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Justice at Spotify

unionofmusicians.org

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Re: Justice at Spotify

#131

Post by disgu »

Barrin92 wrote: post #121
disgu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mind…

And I value the creators of Spotify who create good software and a great infrastructure for the service they're offering. I think we should move away from this sleazy consumer mindset that the creators of Spotify should not be rewarded for the service they're offering.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#132

Post by RHSeeger »

Reason077 wrote: post #125
RHSeeger wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I apologize, you are right. I misread it as talking about cents based on the second reference and then my brain just decided to take it's own path.

Thank you for taking the time to make me go back and look at my numbers. My apologies for wasting _your_ time.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#133

Post by ccsnags »

falcolas wrote: post #112
kmeisthax wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An artist isn’t entitled to having their work funded unless someone voluntarily funds it. This does not require legal fiction.

Entire genres of music have been created from inexpensive musical equipment and free software. Art has never been more accessible to the people than it is now.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#134

Post by Barrin92 »

disgu wrote: post #131
Barrin92 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mind…

And I value the creators of Spotify who create good software and a great infrastructure for the service they're offering. I think we should move away from this sleazy consumer mindset that the creators of Spotify should not be rewarded for the service they're offering.

are you under the impression that engineers at spotify are currently going hungry and working minimum wages? As developers we are already ridiculously overpaid compared to artists. We are the ones who benefit from the shit salaries that musicians make, which is of course why people on this website don't want to hear anything about creators bargaining. It's the people here who benefit from the status quo.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#135

Post by ccsnags »

kmeisthax wrote: post #130
juancn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Now we’re getting into the simulacrum. If a work is entirely digital, what is the difference between the original and the copy?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#136

Post by falcolas »

ccsnags wrote: post #133
falcolas wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

An artist isn’t entitled to having their work funded unless someone voluntarily funds it. This does not require legal fiction. Entire genres of music have been created from inexpensive musical equipment and free software. Art has never been more accessible to the people than it is now.

> An artist isn’t entitled to having their work funded unless someone voluntarily funds it.

Then we simply never get their work. Some people would absolutely continue to create for the fun of it, but they'll remain the minority.

Movies you'd watch in a Theater? Completely gone. Commercially funded TV shows, gone. A vast majority of books, written by full time writers and researchers, gone.

And I'll also posit that most music would go away too. Even the amateurs I know expect to be paid for a gig. Most musicians are not willing to busk for a living.

And, don't forget, software development relies heavily upon Copyright as well (licenses, your work-for-hire, etc).

Re: Justice at Spotify

#137

Post by falcolas »

ccsnags wrote: post #135
kmeisthax wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Now we’re getting into the simulacrum. If a work is entirely digital, what is the difference between the original and the copy?

The cost of the labor put in to create the original.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#138

Post by justynadorsz »

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…

"ideas put on paper" is oversimplifying it. There's a lot more work and time involved in creating art. It's not like: I have an idea, I "put it on paper", and 10 minutes later I have something to "claim dominion over".

Re: Justice at Spotify

#139

Post by bryanrasmussen »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #119

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 peo…

just noting also - if you were to make 1p per song without any of my proposed limitations or similar then given the fact that people consume the songs they loved in their 20s all their lives, if you could manage to have a couple top streaming hits for that age group for a couple years you might just be able to go fishing for the rest of your life!

Re: Justice at Spotify

#140

Post by curryst »

lettergram wrote: post #50
kevincox wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let's be honest, you aren't required to use a record label. Record labels just advertise, which definitely blow up some musicians. In contrast, take the rapper Tom McDonald, his music actually hit the top 100 charts[1][2] and he's not signed to anyone. Just him and his girlfriend creating music. Was trending as the #1 download on iTunes for a couple weeks, etc. Artists make a deal with the devil, make more money, the…

In fairness, Tom MacDonald gets a lot of external publicity from conservatives; he's mostly a right-wing political rapper.

I've seen a big rise in conservative rappers on YouTube. I've got a conspiracy theory that the GOP is funding them like a record label. If so, it's a sweet deal for artists. The GOP cares far more about cultural effects than they do the money from the music.

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