Kristin Graziani wrote a comprehensive explainer on this in November: https://consequence.net/2023/11/spotify-royalty-model-op-ed/
Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
91–100 of 425 posts
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#92I don’t know much about how music licensing works. But would this cause smaller musicians to decide to pull their stuff off Spotify? I listen to a lot of music on Spotify. And some of it is from smaller indie artists. Not a huge amount, but I’ve definitely listened to songs that are in that It surprises me how much of my Spotify library is no longer available. There’s at least a few dozen songs in my Spotify library…
>I don’t know much about how music licensing works. But would this cause smaller musicians to decide to pull their stuff off Spotify?
A lot of smaller artists don't have a say regarding licensing and distribution. They're usually managed by a local minor label, which in turn has specific agreements with bigger players (Columbia, UMG) once your music sells more than, let's say 50.000 copies and they need a partner to publish a release on more territories. A few artists also get their own label.
For example, Peggy Gou tracks are usually released trough Dudu Records (Her own label) -> Ninja Tune -> XL Recordings, which is basically the same label that nowadays publishes Adele and Radiohead. Adele went even a step further, and her music is handled by Columbia Records for the US market.
Until you reach this level of clout, you have very little direct control over your syncs and streaming rights in the "regular", Billboard-tracked, market.
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am in a small and new band. In 2023 we earned roughly 500 Euros via Bandcamp (digital, physical and merch) 300 Euros selling merch on gigs 2000 Euros playing gigs 20 Cents on Spotify There is no monetary reason to be on spotify, the only reason we are on there is because fans asked.
Similar experiences (but from a few years ago). Even people who have Spotify end up buying stuff in Bandcamp, anyway. I never had merch but had CDs, and sometimes people would buy two physical copies, one to gift. For me there was never any difference between Spotify and piracy.
Absolutely. I always buy music from artists to support them on Bandcamp. Spotify lets you discover bands that are little known, which is cool, but it's not a place that enables you to support those artists. Unfortunately, Bandcamp might also change since they are changing owners.
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, that's because the label siphons the rest. Spotify pays $4 per 1000 streams.
Where do you get those numbers from? I'm a self published artist. I had 150k streams on Spotify last year. I only earned roughly $450. There's no label or other middleman here taking a cut. Spotify is just cheap.
That's not too far off, is it? 150 * $4 = $600 ≈ $450.
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#95So which platform pays the highest royalty?
I did some research on this recently and it's a bit tricky to pin down as some of the information is out of date or doesn't include certain services, but the three that appear to be the best on payouts are: Tidal, Quobuz and Napster.
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not sure how it can affect those artists given it’s like $0.5 for 1k streams. I mean, I guess if they have 100 songs all at like 999 streams, that’s about $50 loss/year if they never pass that threshold. It sucks obviously, but not enough to for artists to pull out. My understanding is they’re playing a cat-and-mouse game with auto generated content, that syphons away some percentage of the royalties.
While it might not have a big impact on smaller artists financially, the idea of a multi billion dollar company deciding unilaterally to steal a few cents from you could be enough to drive you away.
Probably if being actively exploited by a multi billion company is a problem for them, it might be better for them to change dream.. or species
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#97I don’t know much about how music licensing works. But would this cause smaller musicians to decide to pull their stuff off Spotify? I listen to a lot of music on Spotify. And some of it is from smaller indie artists. Not a huge amount, but I’ve definitely listened to songs that are in that It surprises me how much of my Spotify library is no longer available. There’s at least a few dozen songs in my Spotify library…
> It surprises me how much of my Spotify library is no longer available. There’s at least a few dozen songs in my Spotify library that have been taken off the platform. It shows up in the list greyed out. A lot of good songs too. This probably has more to do with publishers and licensing contracts than artists pulling their music off from platforms. Sometimes even bigger artists' albums disappear when publisher is so…
A lot of that is also bad meta data. I have a few playlists for around 10 years or so. Every so often I have to go in and hunt down greyed out tracks that are no longer there but are available in identical versions elsewhere. Publishers apparently regularly update what they have on the platform and there's a lot of duplication as well between best off albums, remastered albums, etc. And some artists, like Neil Young, actually pulled most of their content. Spotify seems very happy to just break everybody's playlists continuously.
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a side-gig musician and composer - my wife and I as a matter of fact - this is a non-issue. It's a few bucks a year, maybe $5 to $15, depending if we release some new album. It's symbolic, not even a tip, and we can't cash it until it reaches I think $60 or more iirc. Spotify is not (or barely) making money out of our work, but we otoh are "making money" by using its platform and visibility as means to reaching to…
>> we can't cash it until it reaches I think $60 or more iirc This is highly dependent on your distributor. It can be as little as $10. >> Spotify is not (or barely) making money out of our work, but we otoh are "making money" by using its platform and visibility as means to reaching to our small fan base that will finance our work through concerts. This is an odd way to look at it. Without music, Spotify doesn’t exi…
> This is an odd way to look at it. Without music, Spotify doesn’t exist. People subscribe to Spotify and listen to their ads in exchange for unlimited music access. So Spotify is making money from your music.
Spotify has expenses too and is hosting and streaming our music, distributing and maintaining an app and api for access, all basically for free for the musician. So "making money from your music" from my 800 streams a year is a very optimistic view of how the whole thing works out, I'd say we are cooperating fairly.
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#99When I read the headline, I assumed this was to disincentivise uploading thousands of cheap AI-generated songs. There's tons of this on the platform, and it looks like it was generated automatically in bulk. But the article makes it sound like this was not a factor?
I'm inclined to believe that filling the service with an endless stream of generated garbage is their ultimate endgame - why bother with unreliable and costly human creators when you can just emulate them well enough for undiscerning listeners. No substance, just vibes.
Even Spotify is smart enough to know that people will leave them if this ever happens.
Re: Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
#100And the enshitification begins. Remember that you as users are next. Find a sustainable alternative now. I personally recommend bandcamp + youtube combo. Yt to explore and find new music, Bc to buy the music I enjoy and __own__ it.
What works well for me is a metal discord community (run by writers of a review blog [0]). Tons of interesting recommendations, including sometimes non-metal stuff, my favorite album of the year so far is chamber folk / Americana [1]. For new music, I tend to at least give a few seconds to every new release that is of an even slightly interesting sub-genre, older stuff sometimes shows up in what people post they are…
I hardly ever listen to metal any more but I still often check Angry Metal Guy just because it's such a well run independent music review and community site.
Unfortunately such sites are increasingly rare these days.