets. Super chats.

None of those scale. I pointed this out elsewhere, but how much money would a creator on Patreon make if all creators were on Patreon, hoping to make at least $1 per month per follower? Musicians alone would push me into the hundreds of dollars (which really means a vast majority of musicians would make nothing from me; less than they're getting via Spotify).

How much are you willing to pay for tickets to the 20th tour in a week that's in your area? For their merch? As for myself, precious little. Probably not enough to even cover their tour costs, let alone the cost of producing the music (and merch) in the first place.

> Patents and copyrights are literally ideas put on paper that one is claiming legal dominion over.

Patents and copyrights make it practical to cover the costs of realizing those ideas in the first place. Ideas aren't worth anything until they're realized, be it in writing for a book, or a performance for a song.

Books often take a minimum of 6 months of full time effort to produce. There's multiple people involved - the writer, the editor, the proofreader, the typesetter. How do they pay for it if they can't make any money from actually selling the book?

Music takes weeks or months of effort in a studio to produce. How do you recoup those costs if you can't sell the output?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#125

Post by Reason077 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #123
Reason077 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not asking for "orders of magnitude" more, but 2-3X more. The current average royalty is 0.38c per stream, and they want 1c per stream. That said, apparently most of Spotify's revenues already goes to pay artists, so it would not be achievable without significant increases in Spotify's fees. This would in turn reduce user numbers, leading to fewer streams, more users turning to piracy, etc.

The places I'm looking show much, much lower numbers. > Spotify generally pays between $.003 and $.005 per stream https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-spotify-pay-pe... > Spotify paid the artists $0,0032 per stream https://soundcharts.com/blog/music-streaming-rates-payouts It's also worth noting, we're not talking about the total amount payed per stream, we're talking about the amount that makes it specifica…

> "The places I'm looking show much, much lower numbers. > Spotify generally pays between $.003 and $.005 per stream"

This seems consistent with the 0.38c suggested in the www.unionofmusicians.org website. "$.003" = 0.3c, right?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#126

Post by cdepatie »

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?

Aren't Spotify deals typically coming from the record companies themselves, not the musicians? Unless artists reject the current record company model, Spotify isn't going to be able to fix this problem for them.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#127

Post by motohagiography »

I grew up thinking record companies were a confederacy of scumbags, and my attitude hasn't changed that much, but the question of what the fair price for a recorded song should be has been clouded by a mix of cynicism on the part of publishers, and magical thinking on the part of artists.

Tech VC is an analogy for the risk model of record companies, where you have money from investors that needs a productive asset, and your risk/return appetite is being willing to accept that most of your bets will return zero, with just 2% of your investments yielding huge (10x+) multiples and 80% of your returns.

Whether you are investing in bands making albums or entrepreneurs building startups, there seem to be direct similes for record sales, publishing rights, merch, side projects, and intellectual property. The point is artists make their money touring with shows, which is basically a job, where the record company/investor makes their big money because they get the benefit of having risked capital with leverage. A founder working for investors is analogous to a band touring in support of album sales. Your upside is probably a job with a lifestyle and a bonus.

Which comes to the question of what a good price for a recording could be. Musicians generally don't take very much risk or use leverage that would yield investor-size returns. 99.9% of music is crap. The distribution curve of quality is really steep and long tailed, so if you invest in a given band, you are taking a I get the sense that organizing spotify artists to complain is yet another way to hustle and exploit them, but this time for political ends instead of financial ones.

edit: there is probably a producer/product-manager analogy to be made as well, but will leave it there.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#128

Post by falcolas »

ccsnags wrote: post #118
falcolas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Without copyright, someone will just take their output, cut out the ad reads and repost their output with their own embedded ads.

This already happens today (Linus with his tech tips is only one example); without the ability for creators to fight back, it would only get worse.

EDIT: That this is unpopular doesn't make it wrong. Even beyond the (currently) illegal reposting, there are lots of rights aggregators who pay viral content creators, and re-sell their content to TV channels (Chive TV, anybody?). The "pay creators" part goes away if you take away copyright.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#129

Post by jgeada »

RHSman2 wrote: post #63

It's just crazy. Musicians are getting the equivalent of an ad per stream. As a musician/composer that does it for the love I put it many, many hours on each song. Its frickin' outrageous that people get as good as nothing and it seems as the more successful you are the better the deal you get #pyramid Also, the CEO of spotify is just horrible.

The "work" that the artist did once is producing a lifetime of revenue by taxing everyone else's work. The artist isn't lifting a finger in the work that Spotify (or any other music platform) is doing. Why are they expecting to get more?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#130

Post by kmeisthax »

juancn wrote: post #37
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?

Copyright and patents creates artificial scarcity. The things protected are not scarce, they are abundant. Ideas and information are easy to copy/reproduce. So we built a fake framework on top of something plentiful and cheap to copy, to make it more expensive so some people can make money out of it.

You're slightly wrong: copies of copyrighted works are abundant. The actual works themselves are scarce.
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