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Justice at Spotify

unionofmusicians.org

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Re: Justice at Spotify

#331

Post by nvarsj »

tschwimmer wrote: post #242

The hard truth in music (and in many creative industries) is that there's a huge oversupply (many musicians are willing to make music for free or very cheap) and demand has a low willingness to pay. The result is that there isn't much money to be made for musicians. In my mind, there's really no way around this fact. You can argue (as these folks are) that Spotify could take a smaller cut and give more to musicians.…

I don't think it's as simple as supply and demand as you suggest. The behavior of record companies and distributors is completely atrocious in the music industry. It's monopolist behavior, and it completely distorts the actual market. If artists got the majority of royalties from each play of their song, things would be substantially different.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#332

Post by ksec »

tschwimmer wrote: post #242

The hard truth in music (and in many creative industries) is that there's a huge oversupply (many musicians are willing to make music for free or very cheap) and demand has a low willingness to pay. The result is that there isn't much money to be made for musicians. In my mind, there's really no way around this fact. You can argue (as these folks are) that Spotify could take a smaller cut and give more to musicians.…

>Overall, the problem for musicians is one of economics. Too many people willing to make music, not enough willing to pay.

Exactly. And we have finite amount of time and attention. Just like the head of Premiere League in UK said E-Sport ( Gaming ) and other entertainment like Netflix are their competitors. And we have less time for music. It is not only an abundance of music, but also in other entertainment.

K-POP essentially made their music and MV for free on YouTube. While making money on tours, merchandise, and show appearance.

I sympathies for them. But their problem has nothing to do with Spotify at all.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#333

Post by hansvm »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #195
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…

Isn't Spotify barely making a profit? I think the real issue here is that people just don't want to pay as much for music like they did during the golden age of the CD. Most Spotify users are still on the free tier. Blaming streaming companies isn't gonna change that.

Last I checked that wasn't exactly the problem, at least not by itself -- even accounting for inflation we're spending several times more per capita per month on music than we used to "during the golden age of the CD." Moreover, a much higher percentage of that revenue is actually going to artists than in years past.

Faced with that reality, it would be interesting to know what is actually going on. Is total dollars spent on music not reflective of what artists used to make? Are there just that many more musicians than there used to be? Was it way harder to make a living making music in years past than we're giving it credit for? Are artifacts of pay-per-listen rather than pay-per-song causing a different payout distribution impacting the majority of musicians (e.g., you used to have to buy a CD to listen to a song just once)?

Re: Justice at Spotify

#334

Post by paxys »

IndySun wrote: post #318

Just wondering if there are any developers on this post working with or defending the use of decentralised, music sharing, copyleft, anti-royalty, software? And if so, do you see the irony? I sincerely hope people take my question at face value, I am aware it's a big world.

Those are a lot of words to describe Napster

Re: Justice at Spotify

#335

Post by bengale »

pietrovismara wrote: post #176
Barrin92 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you under the impression that engineers at spotify are currently going hungry and working minimum wages? As developers we are already ridiculously overpaid compared to artists. We are the ones who benefit from the shit salaries that musicians make, which is of course why people on this website don't want to hear anything about creators bargaining. It's the people here who benefit from the status quo.

> We are the ones who benefit from the shit salaries that musicians make Not really. We are just being paid enough so that we do not leave for somewhere else. The ones who really benefit are the shareholders. Coincidentally, the same people who didn't do any of the work.

>The ones who really benefit are the shareholders. Coincidentally, the same people who didn't do any of the work.

This is how capitalism works though. There's no way Spotify can be expected to fundamentally change the economic system they exist in. Reversing that is heading into the realm of revolution.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#336

Post by incrudible »

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…

If Spotify is in fact spending 75% of its revenue on royalties, but according to you less than 25% of it arrives at the artist, what does that tell you? Either your calculation is wrong, or somebody who is not Spotify is pocketing the difference.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#337

Post by mikepurvis »

potatoman22 wrote: post #291
mikepurvis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other issue that has been raised a number of times is that I believe the revenue is still divided up based on overall listens across the platform, which means it's dominated by artists who feature heavily in popular playlists and automation-driver radio/recommendations. These listens are often passive and should not be considered as valuable as those of someone listens only a few hours a month, but spends all of…

Aren't your listens to an indie artist still driving up their listens across the platform? It's an interesting point that Spotify's algorithms probably drive more listens to popular artists, but I think overall listen-count it still the most equitable metric.

The point is that it's about valuing the content which actually makes or breaks people's decision to subscribe to the service. Spotify is convenient, but it wouldn't survive on top-40 content because people would just go back to their MP3s or listen to it on YouTube.

I'm pretty sure that Netflix understands this, by the way— they know that deep-pocketed competitors like Amazon are going to eat their lunch if they try to do mass-appeal prestige shows starring A-list celebs, so they only do a few of those (enough to basically fill the homepage), while leaning hard into extremely niche content. Like, have you seen how many weird cooking shows there are on there? Or Hallmark Christmas movies? This is stuff that's harder to find elsewhere, and there are dedicated audiences on Netflix who are mostly or exclusively consuming it. If Netflix's internal accounting worked like how Spotify pays royalties, those shows would be instantly canceled in favour of new primetime-style sitcoms.

But they aren't, and I think it's because there are pools of their subscribers who will cancel the service if there isn't a steady stream of the specific content they're interested in. Thus, their subscriber $$$ go directly to funding that content, rather than into a general pot that's broken up by raw viewership numbers.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#338

Post by varispeed »

Why artists on Spotify are not treated the same as Uber drivers? They are in fact employees providing content for the platform. From that perspective, Spotify should be paying at least a minimum wage for every artist signed on to the platform, plus any streaming money as a bonus. There is also a problem that some artists (from major labels) get more money than small artists for the same number of streams. I think this should be looked into by a regulator. The same way as workers doing the same job should be paid the same salary, artists should be receiving the same money per stream.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#339

Post by herbturbo »

paxys wrote: post #327
tschwimmer wrote: post #242

The hard truth in music (and in many creative industries) is that there's a huge oversupply (many musicians are willing to make music for free or very cheap) and demand has a low willingness to pay. The result is that there isn't much money to be made for musicians. In my mind, there's really no way around this fact. You can argue (as these folks are) that Spotify could take a smaller cut and give more to musicians.…

Exactly this. You could remove 98% of music from Spotify and people would still gladly keep paying the $10/mo because they are there for Drake and Taylor Swift.

Right - and how did Drake and Taylor Swift rise to that level? Same way Madonna and Michael Jackson did. Getting radio play and touring, which took a record label. Getting people to actually give a shit about your music is a problem Spotify isn't going to solve for unknown artists.

Re: Justice at Spotify

#340

Post by lux »

number6 wrote: post #314
paxys wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are an indie artist (no record label deals) and agree to Spotify's terms, how are major labels involved at all? How are they getting the payouts meant for you?

and why sign a deal or agree to terms that you don't agree to? Just don't go to Spotify?

Tell that to listeners. Many artists don't list themselves there for that reason, but you're penalized for it because Spotify playlists are increasingly the only way many people access music at all. The do or don't isn't always so black and white.
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