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Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

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171–180 of 212 posts

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#171
post #49

If I told you there was an e-commerce company without a profitable year in over a decade of existence despite federally-mandated price ceilings placed on their suppliers, you'd be incredulous. If I then added that the same company was lobbying in Washington to get the price ceiling lowered, the pitchforks would be out. But then mention it's a company selling music, and people shrug, "Oh, well music should be free any…

wait, who has gone a decade without a profitable year? because it's certainly not the music industry.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#172
post #52

"Pandora advertised my product to 1 Million people and only paid me $1300 for it!"

Exactly. If I'm not mistaken sometimes terrestrial radio stations are PAID by the labels to promote certain shitty pop songs. Why do you think they play the same ones every hour?

Here's another thing I don't get thought. I listen to albums every day on Spotify. I also bought a few on iTunes. How much of that $9.99 does the artist get for my unlimited usage?

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#173
post #49

If I told you there was an e-commerce company without a profitable year in over a decade of existence despite federally-mandated price ceilings placed on their suppliers, you'd be incredulous. If I then added that the same company was lobbying in Washington to get the price ceiling lowered, the pitchforks would be out. But then mention it's a company selling music, and people shrug, "Oh, well music should be free any…

wait, who has gone a decade without a profitable year? because it's certainly not the music industry.

amazon.com?

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#174
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could say that playing one song is an advertisement for the album or for the artist. There are many artists I wouldn't have otherwise known about if it wasn't for pandora. "If you don't understand that, you shouldn't even participate in the conversation." This is childish. "If I can't conceive of any other perspective, then you shouldn't open your mouth!!!!"

Seriously, you can SAY a Honda Fit is an advertisement for Honda cars in general. But the car is still the product. Only with music. With no other product than music, do people in our culture so consistently rationalize getting one thing for free as exposure or advertising for some hypothetical other revenue stream that will one day happen down the line.

A better analogy would be that a test drive is an advertisement.

If I can get a "test drive" of the music whenever I want, all the time, then yes, I'd be less likely to buy it. And so there's likely a crossover point where too "smart" streaming systems will cut into revenue. You see fear of that in e.g. last.fm's restrictions on number of skips per hour for the web player.

But it is pretty clear that a lot of peoples music buying habits involve first getting to know an artist or a specific song via exposure to it. All the music I buy comes as a result of that.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#175
post #82
post #53

Why do entertainers feel so entitled to high payment? Why is this even a story?

You seem to be under the impression that being an entertainer is easy, or that they shouldn't make a living wage, or be able to profit from their work... Everyone's gotta eat. What we're seeing now is the natural give and take within the industry adapting to new norms and business plans. From a higher level view, it's fascinating.

You are projecting feelings that the op didn't mention.

No one is entitled to a meal in a capitalistic society. You have to "earn your keep" so to speak. Everyone does have to eat, but that doesn't mean you're entitled to eat off of your music. If music isn't working out maybe these artist should get a "real job".

Most of these artist are still following a a business model that is broken. I'm not sure why they feel they are so entitle to high income. Maybe it has something to do with that carrot that the record industry dangles out there. Every feels like they should be making Beyonce money or something. Why is it that radio royalties and album sales seem to be all they focus on when they get such a little cut anyway. It seems like building a following and then getting that following to pay to go to your concert and buy your merchandise directly is much more profitable.

There are some musicians that recognized they would never make as much as they would like in that business. Look at someone like 50 cent. He realized that royalty payments wouldn't be enough. From the start he created a brand around his name and his crew G-unit. From that they were able to sell clothing, get exclusive sneaker deals, negotiate for their own label, etc. With that money he invested in outside deals like Vitamin water which made him much more money than his music did when it was sold to Coca-Cola. This is someone that understands the business and how to leverage it to benefit you more than it benefits the industry.

It's been shown time and time again that artist do tend to get fucked, but it's not just internet radio providers doing said fucking. How much of the royalties get paid out to labels, managers, and anyone else that has their hands in the artist pocket. Maybe if they could negotiate better terms they would get a bigger piece of the royalty pie.

Look, I get paid what I think is a decent amount at my job. My employer has no obligation to pay me that much. They do it because I have valuable skills in a competitive market that they are willing to pay for. I also provide much more value than the salary that I earn. If for some reason those skills weren't desired or I wasn't able to make a living from them I would attempt to move on to something new.

I really don't know why I'm rambling so much. I do wish artist could make a living, but I don't think they are entitle do earn a living wage making music. Watching this industry try to keep their failing business models alive is pretty interesting though.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#176
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did any musicians ever make a living off radio?

Often the money went the other direction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

Exactly. People would pay radio stations to break records. Then people would buy those records.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#177
post #138

I have said it before and I will say it again. 20 years ago that and thousands of others songs wouldn't even have been played anywhere and definitely not a million times. If you want to live off of making music or as an author or anything else you have to think like a publisher not an artist. Playing music is a joy, something you can enjoy whether you make money or not from it. Living from making music is an opportun…

> 20 years ago that and thousands of others songs wouldn't even have been played anywhere and definitely not a million times. Ironically that song was a hit exactly 20 years ago... so no, it managed to do just fine without a streaming service. But yeah, I would never go back to the old model of radio and music only being on physical media. In fact, we can't at this point. > Playing music is a joy, something you can e…

But many musicians unfortunately argue as if it is.

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak. Talking about "if" something that is true weren't doesn't seem very useful to me here. Illegal music sharing is reality and shows no signs of stopping, or being stopped.

I used to believe that, but now I am not as sure. I'm not sure most average people use bit torrent anymore. And the web is an extremely inconvenient way to try to access illegal content.

youtube

Re: Pandora Paid Over $1,300 for 1 Million Plays

#180
post #158
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the suppliers may face a federally-mandated price ceiling, but they also have a federally-mandated monopoly on their own product (copyright). It's not like you have a natural right to prevent people from copying your stuff - we grant that right as a society, subject to very definitive limitations. The real issue here is piracy -- if Pandora didn't have to compete with free, they could raise their prices and thi…

The copyright here is essentially nullified by the compulsory licensing. Without congress, Pandora would have to negotiate directly with the labels (see Spotify's much higher payouts and upfront licensing fees), and with congress, the labels can't even take their music away from Pandora if they don't like the price.

But without copyright, Pandora could simply copy the music and sell the service without paying any royalty at all. It's only by government fiat that Pandora has any costs, period. Copyright hasn't been nullified, it's just been altered.

Without congress, Pandora wouldn't have to negotiate with anyone at all, because there wouldn't be any copyright on the music to stop them.

You can argue that compulsory licensing is good or bad for artists/distributors/consumers in the long run, and it's an interesting debate. But it's not like there's some default natural right that is being violated here.

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