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Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

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Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#371

Post by jstummbillig »

maronato wrote: post #361
yreg wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, because at some point the processing fees are so high it makes no sense to distribute the earnings. I don't think it's reasonable to expect to get "peanuts" paid out. Google AdSense is the same; you have to earn at least $100 to get it paid out, until then the earnings just accumulate in your account. Same goes for YouTube. I don't see it as unreasonable. To be honest, I wouldn't care as a creator/a seller, unl…

Isn’t that just part of the cost of doing business? Not all transactions need to be lucrative. The only reason Shopify thinks they can get away with it is because they’ve grown enough that small artists don’t have a choice but to suck it up.

There is nothing to get away with. Hosting small/shitty bands is not a money making proposition for Spotify. Most bands will never make money on Spotify, in spite of Spotify enabling them to do so. They just suck. And I think it is so cool that anyone can suck and still have their music be ubiquitously accessible on the premiere music platform, without real hurdles and at no cost, in (roughly) the same way that any big artist can.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#372

Post by fennecfoxy »

maronato wrote: post #361
yreg wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, because at some point the processing fees are so high it makes no sense to distribute the earnings. I don't think it's reasonable to expect to get "peanuts" paid out. Google AdSense is the same; you have to earn at least $100 to get it paid out, until then the earnings just accumulate in your account. Same goes for YouTube. I don't see it as unreasonable. To be honest, I wouldn't care as a creator/a seller, unl…

Isn’t that just part of the cost of doing business? Not all transactions need to be lucrative. The only reason Shopify thinks they can get away with it is because they’ve grown enough that small artists don’t have a choice but to suck it up.

Well I'd say that if Spotify were forced to, they'd instead just remove small bands from Spotify entirely.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#373

Post by gentleman11 »

subroutine wrote: post #301
Manheim wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a scholar in law, but I would want the law to prevent someone to take someone elses property/ product and distribute it without compensation in their commercial services. 1000 streams is 1000 uses of a song. If you do not reach 1001 you get zero compensation, and that is in principle stealing in my opinion, and should also be that under the law.

But Spotify isn't taking anyone's property. Spotify is saying "here's how our payment system works" and then bands can decide whether to put their songs on Spotify.

On the internet, it’s all network effects so competition and proper alternatives is almost impossible. You can’t say “just don’t choose to use it” as flippantly in these cases

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#374

Post by mistrial9 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #371
maronato wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that just part of the cost of doing business? Not all transactions need to be lucrative. The only reason Shopify thinks they can get away with it is because they’ve grown enough that small artists don’t have a choice but to suck it up.

There is nothing to get away with. Hosting small/shitty bands is not a money making proposition for Spotify. Most bands will never make money on Spotify, in spite of Spotify enabling them to do so. They just suck. And I think it is so cool that anyone can suck and still have their music be ubiquitously accessible on the premiere music platform, without real hurdles and at no cost, in (roughly) the same way that any b…

the Beatles sold their first thousand records, at one short time in history.. and there will never be another Beatles due to "long tail" modern distributions.. casual ill-will and indifference to new projects must not be confused with reasonable, or even legal contractual behaviors

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#375

Post by jdeibele »

maronato wrote: post #361
yreg wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, because at some point the processing fees are so high it makes no sense to distribute the earnings. I don't think it's reasonable to expect to get "peanuts" paid out. Google AdSense is the same; you have to earn at least $100 to get it paid out, until then the earnings just accumulate in your account. Same goes for YouTube. I don't see it as unreasonable. To be honest, I wouldn't care as a creator/a seller, unl…

Isn’t that just part of the cost of doing business? Not all transactions need to be lucrative. The only reason Shopify thinks they can get away with it is because they’ve grown enough that small artists don’t have a choice but to suck it up.

Honest question: have you ever run a business? You're talking about setting up millions of accounts to pay them $.02 or $.20 or even $2.00. ACH payments cost an average of $.29/each https://gocardless.com/en-us/guides/ach/ach-fees-how-much-do...

You're dealing with a bunch of people who will try to rip you off, so you need to have anti-fraud protections. Then you need to be able to override the anti-fraud protections because Alex, Alex and Bob, Alex, Bob, and Curt, etc. are all legit performers who want the payments to go to one common bank account even though you'd like one act == one bank account. Etc.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#376

Post by Tanoc »

rchaud wrote: post #315
FireInsight wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the reason why my preferred method of music consumption is piracy + Bandcamp. Every Bandcamp Friday (when Bandcamp doesn't take a cut) I buy about 2 to 6 albums I've listened to in the past month or a few. If an artist is not on Bandcamp, I'm less likely to listen to them, but if I do, I eventually pirate their stuff. All the music I buy and pirate is in FLAC and funneled into my local library, where…

It ain't piracy if the record I want is out of print and no longer commercially available. Most of the music I listen to is pre-2010, so there are a lot of records that fit that description. Same goes for live recordings, remixes and radio sessions. P2P has had this for 20+ years, Spotify doesn't and never will.

Same here. A lot of artists and a good chunk of the recording crews from before the early 1980s are dead and have been for decades, and the only ones getting the money are the record companies. Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Jim Croce, Stevie Ray Vaughan, all of them have been gone for thirty years or more at this point. Not even their kids or some sort of charity managed by their estate get any of the money. Piracy of their albums is denying wealth from graverobbers, really.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#377

Post by maxcoder4 »

fimdomeio wrote: post #177

"You wouldn't stream a car for free would you?" This is just playing with meanings but for most musicians having their music on Spotify or on torrents is pretty much the same. the only difference is that only in one case there's a company profiting in the process.

Musicians put their music on Spotify out of their own will. If they don't like it they can withdraw. Unless they sold the rights to a music label, but that's also their decision.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#378

Post by yreg »

maronato wrote: post #361
yreg wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, because at some point the processing fees are so high it makes no sense to distribute the earnings. I don't think it's reasonable to expect to get "peanuts" paid out. Google AdSense is the same; you have to earn at least $100 to get it paid out, until then the earnings just accumulate in your account. Same goes for YouTube. I don't see it as unreasonable. To be honest, I wouldn't care as a creator/a seller, unl…

Isn’t that just part of the cost of doing business? Not all transactions need to be lucrative. The only reason Shopify thinks they can get away with it is because they’ve grown enough that small artists don’t have a choice but to suck it up.

It's the cost of doing business for the seller on the platform.

I'm not sure what's the problem here, to be honest. Alternativelly the platform could also charge withdrawal fees, making small withdrawals pointless.

Afaik this minimum withdrawal concept has been the standard way of doing business when reselling digital goods. See e.g. the aforementioned AdSense which has been set up this way for 20 years now. The same goes for Steam, once again you have to sell $100 worth of stuff to get paid.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#379

Post by occz »

NBJack wrote: post #356
Manheim wrote: post #216

Paying a nominal amount for each stream is one matter; however, compensating nothing for smaller quantities while you pay for larger amounts presents a fundamentally different issue. This scenario is akin to an author not receiving royalties for the first 1,000 books sold in a bookstore, or a manufacturer not being paid for the first 1,000 candy bars sold at a grocery store. Such practices can be equated with theft.…

Steam does something similar for indie publishers. Unless you reach $100 in sales, you will not receive a check.

As does YouTube, there are minimum levels of consumption required for any given channel to receive monetization, and ads are still displayed on this channel before the uploader receives any money.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#380

Post by polski-g »

estomagordo wrote: post #12

This change quite obviously can't negatively impact small artists in any meaningful way. When googling for how much Spotify pay artists per stream, ranges vary a bit. But it seems like a high number is $0.005 per stream, or 200 streams to the dollar. Even if a very prolific artist has 200 songs, averaging 500 plays per year, this would only ever amount to $500 per year. It is not peanuts for a hobby musician, but it…

Kind of crazy that we used to spend $20 for a CD with 12 songs on twenty years ago.
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