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'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

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Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#121

Post by jjulius »

steve1977 wrote: post #103
jjulius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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.

>Is it though?

>But I’m not sure if the difference is really that big.

I'm struggling to understand why so many musicians - countless numbers, from nearly every genre, with all different sizes of fan bases - have been complaining about Spotify reducing their income if the difference wasn't "really that big".

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#122

Post by dagw »

erellsworth wrote: post #76
littlecranky67 wrote: post #39

Earlier 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.

The parody aspect is only relevant for the lyrics side of things, he still has to pay royalties to the composer for the melodies.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#123

Post by njl »

Spotify actually has (at least) a few hundred pools of money; one of the pools might be "Free listeners in the US", one might be "Moldovan listeners who have Spotify as a bundle with this particular cell phone provider". A fixed percentage of that money is set aside for the rights holders for the performance (master rights) and the rights holders for the music (publishing rights).

The allocated money is then passed to the rights holders, based on the percentage of listens they received within users in that pool. Individual rights holders can negotiate additional bumps, and Spotify has some exceptions for what needs to be counted.

I know that the idea that money should go from a listener directly to the bands that user listens to, instead of splitting up the pool, feels like a pretty interesting one. Unfortunately, folks who listen to a lot of music tend to listen to smaller and more interesting bands as well. This change wouldn't necessarily result in more money in the pockets of smaller artists; it's not inconceivable at all that the rich would get richer.

It's also worth mentioning that the average person who spent money on music at all, prior to the invention of streaming, spent far less annually than they spend on streaming now.

I think artists are reacting to a lot of issues. The entire music industry is built around signing absolutely disgusting contracts with deeply talented and fundamentally naive 18 year olds who are effectively replaceable by the next new thing. This is compounded by the fact that most artists don't have a relationship with Spotify; they have a relationship with their record label who has a relationship with Spotify, and the label isn't really interested in giving an artist a full accounting of what they've brought in from Spotify.

Finally, and most importantly, there is a real disconnect between the social impact of music and the actual size of the industry. There's a lot of money there, sure, but the music industry is like a professional sports league in terms of total revenue. A few superstars are going to suck up a lot of the money and not leave much for the bench players, let alone the folks three leagues down from the "show".

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#124

Post by doublerabbit »

happymellon wrote: post #86
dylan604 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I have a different memory of record deals, but I've never heard of a band that made money from album sales. This is why they are always touring. It's not to promote the album, but to make money themselves. That's why there are jokes about bands "coming out of retirement" to do a tour after so many years being because one of the members needs to make a payment for something or other.

Most couldn't, there were only a couple like Metallica. But that's my point, people never made money from this previously. Why is Spotify being demonised because bands have bad contracts with their labels?

Spotify follows the same game-book as the record companies did in the early 00's.

Pay nearly-nothing to the artist, take money for themselves and charge the consumer. Nothing has changed other than an online-internet enabled application than a CD.

You don't even have your own physical copy, once you hit cancel you loose all. So your locked in to a model where if you wish to listen to music you are forced to pay, otherwise unless you head for the sea's and download which IS illegal and where the artist gets completely nothing, you've got nothing. Where at any point is that fair?

If Spotify sent you a CD of your top-listens of the year then that would be something.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#125

Post by steve_adams_86 »

ReptileMan wrote: post #37

I want a streaming service with following business model: I pay 10 dollars for unlimited streaming. Spotify gets 1 or 2. I listen only to taylor swift on repeat - she gets 8 I listen to only one song the whole month - then some obscure metal band from Finland gets 8 I listen to 40 bands equally - they get 20c each I listen to 1 band as 20 other combined - the band get 4$ all the rest split 4. Thats it Here is the kic…

Spotify would totally collapse if they were only earning $1 per user for unlimited streaming. I have no idea how I could make that profitable on any platform or with any hardware I know of. It’s not as though Spotify is practically free to run.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#126

Post by crazygringo »

jasode wrote: post #99
emilecantin wrote: post #38

I 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 think a better payout structure for Spotify would be to go per-user. [...] - I only listened to one song this month? The full 4$ go to that artist. [...] I think the current model of per-stream across the whole platform distorts the playing field towards more popular artists Your idea has been suggested many times but as other sibling comments already noted, Spotify didn't have the leverage in business negotiation…

> In contrast, the current payout system favors the Big Labels at the expense of independents.

Is there an actual statistic around this? The linked article you provided doesn't have it. I'm curious:

1a) What is the average per-stream rate for a song from one of the Big Labels?

1b) What is the average per-stream rate for a song from one of the Big Labels, that is then passed along to the artist after the label takes their own cut?

2) What is the per-stream rate if you self-publish your song via DistroKid instead (that then publishes it to Spotify), that goes directly to the artist?

It's not obvious to me that 1b) is larger than 2). Maybe it is -- but are there actual numbers here? Especially for "average" or "median" artists at a label, not Taylor Swift.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#127

Post by jrajav »

bberrry wrote: post #91
jrajav wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, I didn't know this. I was under the impression that Spotify self-reported its split and that it wasn't really auditable in any way. Can you link to a source?

> The company pays 70% of its total revenue to rights holders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify#Business_model

The cited source there is some old Spotify PR. Which, if you dive into, eventually states:

> Our current payment agreements lead us to distribute (~)approximately 70% of our gross revenues to master recording and publishing rights (both mechanical reproduction and performance) holders. The precise division between these types of rights holders varies by territory in accordance with local laws and negotiated agreements.

So, 70% / 30% is actually just a self-reported figure, and also just a ballpark based on current agreements at the time. Also, I couldn't find a current version of this page, only the archived one cited. All current versions of this page seem to have nothing but deflection, which might indicate that their self-reported figure has become less flattering.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#128

Post by steve1977 »

jjulius wrote: post #121
steve1977 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Is it though? >But I’m not sure if the difference is really that big. I'm struggling to understand why so many musicians - countless numbers, from nearly every genre, with all different sizes of fan bases - have been complaining about Spotify reducing their income if the difference wasn't "really that big".

I am a musician (ambitious amateur) with some tracks online and I also had a record contract in the 90s. I earn more today. Which is still very little, but it’s more than with CDs.

Would I like to earn more? Sure! But I can’t see that happening with all the competition in the entertainment space today. Mind you, people have many more places where they can spend their money now, so it’s not only music business today vs music business 30 years ago, but also music business vs gaming vs movie and tv show streaming etc.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#129

Post by brendoelfrendo »

emilecantin wrote: post #38

I 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 solves one problem, in that I the consumer can be confident that my money is going to the artists I enjoy. I don't think it solves another problem, which is that you have a flat-fee being split many different ways. Most people don't listen to just one artist, they may shuffle their favorite songs or listen to a discovery playlist to find new favorite songs. Such a system isn't going to send $2 to 2 different artists per customer, it's going to send fractions of pennies to potentially dozens of different artists. Worse, the more music a person consumes, the more diluted their subscription fee becomes.

It doesn't really address the problem of paying artists per stream, it just means that the per stream rate is variable and dependent on how willing your fans are to play your music on repeat each month.

It's still probably better than the current model, but the only way I'd really be comfortable with it is if we cut out the middle-men. For example, a service owned and operated as a non-profit (or profit-capped) organization owned by an artist collective. The artists set the monthly price based on what makes sense for them to make a living, and the cut given to the service can be minimized to what it takes to run and build the service rather than what it takes to make a profit on top of the work of the artists.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#130

Post by jjulius »

steve1977 wrote: post #128
jjulius wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is it though? >But I’m not sure if the difference is really that big. I'm struggling to understand why so many musicians - countless numbers, from nearly every genre, with all different sizes of fan bases - have been complaining about Spotify reducing their income if the difference wasn't "really that big".

I am a musician (ambitious amateur) with some tracks online and I also had a record contract in the 90s. I earn more today. Which is still very little, but it’s more than with CDs. Would I like to earn more? Sure! But I can’t see that happening with all the competition in the entertainment space today. Mind you, people have many more places where they can spend their money now, so it’s not only music business today v…

>I am a musician (ambitious amateur) with some tracks online and I also had a record contract in the 90s. I earn more today. Which is still very little, but it’s more than with CDs.

Interesting! I'm also a musician, though mostly just for the fun of it (but I do love whenever I get the chance to play out!) and have been heavily active in my local scene for a few decades, and my anecdotal experience with other musicians who actually try and eke out some cash from it seems to differ from yours, and I've heard nothing but complaints. But that's anecdata for ya! Glad you're seeing the opposite effect!

>But I can’t see that happening with all the competition in the entertainment space today.

This has been a point I've been making with my music friends for some time now. A common argument you see is that, well, I put work into making this, it deserves to be listened to/looked at and I should be compensated for it. I just don't understand how people can take that perspective when you step back and realize that there is more art being made than there are eyes or ears for it all.

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