Justice at Spotify • Hacker News Board

Re: Justice at Spotify

#291

Post by potatoman22 » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #199

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to one source [1], Spotify users stream on average 25 hours a month. Assuming an average song is 3 minutes [2], that's 500 streams per month. Going with the $9.99 per month rate, users pay about $0.02 per stream. Currently, the artists see only $0.0038 per stream, or less than 1/5th of what Spotify makes. I think that with a 50% profit margin, Spotify should be very happy. Of course, it's not that easy / st…

The other issue that has been raised a number of times is that I believe the revenue is still divided up based on overall listens across the platform, which means it's dominated by artists who feature heavily in popular playlists and automation-driver radio/recommendations. These listens are often passive and should not be considered as valuable as those of someone listens only a few hours a month, but spends all of…

Aren't your listens to an indie artist still driving up their listens across the platform? It's an interesting point that Spotify's algorithms probably drive more listens to popular artists, but I think overall listen-count it still the most equitable metric.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#292

Post by weddpros » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

lux wrote: post #198

disgu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they're showing up at Spotify's offices then shows even more why they're not making money. They seemingly don't understand the business they're in... at all. They sign shitty contracts that leave them with "virtually nothing" and then complain to someone who is not responsible for them having "virtually nothing".

Unsigned artists don't sign anything with labels but we do agree to Spotify's terms, and those terms take from us and hand it over to major labels. If a user pays $10/mo and listens to nothing but indie streams, those indies are getting far less than $7.50 (more like pennies) due to the way they calculate their payouts. The major labels pocket the majority of that money. Spotify have the ability to change this, but n…

"due to the way they calculate their payouts": yes, I'm sure that's the real issue, but the solution isn't a penny per stream. The solution is definitely to redistribute money according to what people listen to, but I doubt the big labels will accept these terms: they are the ones who negotiated, they are the ones stealing from indies.

Best case scenario: indies will get enough pennies so they stop complaining, big labels will continue as today, Spotify will allocate some of its own money to music creation...

and the problem will remain unfixed at the roots.

remember who forced Spotify and others before it, to negotiate a deal at all cost with the Majors or be declared illegal?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#293

Post by picardythird » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

path411 wrote: post #223

kgog wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you also think grocery workers are dumb for agreeing to work while demanding better working conditions and fair pay. They are not dumb decisions. An indie artist HAS to sign with labels if they want to make it in the industry. That's the way it's been and we've accepted for decades that that's the way it will be. Mistreating workers is not okay. Workers joining the status quo to make a living is not dumb. Calli…

It's something that's changing drastically every day. An indie artist is more and more able to record and upload their own song to spotify today than any time before.

Just being able to upload to Spotify does not make a sustainable career. You need marketing, and you need to build up a wide and loyal following of people who will buy your stuff.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#294

Post by tekromancr » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #281

lumost wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that most artists do not own the distribution rights to their own music, these are owned by various record labels. Many top tier artists create their own record labels and shoulder the cost of advertising/promotion while also dramatically increasing their cuts. The fact that individuals aren't able to break out via self-publishing music is an oddity in the internet age. Why aren't there more avenues to…

I like to listen to jango.com which tries to "push" new artists while you listen to some "station"... I've found a few good "completely unknowns" there, but most stuff they push is really low quality. I think that a platform where you could discover new artists easily using a system similar to this (play mainstream artists, mostly, but throw in a few songs from unknown artists that play similar genres), but then had…

> play mainstream artists, mostly, but throw in a few songs from unknown artists that play similar genres

Isn't that just "radio"?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#295

Post by mcfedr » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

disantlor wrote: post #211

kangaroozach wrote: post #206

The model should be like Medium. Allocate peoples monthly membership in accordance to their listens. If one month I listen to 100 streams of Bob Dylan and thats it, then he should get my entire $7.00 instead of just a few cents for my small amount of streams. https://qz.com/1660465/the-way-spotify-and-apple-music-pays-...

This seems almost too simple & good to be true. The counter points in the linked article mention that its too "computationally expensive" to calculate the payments, and the additional management costs could outweigh the benefit to smaller artists... how could that possible be true?

It's clearly doable, and we recently saw that soundcloud moved to this model of calculating

Re: Justice at Spotify

#296

Post by mcfedr » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

3saryHg6LP2e wrote: post #8

The record labels are a bigger problem than Spotify; they set the streaming prices and take a big cut.

That and copyright. If spotify didn't have to pay anyone to stream the music I listen to by dead artists there would be a lot more to go around with the people writing music today.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#297

Post by mattnewton » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:23 PM UTC

wtetzner wrote: post #255

mattnewton wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App Store for music exists many times over and users (including myself) prefer a lower cost streaming model. There is simply too much cheap or free music out there now for me to value it at iTunes singles prices.

Of course, and users would prefer completely free music over cheap music too. That doesn't mean it's sustainable, though.

I mean, short of government legislation the market isn’t going to stop driving the price of music down. The marginal cost of additional “performances” of the song is almost zero and people are constantly making new recordings for free because they love doing so. I don’t see why making a living off digitally recorded music has to be sustainable, and I don’t see how it can be when the supply is so endless.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#298

Post by dont__panic » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

Rule35 wrote: post #262

mattnewton wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn’t make sense to me, it’s not that they are eating into profits, it’s that they are eating into average margin; they presumably still at least break even on free users. And I would bet dollars to donuts that those free users are not going to convert to paid when piracy, YouTube videos, and free trials of other services exist.

I think Spotify is the first service to tempt me from piracy. Piracy doesn't handle discovery, or access across multiple devices, is a pain, and is actually (who knew?) illegal. Spotify handles all of those and won't get you arrested. Youtube for music is simply worse than pirating and being caught.

To be fair, back in the day I used last.fm for music discovery, social music stuff, etc. and the more Spotify forces podcasts down my (paying subscription) throat the more I want to go back to piracy + last.fm.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#299

Post by falcolas » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

breck wrote: post #210

falcolas wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the world would be a better place. Really? Sounds pretty terrible to me. Few books. Few videogames. No movies. No TV shows. Most of the internet obliterated. Any content that is created is copied and regurgitated so much you'd be hard pressed find out who actually created it. I personally like consuming entertainment. I work with the creative side of my brain all day long, and being able to go home and turn it off…

> Really? Sounds pretty terrible to me. Few books. Few videogames. No movies. No TV shows. Most of the internet obliterated. This is such bullsh t. First of all, the f cking Internet is public domain tech (DARPA, Web). Second, the evidence is overwhelming that people will create vast amounts of content without any idea enslavement rights. According to your logic we wouldn't have janitors cleaning rooms if they couldn…

> According to your logic we wouldn't have janitors cleaning rooms if they couldn't collect a toll in perpetuity.

To torture this analogy further, in the world you're presenting, a janitor has to beg for tips or rely upon their fans to get paid for their efforts.

> And you think your contributions deserve special treatment?

This assumes that there's no original thought, or production, or anything else in this day and age. I fundamentally disagree with this. To use a popular example, the archetypes presented in "A Game of Thrones" may have existed for decades or centuries, but they're presented in a wholly original story. A story which would not have existed in the past, present, or future if it wasn't for GRRM, and by extension, his ability to work full time writing his books.

> Keep in mind that the tool we are using to communicate was made public domain by Tim Berners Lee.

No, the tool we're using was originally created by Paul Graham, and is not public domain.

In any case, it appears that there are irreconcilable differences in the foundations of our opinions (and politeness). I wish you luck.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#300

Post by Rule35 » Tue, Mar 16, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #288

Rule35 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should is a big word, but it feels like Spotify could make us indie-lovers happy by rewarding the intentional listens with slightly more money. Perhaps giving them a cut of the next few recommendations. Even though I know that famous artists would get more of this than the indies, taking value from the long mid-catalog.

I think that's risky because then there's some process that puts you in one of the two buckets, and there's probably going to be a valley of suck between them, where you're big enough that you don't qualify for the indie special treatment, but not so big that you're raking it in like Taylor Swift. The nice thing about the proposal from the article is that in theory it should be something where everyone's incentives a…

Yeah, that's what I mean by the mid-catalog. People you didn't quite go intending to play, and not the headliners. To the degree that it's a fairness discussion though it always comes down to sorting into buckets (even if absolutely identical buckets) and arguing for some distribution.

Good point. That's the sort of thing that warms the cockles of my artist-supporting heart.