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As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

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Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#11

Post by hightrix »

hmokiguess wrote: post #6

I saw in a YouTube video once, and I'll paraphrase because I forgot, something that resonated well with me about piracy. They said piracy is never about cost, but almost always about a service issue. Basically people flocked to Napster (and the likes) at the time because it let them browse an infinitude of music which was, back then, incredible. That was just market demand validation, a latent problem waiting for a s…

This may have been the origin of the quote you are remembering, from Gabe Newell in the context of Steam.

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem..."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11676496-we-think-there-is-...

Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#12

Post by hmokiguess »

hightrix wrote: post #11
hmokiguess wrote: post #6

I saw in a YouTube video once, and I'll paraphrase because I forgot, something that resonated well with me about piracy. They said piracy is never about cost, but almost always about a service issue. Basically people flocked to Napster (and the likes) at the time because it let them browse an infinitude of music which was, back then, incredible. That was just market demand validation, a latent problem waiting for a s…

This may have been the origin of the quote you are remembering, from Gabe Newell in the context of Steam. "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem..." https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11676496-we-think-there-is-...

Thank you!

Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#13

Post by solumunus »

cwillu wrote: post #3
solumunus wrote: post #2

Without Spotify and (to a lesser extent) piracy before it, I wouldn’t be listening to 1/10th of the artists I listen to. Maybe it’s just moral cope but I can’t see how it can be made any better for niche or up and coming independent artists.

And what good does that do those artists precisely? From the article: “For example, I am paid $0.00029 per stream of a song on Spotify, and even this amount depends on whether the song is being streamed by a paid user or someone using the service for free. This means it will take upwards of 3,500 streams of a single song on Spotify to earn $1.00 versus that same revenue for one iTunes song purchase (not to mention th…

It enables them to build small but dedicated global fan bases that support the artist directly.

The alternative is all music is paid only and they could potentially make more money, except for the fact that they’re completely unknown and there is zero demand for their music.

Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#14

Post by solumunus »

jorl17 wrote: post #4
solumunus wrote: post #2

Without Spotify and (to a lesser extent) piracy before it, I wouldn’t be listening to 1/10th of the artists I listen to. Maybe it’s just moral cope but I can’t see how it can be made any better for niche or up and coming independent artists.

It could be made better if they were paid more for the enjoyment you get.

Is that actually feasible though? Could Spotify 5x the payout? That seems unlikely and even if they could that would nowhere near solve the problem anyway. It would still be meagre income for small artists. What do you suggest?

The current set up enables discovery. Small artists are able to gain global audiences that may support the artist directly, an artist they would almost certainly never have found without Spotify. This is happening all the time.

Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#15

Post by a4isms »

hightrix wrote: post #11
hmokiguess wrote: post #6

I saw in a YouTube video once, and I'll paraphrase because I forgot, something that resonated well with me about piracy. They said piracy is never about cost, but almost always about a service issue. Basically people flocked to Napster (and the likes) at the time because it let them browse an infinitude of music which was, back then, incredible. That was just market demand validation, a latent problem waiting for a s…

This may have been the origin of the quote you are remembering, from Gabe Newell in the context of Steam. "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem..." https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11676496-we-think-there-is-...

In 2001, OG Business of Tech blogger Joel Spolsky famously said about Napster:

Your typical architecture astronaut will take a fact like “Napster is a peer-to-peer service for downloading music” and ignore everything but the architecture, thinking it’s interesting because it’s peer to peer, completely missing the point that it’s interesting because you can type the name of a song and listen to it right away.

He was right. It was a service issue, and when Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, the mainstream happily ponied up 99 cents a song because they could type the name of that song and then listen to it on their phone, Mac, or Windows computer right away.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect...

Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#16

Post by ninth_ant »

hmokiguess wrote: post #6

I saw in a YouTube video once, and I'll paraphrase because I forgot, something that resonated well with me about piracy. They said piracy is never about cost, but almost always about a service issue. Basically people flocked to Napster (and the likes) at the time because it let them browse an infinitude of music which was, back then, incredible. That was just market demand validation, a latent problem waiting for a s…

I’m sure there are people for whom the main problem is keeping track of N streaming services.

But I’d wager the combined cost of those N services is a much, much bigger factor for most.

Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#17

Post by tokioyoyo »

hmokiguess wrote: post #6

I saw in a YouTube video once, and I'll paraphrase because I forgot, something that resonated well with me about piracy. They said piracy is never about cost, but almost always about a service issue. Basically people flocked to Napster (and the likes) at the time because it let them browse an infinitude of music which was, back then, incredible. That was just market demand validation, a latent problem waiting for a s…

Doesn’t really explain why piracy rates are much lower in Japan compared to other countries. It is mostly a cultural issue, and a lot of people will go above and beyond to justify their actions.

Just to note, I’m not even that anti-piracy, but if something is not being sold, or conveniently provided, you can just… not get it?

Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#19

Post by nxc18 »

Does this argument change now that Spotify does offer meaningful connection to fans?*

Spotify tells me when any of the artists I listen to are coming to town - I’ve found and bought tickets this way and I don’t go to a lot of live shows in general.

Spotify is trying to sell me merch and artists can have both a merch and an events tab in app.

Edit: I see an artist with only 400k subscribers selling merch (compared to Lady Gaga’s 99 million), so it must be at least somewhat accessible.

* I don’t know if Spotify is charging money for these services or if they are ultimately fair, but at least for some artists it is generating ticket sales

Re: As a musician, I prefer illegal downloading over Spotify (2011)

#20

Post by vablings »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #17
hmokiguess wrote: post #6

I saw in a YouTube video once, and I'll paraphrase because I forgot, something that resonated well with me about piracy. They said piracy is never about cost, but almost always about a service issue. Basically people flocked to Napster (and the likes) at the time because it let them browse an infinitude of music which was, back then, incredible. That was just market demand validation, a latent problem waiting for a s…

Doesn’t really explain why piracy rates are much lower in Japan compared to other countries. It is mostly a cultural issue, and a lot of people will go above and beyond to justify their actions. Just to note, I’m not even that anti-piracy, but if something is not being sold, or conveniently provided, you can just… not get it?

I cannot find any evidence to back this up that lies in the data of actual pirates.
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