when it was Apple/Google/Amazon, they all shut their mouth
now a non US company is #1, they start to yell
you should have complained before
Justice at Spotify
311–320 of 405 posts
Re: Justice at Spotify
#312Is there a reason Spotify is uniquely targeted here? What rates do artists get on Apple Music/YouTube/Tidal/etc?
Spotify is the largest player, by far, and pays the least per customer.
The "average observed per-stream payout on Apple Music is $0.00551 vs. $0.00318 for Spotify."[0] That said, a lot of that is because Spotify has free users, while Apple does not.
0. https://soundcharts.com/blog/music-streaming-rates-payouts#a...
Re: Justice at Spotify
#313Earlier 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…
This is Pandora, right?
Re: Justice at Spotify
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
If you are an indie artist (no record label deals) and agree to Spotify's terms, how are major labels involved at all? How are they getting the payouts meant for you?
and why sign a deal or agree to terms that you don't agree to? Just don't go to Spotify?
Re: Justice at Spotify
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
Musicians have complained in the past and threatened to leave and some have left... just to then come back.
I'm trying to come up with a word for that.. I think it starts with a M and ends with a Y and has a onopol in the middle somewhere.
It's hard to argue that Spotify is a monopoly when Apple Music, whatever Google's service is called now and Tidal have pretty much the same selection. And you can buy DRM free music still on iTunes and Qobuz. And even physical media. Oligopoly at worst.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
If there's two groups of people, one who listens to pop music for 10 hours a month and one who listens who indie artists for 20 hours a month (which could easily be the case if their recommended playlists are mostly indie artists as mine is), then switching to the model you propose would reduce how much money indie artists make, right? It seems more fair to me that artists would get a set amount of money per stream,…
I think the argument is not that it's the 10 vs 20 hour listeners, but rather the 10-40 hour listeners (workday) vs the 700 hour listeners (radio playing in the corner of a breakroom somewhere). The 700 hour listener has no audience and no human curation, and yet it's got 10x the influence on who gets paid by Spotify. The article I linked also makes a really good point about this model motivating artists to encourage…
It’s not inherently clear to me that one play should be paid more than another play.
In fact, having a different fee per play dependent on the user is a pretty opaque and unclear metric. “How much are 1 million plays worth? It depends on your audience - if your listeners listen to lots of music you get paid less per play, and you will just have to trust us to compute an appropriate fee for you correctly.”
No matter how you cut these things there are pluses and minuses . You seem to think that Universal should get paid less for a single Katy Perry stream played from a global playlist compared to a small indie song streamed in a private playlist, and while that’s a valid opinion it’s not intrinsic or even self evident to me.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I don't think you are. For years there's been a conflict broadly defined as "streaming rates paid to artists are irrationally low" vs. "streaming services aren't making money as it is"; the problem is that those aren't mutually exclusive positions. They can both be true at the same time. At least to me, this suggests that the real problem is that $8–10 a month for ad-free streams was too low a price point to set.…
> the real problem is that $8–10 a month for ad-free streams Which sounds a bit weird to me. How many people used to spend more than $10 every month on LP or CD records. Probably many enthusiasts, but the average customer? Not a chance. Yet artists say they get paid a lot less. The money must go somewhere.
It's an interesting question. The cost structures are obviously very different, and while the assumption is that the internet always makes things cheaper and better, I haven't dug into that to see how it really plays out in this context.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#318Just wondering if there are any developers on this post working with or defending the use of decentralised, music sharing, copyleft, anti-royalty, software? And if so, do you see the irony?
I sincerely hope people take my question at face value, I am aware it's a big world.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#319Earlier 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 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…
>Why aren't there more avenues to hear "random new artist that matches my tastes"?
Because Bandcamp is perfect at this and nobody can beat them.
I say that with tongue in cheek, but they have been the platform for average musicians to self-publish on for a while. They've even totally foregone their cut periodically during the pandemic to help artists. And unlike Spotify, artists are able to apply their own branding to their pages. I've never met a musician with a bad thing to say about them or their platform.
Re: Justice at Spotify
#320Earlier 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…
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