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Justice at Spotify

unionofmusicians.org

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Re: Justice at Spotify

#141

Post by ccsnags »

falcolas wrote: post #68
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.

I agree, they're easy to copy and reproduce. But more importantly, they are not easy to produce in the first place. How do you suggest an author (artist, musician, etc) make a living, if it takes them 6 months of normal working hours to produce a book and they get an expected $0 of revenue from that book?

Spending time on something people aren’t willing to pay for is always a waste of time, whether you’re writing a book or digging holes.

We need to stop assuming that having no copyright means that the work cannot be monetized. It just can’t be monetized as if it was a physical object or service rendered. Vinyl records, tee shirts, patronage, book signings, lectures, anything that isn’t copyright dependent can be monetized easily.

The fans of art are aware that paying for it will help create more art they like. This is a personal connection that the fan has with the artist and keeps the art accessible for the casuals.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#142

Post by ccsnags »

falcolas wrote: post #137
ccsnags wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is the cost if I did it for free?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#143

Post by Firadeoclus »

3saryHg6LP2e wrote: post #24
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…

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 seems extremely unlikely to me that Spotify users stream 4 hours per day on average. I suspect it's less than one hour.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#144

Post by jlelse »

emilecantin wrote: post #34

They only hint at this, but I think a user-centric distribution model would be much better: define a percentage split (let's say 30% for Spotify, 70% for artists), and split that percentage of revenue between the artists THAT THE USER LISTENED TO. I think that they currently use a global split, which over-represents "users" like stores, gyms, etc.

That's what Deezer proposed: https://www.deezer.com/ucps

Re: Justice at Spotify

#145

Post by adwn »

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?

> If a work is entirely digital, what is the difference between the original and the copy?

The difference is that the original instance of the work potentially required considerable time and money, whereas its copies are essentially free to produce. There's no difference between the bits of the "original" and the bits of each copy, but concluding that copies of a work should be free for all because the act of creating that copy is free, is fallacious and intentionally misleading.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#146

Post by ccsnags »

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.

#thisguyknowswhathashtagsmeanbutisajerkaboutit

Re: Justice at Spotify

#147

Post by falcolas »

ccsnags wrote: post #142
falcolas wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is the cost if I did it for free?

What well-researched book have you written for free?

What hit album have you (and your band-mates) written and performed for free?

What feature-length, CGI enhanced movie have you produced, cast, and distributed for free?

What TV show have you produced, cast, and distributed for free?

I'm not trying to call you out specifically, but your post uses "I", so I'm responding appropriately. For better or worse, garage bands, open source developers, and patreon writers are the vast minority of copyright users.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#148

Post by breck »

falcolas wrote: post #136
ccsnags wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

If everyone who threatens to stop creating content if they can't enslave ideas, were to stop creating content, the world would be a better place.

The idea that people would stop creating is absurd. I work in Cancer Research and the absolute least contributing people in the medical industry are the ones obsessed with patenting and copyrighting their work, which is usually garbage and of frivolous value compared to the hard grunt work of millions of unsung heroes grinding it out for non-monopoly wages.

I was an engineer at Microsoft and the average code there was total garbage compared to the open source code powering top public domain projects.

And no modern epic is significantly better than Ἰλιάς.

Every letter we are using; every word; every bit of tooling; was made by other people in a long pyramid stretching back tens of thousands of years and billions of people wide. All of us are putting grains of sand on top.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#149

Post by falcolas »

ccsnags wrote: post #141
falcolas wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, they're easy to copy and reproduce. But more importantly, they are not easy to produce in the first place. How do you suggest an author (artist, musician, etc) make a living, if it takes them 6 months of normal working hours to produce a book and they get an expected $0 of revenue from that book?

Spending time on something people aren’t willing to pay for is always a waste of time, whether you’re writing a book or digging holes. We need to stop assuming that having no copyright means that the work cannot be monetized. It just can’t be monetized as if it was a physical object or service rendered. Vinyl records, tee shirts, patronage, book signings, lectures, anything that isn’t copyright dependent can be monet…

We had that once upon a time (the original version of Patronage), and it resulted in some, but not very much, artwork in the grand scheme of things. Nowhere near the amount we enjoy today with our spare-change subscriptions.

Copyright also allows more creators to create without requiring them to be a live personality as well; to split their time between creating and hustling for money.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#150

Post by adwn »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #83
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?

> Your bringing up another issue entirely.

That's the poster's modus operandi here: he doesn't miss an opportunity to advertise his two favorite topics – abolishment of intellectual property and his own whitespace-based data notation – whether it's on-topic or not.

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