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Justice at Spotify

unionofmusicians.org

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Re: Justice at Spotify

#221

Post by tschwimmer »

Hamuko wrote: post #186
afavour wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They sign shitty contracts that leave them with "virtually nothing" and then complain to someone who is not responsible for them having "virtually nothing". I guess that's what you have to do when you're powerless. Record labels force you into shitty contracts. They have the power. Who has power over the record labels? Spotify.

> Who has power over the record labels? Spotify. What power does Spotify have over record labels?

Distribution tends to be the hardest part of any supply chain and it doesn't seem like music is any different. Spotify owns distribution and has almost no competitors anymore (either online or offline) and the future is very clearly streaming. So the labels will end up depending on Spotify for revenue. In 2018, streaming revenue accounted for half of all label revenue[0], and that will only increase.

[0] https://mashable.com/article/major-music-labels-19-million-p...

Re: Justice at Spotify

#222

Post by vardaro »

smachiz wrote: post #174
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to one source [1], Spotify users stream on average 25 hours a month. Assuming an average song is 3 minutes [2], that's 500 streams per month. Going with the $9.99 per month rate, users pay about $0.02 per stream. Currently, the artists see only $0.0038 per stream, or less than 1/5th of what Spotify makes. I think that with a 50% profit margin, Spotify should be very happy. Of course, it's not that easy / st…

Yes, ignoring all other costs isn't great. Their revenue per subscriber is also substantively lower - including free users, discounted EDU users, and family memberships. Excluding free users, it's probably ~$5 per user. That being said, Apple Music pays .75p/stream, Tidal is 1.25p/stream. They can probably figure it out.

The nominal figure of what the platform per stream pays artists should not be discussed without taking into consideration the amount of monthly active users using the platform. Tidal and AM have significantly fewer users than Spotify

Re: Justice at Spotify

#223

Post by path411 »

kgog wrote: post #161
disgu wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait - how are you responsible for the fact that the artists sign away their rights to shitty big labels that take the majority of the money that work generates? How are you responsible for dumb decisions musicians make?

I bet you also think grocery workers are dumb for agreeing to work while demanding better working conditions and fair pay. They are not dumb decisions. An indie artist HAS to sign with labels if they want to make it in the industry. That's the way it's been and we've accepted for decades that that's the way it will be. Mistreating workers is not okay. Workers joining the status quo to make a living is not dumb. Calli…

It's something that's changing drastically every day. An indie artist is more and more able to record and upload their own song to spotify today than any time before.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#224

Post by soperj »

Eridrus wrote: post #27

So I wanted to try put this into perspective since "a penny per stream" is intentionally meant to sound insignificant. This seems like it would roughly double Spotify's costs: https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/apps/how-much-... And Spotify is already paying out 75% of it's revenue to royalty holders: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/spotify-pr... So unless you believe that Spotify is bad…

Their business isn't to support Spotify, their business is to make money making music. If they can't do that with Spotify, then it would be better for them for Spotify to not exist.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#225

Post by grumple »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #160
Eridrus wrote: post #27

So I wanted to try put this into perspective since "a penny per stream" is intentionally meant to sound insignificant. This seems like it would roughly double Spotify's costs: https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/apps/how-much-... And Spotify is already paying out 75% of it's revenue to royalty holders: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/spotify-pr... So unless you believe that Spotify is bad…

According to one source [1], Spotify users stream on average 25 hours a month. Assuming an average song is 3 minutes [2], that's 500 streams per month. Going with the $9.99 per month rate, users pay about $0.02 per stream. Currently, the artists see only $0.0038 per stream, or less than 1/5th of what Spotify makes. I think that with a 50% profit margin, Spotify should be very happy. Of course, it's not that easy / st…

You think that the developers and every other party involved costs less than 50% here? Devs cost a lot. Bandwidth and servers don't cost that much, but for large scale data transfer like spotify, it does. Running the company costs a lot. Maybe the fair price is double what it currently is. But that might result in the artists making less than they currently do, not more (this is, in fact, my suspicion - if Spotify could increase profits by charging more, they would already be doing so).

Re: Justice at Spotify

#226

Post by mortenjorck »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #160
Eridrus wrote: post #27

So I wanted to try put this into perspective since "a penny per stream" is intentionally meant to sound insignificant. This seems like it would roughly double Spotify's costs: https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/apps/how-much-... And Spotify is already paying out 75% of it's revenue to royalty holders: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/spotify-pr... So unless you believe that Spotify is bad…

According to one source [1], Spotify users stream on average 25 hours a month. Assuming an average song is 3 minutes [2], that's 500 streams per month. Going with the $9.99 per month rate, users pay about $0.02 per stream. Currently, the artists see only $0.0038 per stream, or less than 1/5th of what Spotify makes. I think that with a 50% profit margin, Spotify should be very happy. Of course, it's not that easy / st…

The $0.0038 figure is probably due in part to the way Spotify calculates royalties, dividing a pool of all subscriber revenue among all streaming activity, rather than dividing the revenue from each subscriber among each subscriber's streaming activity.

Some have pointed to logistical challenges in the latter model, but it's clearly not impossible, as SoundCloud just announced it will be the first service to adopt it: https://press.soundcloud.com/197001-soundcloud-introduces-fa...

Re: Justice at Spotify

#227

Post by aksss »

dbsmith83 wrote: post #114

So, if I listen to music for only ~2 hours (120 min) a day, and the average song is 4 minutes, that would be ~30 songs a day, which would be 30 cents a day. $0.30 * 30 days in a month is about $9/month...which is basically my entire subscription fee--probably more. Also, there's like 4 people per account if I remember correctly.

In US, Spotify Duo is two accounts for $13/mo. Family is 6 accounts for $15/mo.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#228

Post by FireBeyond »

frabjoused wrote: post #171

Would it really be the end to ask consumers for 50% more Spotify Premium to solve the problem? I would personally be willing to pay more and feel music is undervalued. I can't imagine they would lose 50% of their subscription base.

How much of that 50% would go to the record labels? We'd pay 50% more and the artist would probably get 5% more. That doesn't seem like a good ROI.

While no party is without concern, I don't think either Spotify, the artist or the consumer is the problem here. There's a 800lb gorilla standing over there.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#229

Post by xtracto »

efsavage wrote: post #84
101008 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is not sustainable for the artists, how is this different than piracy? I'd say it is even worse, because people is paying but the money goes to a middleware company that is not paying the right price. It is like buying CDs from the street sellers.

"sustainable for the artists" There seems to be some idea of what musicians "should" make that other professions don't benefit from. I would like to make the same money from making furniture as I do from writing code, but I can't. I could blame the furniture stores for not promoting me or taking too big a cut or any number of other factors, or I could accept the fact that I'm not an amazing woodworker. But I still ma…

You touch a point that has been discussed ad-nauseam before (I saw it in /. a long time ago): Why should artists be perpetually paid for the 40 hours of work they made?

Any normal people, has a pay rate (minimum $0.77 USD/hr where I live). Someone goes to work, works for 8 hours, and gets their 8hr equivalent salary.

But then you have "artists" who work to produce their product for say 80 hours, and then they want to be perpetually paid... not only that, they want to be paid enough to live a lifestyle similar to the person that get's paid for 40 hours a week job, for 30 years.

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