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Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

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Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#381

Post by yreg »

sunir wrote: post #347
bitcharmer wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What processing fees? This is a digital platform. It's not like there are dozens of bureaucrats stamping tonnes of papers here.

Instead of being incredulous, assume good faith the other person is speaking with best intent. Try to understand first. There are no free payment transfer mechanisms. Whatever is free is a loss leader. If you don’t know anything about payments, start by reading stripe.com’s documentation to understand how complex this is. Pymnts.com is the industry blog if you want to go deep.

Going back to the App Store Minimum Payment Threshold Table[1], it shows how highly effective Apple became at dealing with money transfers in a large part of the world.

Of course, they don't need to base their threshold on worries about spam/fraud/etc, because they have another hammer for that -> the $99/yr. developer programme.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/reference...

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#382

Post by fundatus »

alexcannan wrote: post #337
fundatus wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? The current system is super simple: revenue * 0.7 = total payout total payout / no. of streams = payout per stream payout per stream * streams of an artist = payout for artist In the proposed system you'd have to calculate the payout per stream on a per-account basis and have additional complexities like how to handle family accounts etc.

Computers are very good at doing these calculations

Obviously, but as I said it's much more complex and therefore more expensive to do. With a negligible effect.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#383

Post by buffington »

UncleMeat wrote: post #348
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.…

My wife is a professor in a field where they regularly publish books. "Zero royalties for the first N copies sold" appears to be common in the academic publishing contract world. It's a mess.

I wrote a programming book back when tech books were a thing you had to go physically buy from a physical store (more than 20 years ago now). The publisher sent advanced royalties, which was money that was mine, free and clear (it wasn't a small amount either - certainly enough to compete with a full time salary for similar time commitment and knowledge/skills needed). I wouldn't see any more royalties until I'd sold enough to equal what my advance was. If I never sold enough, then I wouldn't see any new money - the original advance was still mine.

I did end up seeing royalty checks, though not until the book was translated from English to Italian. For some reason, it sold comparatively well in Italian, pushing me over the threshold to earn royalities. The one actual royalty check I saw for my book was a grand total of $0.02. I never cashed the check and keep it in a desk drawer somewhere.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#384

Post by antifa »

kredd wrote: post #141
isodev wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a part-time indie artist, one can do a lot with $50 you get on the side from streams. Also, what is Spotify going to do with these 50$? What if it happens twice, 100$... do they pay you back eventually? Perpetually free access to all their premium services?

I'll take this bad faith argument, and give you even a worse one - $50 is about 5 drinks or less at a bar with tips nowadays. I genuinely doubt a serious person who makes music on the side will look at that number as a potential loss of income. And if you have made 200 songs (so loss of $100), all streaming less than 1K each, maybe your current production is not marketable on Spotify, and yeah, maybe you should find…

Must artists are struggling, so that loss of $50 means picking up an extra shift at McDonald's to pay rent instead of making or promoting their music.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#385

Post by subroutine »

Manheim wrote: post #314
subroutine wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does in some circumstances. See apple's app store lawsuit in the EU. However this seems fundamentally different. It's more like youtube (which actually pays far less per stream $.1 - $1 per 1000 streams)

yes, as I said in my original comment, paying little is one thing, paying nothing is something different. Streaming music has ruined the "product" market for music as it was. That will not change. YT, Spotify, doesn't matter, you do not get much paid for music anymore, unless you are among the top dominant streaming artists in the long tail model. But something is still more than nothing...

I actually think this is helping the product market. This will set a minimal standard of quality for something to get paid. Otherwise the near future will involve the use of AI to automate the creation of thousands of garbage songs that each get streamed a few times.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#386

Post by subroutine »

falqun wrote: post #317
subroutine wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If they would be smaller, e.g. a new startup on the marked, I would agree. But currently its the defacto place for your music to put if you want an audience. I would argue that one with that much marked power should be held accountable for such actions, e.g. with stronger marked regulations preventing arising monopolies.

Spotify and the internet as a whole has liberated the music industry from the strangle hold of record companies. And you still can't just upload your songs to Spotify, you need to go through some publishing group. Getting Spotify to pay more per stream is siding with the record companies, and you can be sure they are lobbying hard on behalf of their interests. It's a tricky situation.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#387

Post by Monory »

jdeibele wrote: post #375
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.

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…

SEPA seems to have no problem moving sub-euro amounts. I am not an entrepreneur, but I did send single euro amounts to my friends. Is it more difficult in USA?

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#388

Post by AtNightWeCode »

wokkel wrote: post #192
AtNightWeCode wrote: post #28

The 1k streams limit will probably only financially effect "artists" that spams the platform with new tracks. It is not like it will make any difference for real artists.

So by your definition a real artist should have more than 1000 plays. I listen to small artist from my country which will probably never reach a global audience and they definitely do not get 1.000 plays but are verified artists according to spotify. This policy basically drives more drivel music and leaves out alternative and indie bands. It's a bad policy that needs an investigation by the authorities to force Spot…

No small artists cares about this at all. Grow up.

Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams

#389

Post by friend_and_foe »

Here we go, Spotify coming in hot with it's own adpocalypse. There just isn't enough ad money to go around. What can you do? Targeted advertising is a bubble, at scale it provides little additional return and the industry is overvalued. The only thing that has been propping it up is startups looking for quick bucks to please investors, in the long run it was always going to collapse.
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