Earlier quoted context omitted.
He seems to have a net worth of ~$20M.
That’s still 980 short of “mega”.
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'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
101–110 of 146 posts
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#102I have a hypothesis I'd like feedback on: Per-stream rates are actually similar to the per-listen equivalent for CDs, and the revenue difference is because listeners have different behavior now that music is less scarce and is a la carte. In the CD era, artists earned more revenue because listeners had to buy whole albums, even if only a few of the tracks were worth listening to. People also listened to fewer artists…
In that era (when I spent some time in the music industry) it was common for labels to tell artists to not release 12 "Good" tracks. It was more like 3-4 Good tracks and then basically Filler tracks/B-side quality. But if you wanted the Good tracks, you had to buy the whole CD, and you might listen to the Good tracks 30 times, but the Fillers a lesser amount.
This makes the per-track payment extrapolation from CDs somewhat challenging as these days users have more control over specific tracks, and artists can also do a track-only release as easily as a full album release if they want.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's how much he earns, I'm not sure his point does stand. If he's making $350k from Spotify, I'm guessing he makes about that much from all the other streaming services combined. $700k in income from what is essentially an advertisement for your tours and merch feels like a pretty good deal.
$700k regardless is a good chunk of cash, but can you blame an artist for asking, "Whoa what the fuck?" if that's still a lot less than they would've made in a time before Spotify existed?
Is it though? Someone might listen to your tracks on Spotify because it’s included in the flat rate, but would have never bought a CD or record of you.
And then those records had production costs and needed to be put in stores etc.
Yes, at the peak of CDs, there was more money to be made. But I’m not sure if the difference is really that big.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#104AFAIK Spotify doesn't pay per stream. They pay a percentage of revenue to artists that is divided based on streams of their music. Record companies and big artists negotiate these deals with Spotify. It seems like artists should be more angry with their labels about the deals that are negotiated than mad at Spotify.
This is correct. While many of the exact details aren't public, Spotify's royalty model is aggressively hostile to the artists. Tidal, YT Music, and Apple all pay artists an order of magnitude more per stream than Spotify. Apple even lobbied to enforce a new royalty payment for artists of 1 cent / 100 streams [0]. Apple music effectively pays this rate to artists right now. In Al's case, those 80 million streams woul…
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Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to forget that Weird Al is doing a lot of covers - so he is not the original composer of the song. Performers usually get paid way less (everybody can perform a cover of any song out there), but the composers get paid the lion share. I also doubt he gets $12 but probably lot more, the video is just intended to draw attention to Spotify's payout schemes.
Weird Al doesn't do covers, aside from a few exceptions. He does parodies. Parody falls under fair use, so legally I don't think he has to pay royalties, though he may anyway.
I'm not a lawyer, and most of my knowledge of copyright law comes from Tom Scott's video on the subject [1], but it's worth noting that it's not universally agreed on that Weird Al's parodies fall under fair use. Again, I am not a lawyer, at best I'm a novice when it comes to copyright law, but what I do know, I agree with what Tom says: I wouldn't expect Weird Al to win if he was taken to court (if he didn't ask permission).
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#106I think a better payout structure for Spotify would be to go per-user. For example, for each subscriber a given amount from their subscription plan is earmarked for payouts. Let's say about 4$ per user. We divide that amount by the number of streams the user had that month, and we simply pay that amount to the artist. Examples: - I only listened to one song this month? The full 4$ go to that artist. - I listened to 2…
This would incentivize artists to release more, shorter tracks.
Could use minutes played instead of tracks played then.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#107I think a better payout structure for Spotify would be to go per-user. For example, for each subscriber a given amount from their subscription plan is earmarked for payouts. Let's say about 4$ per user. We divide that amount by the number of streams the user had that month, and we simply pay that amount to the artist. Examples: - I only listened to one song this month? The full 4$ go to that artist. - I listened to 2…
I don't think this matters at all.
Whether royalties are calculated per-play-per-user or per-play-per-all-users, I don't see any evidence there's any meaningful difference at all.
Most people who subscribe to Spotify listen to lots of different stuff -- that's the entire point of streaming. Virtually nobody is listening to one song a month, or 2 albums per month. They listen to playlists and radio and their 8,000 liked songs on shuffle. None of the examples you give are very realistic. (Somebody who only listens to one album is just going to buy the album, not subscribe to Spotify.)
In the end, the two models are going to average out to essentially the same.
If you don't think they do, that means you think there's some correlation between the amount of music listened to per month, and whether a person's tastes skew more mainstream or niche. Can you show that's the case, and in which direction? Because that's entirely non-obvious.
(And commercial settings like stores are a drop in the bucket of Spotify subscriptions, they just don't matter. Big places like grocery stores and department stores and fast food don't use Spotify, and coffee shops or clothing boutiques are just as likely to be playing niche stuff.)
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m sure he’s not hard pressed for money but i doubt he’s a mega millionaire. This should be seen as using a platform and audience to speak for those much smaller than him.
He seems to have a net worth of ~$20M.
I assume you're quoting ~$20M based on a search like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=weird+al+net+worth
Every one of those pages is absolute bunk with made up numbers. They're trying to drive clicks. Take a look at any of them and you'll notice quite quickly that they never cite any source.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#109I think a better payout structure for Spotify would be to go per-user. For example, for each subscriber a given amount from their subscription plan is earmarked for payouts. Let's say about 4$ per user. We divide that amount by the number of streams the user had that month, and we simply pay that amount to the artist. Examples: - I only listened to one song this month? The full 4$ go to that artist. - I listened to 2…
The question is who decided this payout structure? Is it Spotify (I clearly don't know why they would care any other way) or the big artists (I can see why they would want to be paid more as a condition of their presence on the platform, because of greed but also because of legitimate reasons).
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#110AFAIK Spotify doesn't pay per stream. They pay a percentage of revenue to artists that is divided based on streams of their music. Record companies and big artists negotiate these deals with Spotify. It seems like artists should be more angry with their labels about the deals that are negotiated than mad at Spotify.
That's kind of a technicality here though isn't it?
It certainly pays per stream in the sense that if an artist has 110K streams, they get 10% more money as if they got 100K streams.
It may be the case that the amount per stream varies a bit depending on which label you're associated with, or what Spotify's subscriber numbers are that month. But that still doesn't change the principle that your revenue scales linearly with streams -- that you're paid by stream.
Or am I missing something?