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Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

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Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#231

Post by SilverRed »

throwawaysea wrote: post #7
seibelj wrote: post #2

This is 100% correct. For those that can’t understand the value of NFTs, it’s the same reason a “squares and circles” modern art piece can be worth millions - it’s the story of who made it, the collective belief, the rarity... Ultimately it has value because people agree it has value. It’s the same reason the Tom Brady football rookie card sold for millions despite it being nothing more than ink on flimsy cardboard.…

> Ultimately it has value because people agree it has value. This feels like a pyramid scheme. What makes it different?

Nothing. NFTs are literally nothing more than a scam. People are running mental gymnastics trying to delude themselves in to believing that having a cryptographically signed json packet pointing to a dead url will be worth a fortune in the future.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#232

Post by dTal »

tasogare wrote: post #216
hansvm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the majority of that money just goes to Spotify Last I checked, Spotify's cut is 30%. That's a lot, but even with a significant error it's nowhere near the "majority." > If, every month, you paid 10€ to a random artist you liked (or split 10€ between all of them), the artists would receive probably more than two orders of magnitude more money. That's a function of how popular your favorite artists are and how much…

> L ast I checked, Spotify's cut is 30%. That's a lot, but even with a significant error it's nowhere near the "majority." It is in fact way way more than the majority because the remaining is split among artists while the cut is kept in totally by Spotify. Spotify is taking 3€ while any given artist would get a few cents at best.

Ouch. So 30% per subscriber, not 30% per artist which is what we would usually mean by a cut. A classic instance of "two for you two, and two for me, too!".

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#233

Post by pydry »

andrewzah wrote: post #217
pydry wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What I'm saying is, we need to pay people for their work. Most musicians don't get paid for their work or get paid a token amount. I don't see what the point is in fighting for Taylor Swift's right to make millions from making music if the average person can't make a living. It's not about quality either. It's about distribution channels.

> I don't see what the point is in fighting for Taylor Swift's right to make millions from making music if the average person can't make a living. This is a strawman argument. Obviously I would like to see -all- artists get paid a living wage at least for their work. The fact that life isn't fair and TS makes millions isn't my fault, and is not what I'm specifically advocating here.

Obviously you would like to see all artists get paid a living wage in theory but the mechanism for "getting artists paid" that you actually support is one that excels mostly at getting Taylor Swift and her record labels paid, not the average musician.

So no, I don't think it is such of a straw man.

It's not the average musician who is affected by pirates. Spotify will send them $90 / month instead of $100 / month, maybe.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#234

Post by dane-pgp »

savanaly wrote: post #221
dane-pgp wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet they participate in society. Curious! https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

You're carrying on some argument from some other place on the internet and applying it here, but I'm not part of it and I'm not the person you disagree with. Irony isn't a bad thing, it just is or isn't, and in this case it is. I was just trying to clarify that since someone said it wasn't.

I apologise for replying to you without providing enough relevant context. It's true that you weren't the one who initially brought up the issue of "irony", but I didn't want to reply to the [flagged][dead] comment as that would provide even less context to people reading mine.

You say that you're not the person I disagree with, but by saying "it's ironic" you gave the impression that we shouldn't expect leftists to make money from their work on Patreon. The point of the comic I linked was that there is nothing surprising about people earning money in the system they find themselves in while trying to change that system.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#235

Post by Aaargh20318 »

majormajor wrote: post #133
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does such an obvious fallacy command such purchase among smart people? Swift is talking about "music" as an original work. Patel responds with an irrelevant point about digital copies of music. Obviously these are two different things! Yes, they are two different things. The problem is that artists (and record labels) want to get paid for the non-scarce thing: the copies, and not for the actually scarce thing:…

> The solution then would be to find a way to charge not for the copies, but for the time effort that the artist put into the production of the music. That's literally what charging for the copies does, though. People just want something for nothing. Claiming you want to "take the copy for free but pay separately for the time" when you aren't willing to pay for the copy so that there is some reimbursment for the time…

> That's literally what charging for the copies does, though. People just want something for nothing.

No, it does not do that at all. If you sell 200 copies, you get paid twice as much as when you sell 100 copies. Artists should make a decent hourly wage depending only on the amount of work they have done.

Imagine if other professions worked the same way as the copyright industry does. You have a plumber install a new toilet in your home, but instead of charging you for his time and effort, he charges you 5 cents every time you pee, and 10 cents every time you poo. Or you have someone pave your driveway, and instead of paying for his work you pay $1 every tine you park your car there.

Would you accept that ? Why should artists be different ?

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#236

Post by hansvm »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #229
hansvm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the majority of that money just goes to Spotify Last I checked, Spotify's cut is 30%. That's a lot, but even with a significant error it's nowhere near the "majority." > If, every month, you paid 10€ to a random artist you liked (or split 10€ between all of them), the artists would receive probably more than two orders of magnitude more money. That's a function of how popular your favorite artists are and how much…

> No matter how unknown they are, if you listen to an average number of streams per month then they'll get at least 70% of your 10€/mo From what I understand the number of listens that month is pooled globally/in buckets for the purpose of distribution. So if you listen to your friend's band once and nothing else, and someone plays a 31 second song on repeat 83612x over 30 days nonstop, your friend's band gets {{payo…

> From what I understand the number of listens that month is pooled globally/in buckets for the purpose of distribution.

Yep, exactly. Views are pooled per stream rather than per artist, which is its own can of worms (I mentioned that somewhere in this thread), but if you watch an "average" amount that already accounts for such an artifact. At least 70% of your contributions go to the artists you listen to in such a scenario (that money has to come from somewhere; many artists _don't_ get paid much).

> And then the payout rate is a bit complicated because it comes from a variety of buckets.

Yep, that's why I simplified it as much as possible in the context of the net effect of your personal actions. Your paid listens will impact one bucket and not the others, and that allows them to be safely ignored when evaluating the difference in an artist's pay with you watching them on Spotify or just giving them cash.

> In practice though, I don't think it matters too much. I don't think many people listen to one artist exclusively.

This is a point I'm seeing crop up a lot, not just from you. I think we might be talking past each other; I'll lay out why I don't think that matters, and I'm curious to know what you think.

In particular, if you're comparing spending X per month on Spotify or spending X per month on other forms of music, in both scenarios you would be splitting that between the artists you actually care about. I'm pretty sure people spend more per month on music than they used to (still haven't found the original source, so maybe that idea is wrong), so IMO it doesn't make sense when comparing Spotify to alternatives to point out that in _both_ instances your money doesn't all go to one artist.

There is a point to be made that you'll probably listen to a broader variety of artists through Spotify than otherwise (why not? that's one of their core value propositions), so your individual X payment is split further than it would have been. However, everyone else is listening to more people too, and on average assuming everyone listens to the same distribution of music as in a pre-Spotify world those effects actually cancel out.

There is still an open question of whether that distribution is the same -- does there exist a pool of artists being listened to via Spotify who would rarely have their music purchased otherwise? My gut says "yes," but I don't actually know. Is it a bad thing for those artists to be paid?

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#237

Post by BitwiseFool »

dane-pgp wrote: post #234
savanaly wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're carrying on some argument from some other place on the internet and applying it here, but I'm not part of it and I'm not the person you disagree with. Irony isn't a bad thing, it just is or isn't, and in this case it is. I was just trying to clarify that since someone said it wasn't.

I apologise for replying to you without providing enough relevant context. It's true that you weren't the one who initially brought up the issue of "irony", but I didn't want to reply to the [flagged][dead] comment as that would provide even less context to people reading mine. You say that you're not the person I disagree with, but by saying "it's ironic" you gave the impression that we shouldn't expect leftists to…

I'm the OP. There's nothing wrong with these podcasters making money for their work. I mostly disagree with them but they've earned their money.

What I find ironic about it is that these podcasters in particular are crass, irreverent, and hypercritical of capitalism. But, they're using the status quo to make life changing amounts of money by talking about how bad the current system is. Good for them, though.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#238

Post by protomyth »

whatever_dude wrote: post #219
protomyth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate, just hate, the album version of Kiss's God of Thunder, but they speed it up live and it sounds amazing. STP was amazing in the Fargo Civic Center which makes me think the person who mixed their album just hated life because it is noticeably inferior. On the other hand, Aerosmith has sounded like crap the two times I've seen them in concert. It gets weird when you buy the import (for the US) versions of some s…

Tangential, but I've had a somewhat similar experience. Iron Maiden's "Flash of the Blade" used to be my favorite song by the band, but somehow it was not one of their biggest hits. I had it recorded on tape and would listen to it daily. When I finally had money I bought the album it was in, and couldn't not believe how bland the song sounded. Turns out the cassette player I used to play the song was speeding it up -…

Thinking about it, that makes a lot of sense. I listen to some of the folks on YouTube that do covers of songs. A lot of them speed up the song and it sounds better than the original. I wonder what causes that.

Is there any software that would allow the minimal speed-up to make it enjoyable to listen to again? Also, maybe check some of the live versions. I get the feeling those might be a bit faster.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#239

Post by runarberg »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #237
dane-pgp wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologise for replying to you without providing enough relevant context. It's true that you weren't the one who initially brought up the issue of "irony", but I didn't want to reply to the [flagged][dead] comment as that would provide even less context to people reading mine. You say that you're not the person I disagree with, but by saying "it's ironic" you gave the impression that we shouldn't expect leftists to…

I'm the OP. There's nothing wrong with these podcasters making money for their work. I mostly disagree with them but they've earned their money. What I find ironic about it is that these podcasters in particular are crass, irreverent, and hypercritical of capitalism. But, they're using the status quo to make life changing amounts of money by talking about how bad the current system is. Good for them, though.

If you find that ironic, then surely you see the irony when rich entrepreneurs blaze capitalism and oppose wealth tax while making money out of public infrastructure and skilled workers.

It is indeed too easy to see hypocrisy when strong opinions are expresses—particularly so if you don’t share the ideology. So easy in fact, and is done so often that it has become the meme that dane-pgp pointed out.

Re: Non-Fungible Taylor Swift

#240

Post by BitwiseFool »

runarberg wrote: post #239
BitwiseFool wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the OP. There's nothing wrong with these podcasters making money for their work. I mostly disagree with them but they've earned their money. What I find ironic about it is that these podcasters in particular are crass, irreverent, and hypercritical of capitalism. But, they're using the status quo to make life changing amounts of money by talking about how bad the current system is. Good for them, though.

If you find that ironic, then surely you see the irony when rich entrepreneurs blaze capitalism and oppose wealth tax while making money out of public infrastructure and skilled workers. It is indeed too easy to see hypocrisy when strong opinions are expresses—particularly so if you don’t share the ideology. So easy in fact, and is done so often that it has become the meme that dane-pgp pointed out.

I don't find that ironic because that's exactly what I would expect those greedy people to do.
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