Why Spotify Pays So Little • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#181

Post by 21echoes » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #68

Does anyone have any information on how Google Music does it? I love Google Music, and don't understand why everyone's so hopped up on Spotify, just because they were "first" to market (and they weren't).

Google Music does it the same way: https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_ALL/about/artist-terms.html

""" (a) “Subscription Fees” shall be the greater of:

(A): Monthly Subscription Minimum * number of Google Play music subscription service subscribers on the last day of such month * Your Subscription Activity Ratio

-- OR --

(B): Subscription Revenue Share * Music Subscription Revenue * Your Subscription Activity Ratio """

B is exactly what is laid out in the parent article, A is a subtle twist on it. Both of them are still [Google's revenue] * Your Subscription Activity Ratio, where "Your Subscription Activity Ratio" == "the fraction: (i) the numerator of which shall be the total number of streams and plays of Your Tracks from the Google Play music subscription service; and (ii) the denominator of which will be the total number of streams and plays of all tracks from the Google Play music subscription service."

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#182

Post by lclarkmichalek » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:31 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #140

pdpi wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A subsidy of popular music by indie fans That's an interesting problem — this is only true if indie fans listen to less music than pop fans. Imagine there are 10 users, 9 of whom only listen to pop, one only listens to indy, all of whom pay 10$. Now consider two scenarios: A. everybody listens to 100 tracks per month, or B. pop listeners stream 110 tracks per month, and the indy listener streams 10 track per month…

>unless indie fans listen to less music than mainstream music fans That point is explicitly addressed in the post. Mainstream users listen more because mainstream users are gyms etc. that just let the top 40 run in shuffle 24/7.

Wouldn't that use be both against Spotify's EULA [0] and be illegal without a PPL [1] (in the UK at least).

[0] https://www.spotify.com/uk/legal/end-user-agreement/#s4 [1] http://www.ppluk.com/

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#183

Post by MattHeard » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:34 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #117

genericuser wrote: post #66

His proposition may sound simple to him, but it really isn't. It becomes very hard to ensure you are being paid properly in his proposed scenario, I would personally expect it would create even more controversy, or extremely long payment records every month for artists. For instance say we have 500 paid users. Lets call them user1 through user500. Each user listens to the same number of songs a month as the value fol…

Daylight savings is easy to fix: don't use it, just standardize on UTC. That's what essentially everyone does in, say, telecom.

In telecom there is a lot of local-time based billing.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#184

Post by Dewie » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

Conventional music albums were known for only giving a small percentage of its sale value (minus retail and such, of course) to the actual artists. There didn't seem to be much fuss around that. But now that artists are getting a raw deal when it comes to streaming their music, it's practically a crime against humanity.

I guess the "artists are being ripped off when it comes to record sales" blew over several decades ago.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#185

Post by bake » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:40 PM UTC

From another perspective, should artists all artists give up the same 30% to Spotify? Or should artists who benefit disproportionately from services like Discovery and Radio, presumably lesser-known artists, pay more?

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#186

Post by kazinator » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:46 PM UTC

Nemcue wrote: post #177

kazinator wrote: post #122

The proposition in the article only works because users pay a fixed monthly rate for unlimited listening, rather than a charge that is metered based on how much they stream. Jack Stratton's proposition is wagered on the proposition that the users who listen to his tracks are ones who don't listen to very much other stuff. His listeners pay $9.99 per months, but don't stream very much, and a big chunk of what they do…

Such bullshit. How on earth is it a "zero sum game" that they are paid their fair share of the cut? > There is little difference between 99% of the artists getting peanuts, and 100% of the artists getting peanuts. You just pulled those numbers out of your ass.

> How on earth is it a "zero sum game"

In the sense that it is a fixed income situation, where the question of how the income is divided does not make everyone richer as a group. If you change the rules for dividing the spoils, those who get more income do so because someone else is getting less. This is consistent with the definition of "zero-sum game".

> that they are paid their fair share of the cut?

There is no unique definition of "fair share" here. It is not inherently "fair" that if some subscriber paid $10 for a month, and forgot all about the service and ended up listening to only one song that month, that some artist should get $7 for that. It's not "unfair", either.

> You just pulled those numbers out of your ass.

That is true, and if you would prefer the numbers out of your ass, then you do the pulling; I'm not going there, sorry. Ass numbers for the sake of example is all we are going to get here, though.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#187

Post by hussong » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:54 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?

I'm a paying light listener. I coudn't stand the ads and the audio quality on the freebie, plus I need the offline music feature when I'm travelling or commuting.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#188

Post by huckyaus » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:55 PM UTC

CaveTech wrote: post #143

tormeh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unless indie fans listen to less music than mainstream music fans That point is explicitly addressed in the post. Mainstream users listen more because mainstream users are gyms etc. that just let the top 40 run in shuffle 24/7.

I have trouble believing that commercial venues make the majority of the plays on Spotify.

Here in Melbourne it's very common for venues to use Spotify - almost ubiquitous, in fact. The bar that I moonlight at used CDs for the longest time but eventually made the switch last year.

Most venues don't want to spend time carefully selecting music when they could instead be focusing on customer service.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#189

Post by hussong » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #99

There's some audio content that fits Spotify model better, since it's optimized for endless replays * dance/electronic * elevator music * toddler songs (audience loves hearing that same song for 1,000th time) On the other end of the spectrum you have audio content that is intended to be listened to once, with extremes being audio books and radio news. An artist optimizing for endless replays would do well on Spotify:…

I love you you put dance/eletronic, elevator music and toddler songs in one bucket. I never thought of it that way and I think you're spot on. I guess we could add most of the music played on commercial radio stations (from top 40 to soft rock) as well?

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#190

Post by x0x0 » Wed, Mar 18, 2015, 10:03 PM UTC

mortenjorck wrote: post #35

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…

It's easier to understand if you remember the major labels got 18% of spotify for their licensing deal. A payment scheme that preferentially paid major labels would then be stunning...