Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

rollingstone.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 146 posts

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

#51

Post by Arnt »

ikt wrote: post #8
xavxav wrote: post #2

I'm not familiar with the structure of stream payouts on Spotify, but if 80 million streams gives 12 dollars, that means Taylor Swift's 26.1B streams give ~4k? I knew the rates were bad but damn...

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...

That 0.003/stream is paid to the label of the artists with the most advantageous contracts. The label will forward some part of that to the artist, and if the artist has an advantageous contract that may be a large part.

But if the label was good at negotiating with Spotify, maybe the label was also good at negotiating with the artists, and the artists's share is capped at $12?

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

#52

Post by apwell23 »

jrajav wrote: post #40
chipgap98 wrote: post #26

AFAIK Spotify doesn't pay per stream. They pay a percentage of revenue to artists that is divided based on streams of their music. Record companies and big artists negotiate these deals with Spotify. It seems like artists should be more angry with their labels about the deals that are negotiated than mad at Spotify.

Most artists these days self-distribute via platforms like Distrokid, not via a label. Distrokid just passes along streaming revenue, so they don't have any incentive to fight for it. And obviously, artists aren't in any position at all to collectively negotiate - you publish on Spotify, or you're unknown. The fault does, in fact, lie mostly with Spotify here.

> Most artists these days self-distribute

Not the artists with "most" streams. Record labels still dominate the market.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

jjulius wrote: post #29
jkubicek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

$700k regardless is a good chunk of cash, but can you blame an artist for asking, "Whoa what the fuck?" if that's still a lot less than they would've made in a time before Spotify existed?

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by Spivak »

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…

It does create weird incentives though. You make more money not by people listening to your music more but buy the people that do listen to you listening to other artists less.

I can already see the internet:

"Don't listen to your discover weekly or new music friday it hurts the artists you like."

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

#56

Post by ReptileMan »

sunbum wrote: post #42
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?

That then smaller artists would be drowned by the popular ones. If I listen only to Vision Of Atlantis this month for 1 hour - I want them (or their label) to get all of my money after the Spotify cut. if you aggregate them in a huge pool with teen girls that listen to Tylor swift on repeat - there is chance that the minutes I have listen to them probably won't be enough to get that.

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

#57

Post by apwell23 »

jrajav wrote: post #50
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…

> middleman takes a well-defined, reasonable cut of that.

Can you cite some examples of this. Etsy perhaps?

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

#58

Post by [deleted] »

dewey wrote: post #47
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.

[deleted]

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

#59

Post by jwlstn »

chipgap98 wrote: post #26

AFAIK Spotify doesn't pay per stream. They pay a percentage of revenue to artists that is divided based on streams of their music. Record companies and big artists negotiate these deals with Spotify. It seems like artists should be more angry with their labels about the deals that are negotiated than mad at Spotify.

Spotify literally has never turned an annual profit because labels extract all of the $ due to the monopoly they have on content.

Artists should be mad at the labels THEY entered into contracts with, not spotify.

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

#60

Post by AlexandrB »

sunbum wrote: post #42
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?

I think it makes a big difference for the "long tail" who get almost nothing now, but could get a reasonable share of the dough if they could attract even a few hundred avid fans.

For example, I listen to <1hr of music a day, but it's a lot of Canadian Indie bands. My plays are completely swamped by teenagers listening to T.Swift or whatever on repeat for 8hrs a day so the bands I listen to get $10/month from Spotify as a whole.

Post reply on HN