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'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

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Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#41

Post by pfannkuchen »

jkubicek wrote: post #20
ikt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a different article: Not 3 cents, a third of one penny per stream. By that metric, Weird Al would have earned a little more than $12, more like $350,000 but his point stands. https://gizmodo.com/weird-al-spotify-wrapped-artist-pay-1851...

If that's how much he earns, I'm not sure his point does stand. If he's making $350k from Spotify, I'm guessing he makes about that much from all the other streaming services combined. $700k in income from what is essentially an advertisement for your tours and merch feels like a pretty good deal.

> from what is essentially an advertisement for your tours and merch

Isn’t the whole point that this part is not the way it should be?

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#42

Post by sunbum »

ReptileMan wrote: post #37

I want a streaming service with following business model: I pay 10 dollars for unlimited streaming. Spotify gets 1 or 2. I listen only to taylor swift on repeat - she gets 8 I listen to only one song the whole month - then some obscure metal band from Finland gets 8 I listen to 40 bands equally - they get 20c each I listen to 1 band as 20 other combined - the band get 4$ all the rest split 4. Thats it Here is the kic…

What practical difference does it make with aggregation / averages for millions of users compared to your system?

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#46

Post by AlexandrB »

redundantly wrote: post #21
dbalatero wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when has "deserves" ever been part of the equation?

Yeah. I forgot this. I also forgot how much she's liked in the middle aged, white male demographic, so I'm not likely to get much sympathy here on HN.

The best thing about Taylor Swift is how she managed to fuck over the PE firm that bought the rights to her music[1][2]. This is a more effective "fuck you" to the money side of the industry than many more lyrically principled groups have managed to achieve. Her music is... ok. It's the pop music industry, so I'm not sure what you're expecting here. But it's nice to see a pop star with a spine and some business sense.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/17/taylor-swifts-masters-sold-b...

[2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/taylor-swift-says-she-s...

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#47

Post by dewey »

emilecantin wrote: post #38

I think a better payout structure for Spotify would be to go per-user. For example, for each subscriber a given amount from their subscription plan is earmarked for payouts. Let's say about 4$ per user. We divide that amount by the number of streams the user had that month, and we simply pay that amount to the artist. Examples: - I only listened to one song this month? The full 4$ go to that artist. - I listened to 2…

> I think the current model of per-stream across the whole platform distorts the playing field towards more popular artists that play in commercial settings.

Which is very much in favor of the actual people (Major labels) who needed to be convinced to license all their artists to Spotify in the first place. So not really surprising.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#48

Post by WXLCKNO »

emilecantin wrote: post #38

I think a better payout structure for Spotify would be to go per-user. For example, for each subscriber a given amount from their subscription plan is earmarked for payouts. Let's say about 4$ per user. We divide that amount by the number of streams the user had that month, and we simply pay that amount to the artist. Examples: - I only listened to one song this month? The full 4$ go to that artist. - I listened to 2…

I'm sure that smarter people than I will point out flaws in this model (aside from Spotify making less money lol) but I love it.

It would be split into tons of artists for most people but a guaranteed chunk of the monthly would be nice.

Re: 'Weird Al' Roasts Spotify's Artist Payout System in Year-End Wrapped Video

#50

Post by jrajav »

happymellon wrote: post #28

> which is notoriously bad at paying musicians. The only thing I ever see are people comparing against the money that 90's rockstars used to be able to bring in from album sales. That ship sailed a long time ago, Spotify take everyone's money, substract a percentage for themselves and distribute the rest based upon number of plays. If you were a big artist it's probably worse because you aren't getting a sweet deal t…

I see your point, but it's mainly this part:

> subtract a percentage for themselves

Streaming platforms (let's not just pick on Spotify, though they also pay worse than others) just do this arbitrarily. They decide how much to skim off for themselves before graciously paying artists. This isn't how it works in basically any other industry where one group of skilled individuals create content that is then sold on some marketplace - instead, the sale price and proceeds are visible to all, and the middleman takes a well-defined, reasonable cut of that.

There's no need to compare streaming platforms to other models of paying musicians, in order to know they're getting a bum deal. This model is not fair in the slightest, and it's perfectly alright to be upset about it.

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