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Why Spotify Pays So Little

lit.vulf.de

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Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#231

Post by likeclockwork »

ScottWhigham wrote: post #115
nacho2sweet wrote: post #103

Splitting with everyone is better because it gets the majors on Spotify which you need to give the service legitimacy. Major studios are bringing brands to Spotify, indies are draws but aren't big draws. They will put their stuff on Soundcloud and stream it for free to get ears to get concerts.

I don't follow. Why does splitting revenue amongst millions of people provide a boon for the major studios (thus making splitting everyone better)? You say it's better but I don't see the an elaboration on the why.

I'm pretty sure the commenter meant better for Spotify's bottom line.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#232

Post by goatforce5 »

grrowl wrote: post #192
lclarkmichalek wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

In terms of small bars, hairdressers, co-working spaces, yoga studios, mik bars, etc... probably, but no one's going to tackle the small fries. Large chains tend to have their own corporate-mandated "radio" playlists for this reason, though (supermarkets and gyms)

From what I recall, the PPL is pretty aggressive about going after small venues. e.g.:

http://www.luton-dunstable.co.uk/Dunstable-nightclub-Ivory-L...

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#233

Post by mytochar »

21echoes wrote: post #181
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 """…

So does this mean that an artist makes more money when I /don't/ choose Google Music, because they get paid per advertisement shown when I load their video?

... this makes me sad.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#234

Post by goatforce5 »

rwissmann wrote: post #129
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…

Yes, the article really missed this point. One could also mentioned some sort of tiered payout scheme or a non-linear minimum after a certain amount of plays plus a percentage above that. Likely something that Spotify will experiment with over the years.

I imagine Spotify cares more about not being sued by the majors than distributing money to smaller artists (without legal teams behind them).

Also, isn't a big chunk of Spotify owned by the major labels anyway?

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#235

Post by fragsworth »

tajen wrote: post #219
fragsworth wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Realistically, it would be both hard to change structurally Perhaps there is a simpler solution. Here's one idea: for accounting purposes, only count a limited number of plays per month, per user. It can be the first 100 plays, or if you want to prevent any biasing, it can be a random sample of 100 of each user's plays. A random sampling can even be audited to prove that it was fair.

Why do we consider that the places who play 24/7 of pop music are biasing the system? If it were 1 cent per play, and Mickael Jackson was played 100 times during the day in one shop... shouldn't they get $1?

If you consider two types of users - average users (10-20 plays a day?) and power users (500-1000 plays per day), both users contribute $10 to the system. Most of the money that the average users contribute ends up sent to the authors of songs that the power users play.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#236

Post by dataminded »

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.

Isn't that illegal? Does a spotify license include broadcast rights?

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#237

Post by eric_h »

dasil003 wrote: post #200
huckyaus wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but what is the total market size of businesses versus individuals?

Agreed, but a business that plays spotify likely plays it for the entire time said business is open. Very few individual users will listen to spotify for 15 hours a day like a business (bar) that plays spotify would.

[Edit] just read the earlier sibling comment. I'm informing my theory based on my own very occasional usage of spotify. I suspect I'm in the long tail of their business, and I would imagine that the aggregate of businesses that play spotify all day matches up with a good portion of that long tail.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#238

Post by halfcat »

ignostic wrote: post #134
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SO that's what, a few gigabytes? Takes 30 seconds to download? Then run some stats, get some totals and compare it to your check. What's the problem? Its the 3rd Millennium, get with it.

> "Its the 3rd Millennium, get with it." No need to be condescending. People can disagree with you without being technically stupid. > "SO that's what, a few gigabytes? Takes 30 seconds to download? Then run some stats, get some totals and compare it to your check. What's the problem?" I think you underestimate the complexity of a database that grows by 20 million records per month, but let's say you solve the techni…

> I think you underestimate the complexity of a database that grows by 20 million records per month

Why does it need to grow per month? Create a new database each month and archive.

> So what, they should all hire data analysts? To understand their Spotify invoice??

There must be some misunderstanding here. The customer's invoice is for $10 per month regardless of invoice complexity. The record of accounting that goes to the artists is what's being discussed.

It seems very simple to provide a database to artists, then also provide an open source database analyzer that will verify your pay check is accurate.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#239

Post by mod »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #230
mod wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the (I think still considered "beta" or something) Linux desktop version and it does not know when I turn the volume down. When commercials come on, I quickly mute the machine, and I get a nice popup with the next song title to let me know commercials are done. It's nice because I find radio commercials particularly obnoxious--far more than television--and spotify will sometimes play them back to back. Speaking…

They just don't have much music. I tried spotify as a youtube substitute a few months back (at a friends house). Turns out they don't have a single song I searched for (all available on youtube, well known genre classics).

I don't have this problem in the genres I listen to--they have only not had a couple of songs from pretty obscure groups.

Even when I create a station by artist, say The Avett Brothers (considered folk music, I believe), I end up getting repeats quickly--even among the non-Avett artists playing on the station.

My own personal folk playlist (on spotify) has more variety than their own station.

I'm convinced it's an algorithm issue in my case. In yours, possibly lack of choices.

Re: Why Spotify Pays So Little

#240

Post by halfcat »

genericuser wrote: post #94
vlunkr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you artists would prefer being underpaid to getting extremely long payment records? I really don't see the issue.

No, but I believe humanity in general wants things to be beneficial to them AND simple. Hell most Americans (being one myself) don't just 'want' they feel entitled to. Because of that, I believe a huge number of artists would not bother to make sense of monthly records which could reach 1800 pages, and would complain even though they were presented with such records explaining why their 50000 plays this month were le…

> I believe a huge number of artists would not bother to make sense of monthly records which could reach 1800 pages

I don't understand this argument at all, which suggests that reviewing a monthly report is an O(n) task. Spotify, if they chose this route, trivially solves this with a simple open source app that analyzes your monthly report making it, basically, an O(1) task.

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