Did anyone else do a double take on "Sony BMG bought 5.8% of Spotify for 2,935 Euros"? What else did they receive from Sony BMG?
Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
31–40 of 41 posts
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#32Spotify certainly sounds like a good deal for users and The Labels, but not much for the Artist(s).
let's keep in mind that Spotify is still Europe-only for now, But...
If someone with as much world-wide fame as Lady Gaga could get this much for a million plays, then what about the less known artist(s)?
And who actually gets to see and keep this $167?...RIAA bosses, Label Bosses, or Lady Gaga
Great post BTW!
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#33I can't believe people are still using these terms, like 'making 0 dollars off of pirate bay' -- That's like saying a free newspaper doesn't earn any money from giving the paper away. It's a argument people often make that are so entwined in the thinking of "selling music" like it was a physical thing... This kind of thinking needs to stop. Artists have more ways of making money today then they ever did, because they…
"Selling live shows, selling merchendise, selling music in a form that makes it a "collectable", even music for films etc..." Many of which are not really making music, though. What if you simply want to make music? You might as well say "musicians can get paid for doing TV commercials for facial creams" - maybe they can, but I doubt it is what they had in mind when they went into music. In fact, if I was looking for…
As much as I would like to not put this so bluntly--that's the free market for you.
"Simply making music" is fine, but that has never exactly put food on the table. The internet isn't destroying the value of music itself, its just altering the industry's viable business model. This is the same line of thinking that we are constantly applying to web apps here on HN. Sure you can make a neat little functional application, and it will take you time and effort to do so, but that doesn't just automatically mean it should pay the bills for you.
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#34Spotify certainly sounds like a good deal for users and The Labels, but not much for the Artist(s). let's keep in mind that Spotify is still Europe-only for now, But... If someone with as much world-wide fame as Lady Gaga could get this much for a million plays, then what about the less known artist(s)? And who actually gets to see and keep this $167?...RIAA bosses, Label Bosses, or Lady Gaga Great post BTW!
What if you look at those 1 million song plays as advertising. She (or who ever Spotify's agreement is with) actually was paid to advertise her music to 1 million people worldwide.
The article mentions that she sold 4 million records and 20 million paid downloads. Would those numbers be nearly as high if countless people didn't get to try her out through streaming services first?
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#35I can't believe people are still using these terms, like 'making 0 dollars off of pirate bay' -- That's like saying a free newspaper doesn't earn any money from giving the paper away. It's a argument people often make that are so entwined in the thinking of "selling music" like it was a physical thing... This kind of thinking needs to stop. Artists have more ways of making money today then they ever did, because they…
^^ downloaded a Tim Minchin show the other day. It was brilliant so I went to see him live the following week.
The ticket cost most than £0.00
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Selling live shows, selling merchendise, selling music in a form that makes it a "collectable", even music for films etc..." Many of which are not really making music, though. What if you simply want to make music? You might as well say "musicians can get paid for doing TV commercials for facial creams" - maybe they can, but I doubt it is what they had in mind when they went into music. In fact, if I was looking for…
As much as I would like to not put this so bluntly--that's the free market for you. "Simply making music" is fine, but that has never exactly put food on the table. The internet isn't destroying the value of music itself, its just altering the industry's viable business model. This is the same line of thinking that we are constantly applying to web apps here on HN. Sure you can make a neat little functional applicati…
I actually believe in the free market, and of course it is nowhere set in stone that musicians are entitled to make money off their music. I just wanted to point out that to say "but see, they have more ways of making money than ever" is a bit besides the point.
I suppose some artists will find ways to survive, but just because somebody is a talented musician doesn't make them talented T-Shirt designers or even talented live show performers (making music does not imply performing anymore these days). Film music is also not a good way out, because film is plagued from the same problems as music.
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#37"Douglas Léon, better known as Swedish rapper Dogge Doggelito"
Ah Sweden. Do a Google Images search for Dogge Doggelito and try not to laugh at what passes as a rapper there. That guy makes '90s Vanilla Ice look like Suge Knight.
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#38To put that in perspective, $167 for 1 million plays is the equivalent of a CPM of $0.16 for an ad-supported web site. A bit on the low side, but $0.16 is in the right ballpark for a site with low-quality traffic. I think the question is: is there any reason to expect music to be "worth" more than other types of online content?
Flashing "You're the 1,000,000 visitor to this site!" and fake "You have 1 message waiting" 468x60 banner ads pay more than $.16 CPM. Many of these ads appear on low-quality sites where the visitor spends less than a minute on. Meanwhile, the typical song is longer than 3 minutes. The user also must actively find the artist and seek out the song (rather than say mindlessly clicking a link from Digg because they're bo…
I wasn't talking about low-quality sites, I was talking about low-quality (e.g. unfocused, or hard to monetize) traffic.
I don't want to split hairs - yes, obviously, a song is not identical to a page view - but at a very basic level, both songs and web sites are content. They both cost money to produce, promote, and distribute.
My point is that while $0.16 CPM is low, it's the same order of magnitude as other online content. I don't think $1 CPM would be unreasonable, and that's not a huge difference.
Contrary to the popular belief here, record companies DO add value.
I never said they don't. I'm not really sure what that has to do with what I'm saying.
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#39Honest question, not addressed by the TF article (and unfortunately I don't speak Swedish for the original);
Is $167 for all Spotify Lady Gaga plays, or those plays made in Sweeden (and thus under the remit of STIM)?
As I understand music licensing Spotify would be required to pay royalties to the collection society relative to the location of the play.
Re: Spotify artists earn $167 per 1 million plays.
#40Is this surprising to anyone? You cannot simultaneously have the price of a good be zero at the margin and yet pay producers non-zero renumeration at the margin. There is no Internet Economic Fairy that makes it possible to increase consumption of music by a factor of dozens while simultaneously decreasing monthly expenditures on music (relative to CD sales) AND leaving all participants in the system better off.
The real problem is exactly what you say: decreasing monthly expenditures on music. Increasing usage will depress per-song revenue but per-song revenue is irrelevant; what matters is absolute revenue.
Artists don't (or shouldn't) care about getting non-zero remuneration at the margin; they should care about getting non-zero remuneration in absolute terms.