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'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
111–120 of 146 posts
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#112I think a better payout structure for Spotify would be to go per-user. For example, for each subscriber a given amount from their subscription plan is earmarked for payouts. Let's say about 4$ per user. We divide that amount by the number of streams the user had that month, and we simply pay that amount to the artist. Examples: - I only listened to one song this month? The full 4$ go to that artist. - I listened to 2…
As far as I know this is more or less the payout structure Tidal uses. This seems a better approach, but in reality I don't know if it is actually better.
If I understood their plan correctly, it was only the higher $20 tier that did it, and I think only $5-10 was actually split between your top 2 artists for a given month. They ended that program a few months ago.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to forget that Weird Al is doing a lot of covers - so he is not the original composer of the song. Performers usually get paid way less (everybody can perform a cover of any song out there), but the composers get paid the lion share. I also doubt he gets $12 but probably lot more, the video is just intended to draw attention to Spotify's payout schemes.
Weird Al doesn't do covers, aside from a few exceptions. He does parodies. Parody falls under fair use, so legally I don't think he has to pay royalties, though he may anyway.
Not disagreeing, but you have to look beyond US copyright law. Fair use is less of a thing i.e. in Europe, and his streams clearly come from all over the world. I would just assume his label made deals with the respective copyright holders covering several jurisdictions and markets just to be on the safe side. That doesn't necessarily mean they had to do those deals.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#114Capitalism at it's finest.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to forget that Weird Al is doing a lot of covers - so he is not the original composer of the song. Performers usually get paid way less (everybody can perform a cover of any song out there), but the composers get paid the lion share. I also doubt he gets $12 but probably lot more, the video is just intended to draw attention to Spotify's payout schemes.
> Spotifies Spotify's
Edited (not a native speaker).
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#116I have a hypothesis I'd like feedback on: Per-stream rates are actually similar to the per-listen equivalent for CDs, and the revenue difference is because listeners have different behavior now that music is less scarce and is a la carte. In the CD era, artists earned more revenue because listeners had to buy whole albums, even if only a few of the tracks were worth listening to. People also listened to fewer artists…
In that era (when I spent some time in the music industry) it was common for labels to tell artists to not release 12 "Good" tracks. It was more like 3-4 Good tracks and then basically Filler tracks/B-side quality. But if you wanted the Good tracks, you had to buy the whole CD, and you might listen to the Good tracks 30 times, but the Fillers a lesser amount. This makes the per-track payment extrapolation from CDs so…
Then they'd immediately undermine themselves and release a "Greatest Hits" to double-dip.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m sure he’s not hard pressed for money but i doubt he’s a mega millionaire. This should be seen as using a platform and audience to speak for those much smaller than him.
He seems to have a net worth of ~$20M.
I'm pretty sure only a tiny fraction of that comes from Spotify though.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#118Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#119Seeing megamillionaires complain that the common man only has to pay $10/month to listen to their music is getting pretty old.
Seeing multimillionaire corporations rip of the consumer is getting pretty old too.
Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weird Al doesn't do covers, aside from a few exceptions. He does parodies. Parody falls under fair use, so legally I don't think he has to pay royalties, though he may anyway.
I'm not a lawyer, and most of my knowledge of copyright law comes from Tom Scott's video on the subject [1], but it's worth noting that it's not universally agreed on that Weird Al's parodies fall under fair use. Again, I am not a lawyer, at best I'm a novice when it comes to copyright law, but what I do know, I agree with what Tom says: I wouldn't expect Weird Al to win if he was taken to court (if he didn't ask per…
IIRC Weird Al treats his parodies more like covers (even going so far as to get permission), and there are credits for the composers, etc. So I wouldn't be surprised if they pay out more like covers than parodies.
He likely doesn't want to be in front of the Supreme Court someday having to defend the parodic aspect like the famous Barbie Girl case, especially as it is not clear that all of his songs are parodies of the song and not some other aspect in the format of the song.