Why Spotify Pays So Little • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#31

Post by genericuser » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

patmcc wrote: post #13

Why are light listeners like the example paying for Spotify? Shouldn't they just stick to the free version rather than going for premium? Following this suggested model, free users listening wouldn't help the artists at all - is that really desirable?

Different people value the features of premium differently, no different than the market for any other good or service.

For instance, it is probably true that to some people $5 dollars a month is nothing compared to the torture of listening to a single ad ever.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#32

Post by djloche » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:08 PM UTC

kfor wrote: post #25

mod wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you have had to (if a free user) listen to commercials during this? Wouldn't that sort-of defeat the purpose of the silence? May as well ask people to play some more normal 30s songs and turn off their speakers, avoid being delisted as a non-album.

Agreed that having fans play your music on mute would be just as - if not more - effective, and would work without creating a prime target for banning. But I think in this case it made for a very effective "statement", even if it could've been a more efficient hack.

At least for the desktop software, they detect if you turn the volume down quickly, and pause the commercial. Spotify has pretty rude behavior towards their free users, but I suppose they want to push everyone to subscribe.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#33

Post by protomyth » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:08 PM UTC

malloreon wrote: post #8

If someone started a service that did exactly this, would artists take their music off spotify and onto this new service? Would the users follow?

I have no idea and that is a really good question. So, let's round and say $7.00 a month goes to artists[1]. What is an expected percentage of time fans will listen to the artist's music (25%?) and how many thousand fans does the artist have?

I would imagine Taylor Swift with Blank Space might have cleaned up. Is there a source of public data on this?

1) as in all the people who get paid off the artist's music including, hopefully, the artist

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#34

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:08 PM UTC

I'm not clear on what the difference would be, from his explanation. Is he splitting by "artists listened to ignoring count of times streamed"? (So someone who listens to only vulfpeck 1000 times and Daft Punk once pays each $5)

Or is it "for each user, divide their $10 by the number of streams they played and pay that to the copyright holder of the streams played?" So the more streams you listen to the less artists get paid for that?

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#35

Post by mortenjorck » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

Like others in this thread, I naively assumed this was how Spotify already worked, and wondered why the payouts tended to be so low. Now it makes sense, and puts the numbers here (http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/) in context.

Realistically, it would be both hard to change structurally and a hard sell for major labels to give up what is effectively a subsidy of popular music by indie fans. Let’s take the author’s thought experiment to its logical extreme:

Imagine “Terry” listened to just one obscure band for the entire month of February. $7 of his $10 subscription fee is going to artists, but let’s say he’s also the only fan of that band on Spotify. So that band has effectively zero percent of Spotify’s plays for the month, meaning that the band gets effectively zero percent of Spotify’s monthly revenue.

Terry thinks $7 went to his favorite band, but it actually got divided up among February’s top 40, with only a fraction of a fraction of a cent going to the band!

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#36

Post by gcb0 » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

anecdote time: recently i my closest friends happen to be all musicians. I often try to get their opinion on piracy and online radios while selfishly trying to see a product idea... and their general opinion on online radios is that spotify is the god among them and that i'm evil and killing their industry for using pandora.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#37

Post by kfor » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

Site appears to be buckling under the load, here's the Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JiivGj-...

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#38

Post by B4CKlash » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

Licensed Use of Master — $0.00668

I can imagine this licensing fee differs largely and contributes heavily to Vulfpeck's anecdote.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#39

Post by adventured » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

tpeaton wrote: post #6

Spotify has been villified since the beginning, and I certainly want a more fair system to exist for artists. That said, has there EVER been a business model in the US that was profitable for artists? I don't think there was ever money in music for artists from album sales. The cost of distributing and promoting music is just more expensive than making an album.

Sure, touring and sponsorships are extraordinarily profitable for artists. Those able to attract an audience or fill venues.

The Eagles made $100 million last year; Springsteen $81 million; Bon Jovi $81 million; Calvin Harris $66 million; Toby Keith $65m; Taylor Swift $64m; Bruno Mars $60m; Pink $52m; Roger Waters $46m; ... Muse $34m, Gaga $30m, this list just keeps going.

Michael Buble made $1+ million per tour date in 2014 (making $51 million overall).

From the info I can find, there are at least 100 individual artists making over $5 million per year.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#40

Post by tpeaton » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

kochthesecond wrote: post #17

tpeaton wrote: post #6

Spotify has been villified since the beginning, and I certainly want a more fair system to exist for artists. That said, has there EVER been a business model in the US that was profitable for artists? I don't think there was ever money in music for artists from album sales. The cost of distributing and promoting music is just more expensive than making an album.

Spotify has me and all I know spending 9x12=108 per year on just music. If anyone expected any of us to ever spend more than this, they are very wrong. Even if we go back to the golden days of CD sales, I doubt the average consumer spent more than this, but I might be terribly wrong. I'm sure I wouldn't.

Same. I went from spending $0 on recorded music to $15 a month (Spotify family plan so my gf and I can use it simultaneously).