Spotify - anyone heard of it?

I know several small-scale musicians who are just so bummed out about the streaming model, just more chipping away at the revenue for people who are on the bottom of the food chain while the revenue moves up to the top ever increasingly.

i can't wait for the worldwide smash by the artist who refuses to record anything and the only time anyone can hear the song is when the artist performs it.

take that, spotify business model.

(but honestly you can't fight it at this point, it's too big. the only way to remedy the situation is for more huge legacy acts like neil and joni to remove their catalogue... but like, from everywhere not just spotify)

budo jero, whoever you are and whatever evil company you work for, do you have a helpful contrasting example of a company that is not ripping off artists?

Really don't need you giving "them" more ideas.

― glenn mcdonald, Friday, December 1, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

haha fair.

I don’t know the intricacies of Tidal’s contract but my understanding is that they at least pay significantly more per stream (still a small amount) and aren’t getting rid of payments to smaller artists. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong! It’s probably still a rip-off run by unsavory people, I just prefer to use them bc I have less of a sense that their business model regards musicians as an unfortunate byproduct of the content delivery game.

I like this idea that the corporate music industry has always been a noble endeavor that cared deeply about the artists until Spotify came along and wrecked everything.

that user centric model needs a lil work imo - somebody who "carefully" listens to one track per month gives $10 to the label that distributed it, and somebody else who listens to 100 different tracks all on different labels gives each label 1 cent

xp I own a copy of Hit Men, that is not what I was implying, but my point was that saying "well it's legal" is a copout

and indie labels can be just as bad *cough* SST *cough*

budo jero, whoever you are and whatever evil company you work for, do you have a helpful contrasting example of a company that is not ripping off artists?

― glenn mcdonald, Friday, December 1, 2023 6:11 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i knew you wouldn't be able to do it. speaks for itself.

I like this idea that the corporate music industry has always been a noble endeavor that cared deeply about the artists until Spotify came along and wrecked everything.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Friday, December 1, 2023 6:19 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

brilliant stuff here

A substantive statement that I make freely is that Daniel Ek should be flayed, and his flesh cooked and force-fed to the Spotify board and primary shareholders, but my pitches for an op-ed proposing just this have had no takers to date

now you're talking

I like this idea that the corporate music industry has always been a noble endeavor that cared deeply about the artists until Spotify came along and wrecked everything.

― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Friday, December 1, 2023 6:19 PM

good point but i think the big gripe here is that we should have evolved past the ripoff deal being the default. spotify def ain't helpin.

Tidal pays the same way as Spotify (and Apple, Amazon and Deezer): ~70% of revenue as royalties, split up pro-rata. If you just do the global math for the overall average rate per stream, Tidal's is higher because they have a $20 tier and a $10 tier and no ad-supported tier (and they operate in fewer poorer countries than Spotify). But a $10 Tidal subscription generates the same $7 of royalties as a $10 Spotify subscription, and payments are done per-country-per-tier, not from a single global pool. In terms of your personal contribution as a listener, paying $20 is contributing twice as much money to music as $10, but agreeing to let you pay more money is not exactly moral superiority or generosity. Paying $10/month and occasionally buying band t-shirts is also fine.

All the major streaming services operate the same basic way. This is not at all coincidental, since they all have to negotiate with the same 3 major labels for the necessary rights to operate. This idea about a minimum payment threshold, which Deezer and Spotify have so far announced, doesn't benefit the streaming services at all, therefore one has to imagine that the motivation for it comes from the labels, and thus that Apple and Amazon are at least likely to be pressured to adopt it as well.

glenn - does ad revenue from the free tier get factored into royalties somehow, or does that stay in Spotify’s pocket?

The free tier is the same: 70% of revenue paid as royalties. Think of the advertisers as paying for the listener’s subscription.

Thx

so the money for signings like Rogan don't come from that 70% pool?

Nope. Nor marketing, nor salaries, nor offices.

The bitching about streaming is so entitled and annoying. Streaming services provide no effort, passive income for artists. There are artists who make millions off one song on Spotify. Musicians sign contracts. Those contracts include streaming. If the artist wants full control, they need to make that decision before selling out to a label in order to chase fame. Otherwise they would self release, own 100% and decide whether to offer their music on Spotify etc. Without streaming musicians would be worse off. Every musician is responsible for their music being on the platform. They made the choice. They need to shut up about it, write better music, or take control of their fate, leave their labels and DIY. I buy a 20 or so new LPs a month. I pay for Spotify family and Apple Music. The bitching about streaming is so tired and wrong. Get over it. Musicians made their bed, now it’s time they made their music better so more people want to hear it more often.

Bad take!

lol I thought that was a parody

Everyone says that but nobody says why I’m wrong. Are artists not signing contracts? Is their music being stolen by Spotify? If so, they should take legal action. I’m reasonable, and can change my mind. Maybe we need an “artist class” where they all get UBI and can just focus on their art. I love music, I spend a lot of money on music every month. The hate for streaming is just baffling. Take way streaming and what happens? Piracy increases and an overall reduction in the amount of music being pressed and release. Indie artists won’t be more popular or more rich if Spotify shut down.

Is their music being stolen by Spotify?

Short answer: yes! Long answer: yes, but it’s complicated!

I have long argued that Spotify’s platform and catalogue is utopian, that it is wonderful in concept, and that I would not in any way go back to a pre-2000 physical media based economy. I have also long argued that the medium of recorded music is in its “late Vaudeville” stage, whereby it’s value is decreasing rapidly to being “negligible”, and that musicians have to adjust their business models if they hope to make music professionally.

But What Spotify Is Doing is absolutely theft, and should be punishable with flaying and cannibalism; although Spotify is obv not the only guilty party here. The majority of recorded music rights is owned by (what amounts to) holding companies, and it is they who have negotiated for low-profit models that are acceptable for the assets they hold. These models do not create a tenable economy for new content creators to profit off their music.

In short: a single stream is worth $0.00003 (or whatever the hilarious number is) not because musicians have signed contracts, but because “the big three”— who not-coincidentally are also major shareholders in Spotify— have agreed to dilute the worth of recorded music to this point.

There are clear and easy ways to “fix streaming”, beyond my always-standing proposal that Daniel Ek be murdered and eaten. Ironically, the move that Spotify is making next year runs counter the ways streaming could be “fixed”;

1. Reform the free-with-ads model to be more profitable, and/or eliminate it entirely

2. Adopt a scaled-pay system, whereby artists with certain (lower) streaming numbers receive a higher per-play royalty, artists who are affiliated with x y or z (label or publishing house) have a negotiated per-play royalty afforded to them; this would come at the expense of high-stream artists and/or “legacy artists”; that is, artists whose work is entirely owned by holding company equivalents. This model is so obviously beneficial to adopt and the fact that it is not even under consideration (for obvious reasons; it limits the hegemony that holding companies have on DSP profits) makes it clear that Spotify and their allies seek not only to destroy independent music but “living content creators as a whole”

3. If governments were to step in, it could (?) be mandated that DSPs be required to be union-owned and/or publicly owned, which makes more sense from any perspective

4. Many other goddamn obvious solutions.

I appreciate glenn macdonald’s engagement on this topic but my intuition disbelieves his assertions. It has been 18 months since I last pored over Spotify’s reports to bask in the entire glaring light of this travesty, and I’d need to refresh my numbers before actually crying foul on any specifics. Maybe I will today? Maybe not, I have to score an Air BnB commercial today so I can afford Christmas presents for my nieces and, like, my rent

lol I thought that was a parody

― omar little, Saturday, December 2, 2023 1:14 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I refuse to believe it isn't

Without streaming musicians would be worse off.

find me one indie or jazz artist over 30 who agrees with this

*raises hand*

I love streaming! But the models that are currently in place were not set up by the right people— that is, the people who actually record the music— and need to be forcibly dismantled and replaced

I was under the impression musicians signed contracts with labels and those contracts would include streaming details. Is this incorrect?

You’re deliberately missing the point!

that user centric model needs a lil work imo - somebody who "carefully" listens to one track per month gives $10 to the label that distributed it, and somebody else who listens to 100 different tracks all on different labels gives each label 1 cent

I imagine atm some power users (including speakers in shops/cafes blaring algorithm-curated playlists) stack up many more plays than normal music fan type users - and it does seem a bit unfair if they get a bigger say in who gets paid (also seems like this is what enables monetizing fake streams)

I dunno why I had never thought of this user-centric solution before but it really seems neat

Just as an analog: look at what has happened with TV and film streaming. We are in a halcyon period of fantastic profits, fantastic art being created, largely because streaming services (by and large) are owned and operated by the producers of said content. There is an understanding that filmed media requires a business model that allows for the viability of new content to be created, and for that content to be profitable. The TV and film industry has been able to effectively surf the wave of 21st century easy-piracy-options by providing (generally) excellent streaming services matched with (generally) excellent content, both new and legacy. Why cannot such models exist for recorded music?

I am curious about how Steam works and how game devs feel about it, in this same line of inquiry

Nobody negotiates per-stream rates. This is the most fundamental misunderstanding. The “stream rate” is just the result of the division of this month’s royalty pool by this month’s play-count.

The variables are subscription price, royalty %, and activity level. Current services have various prices (if you include family plans and bundles and such), but all have basically the same deal on %: the service keeps 30%, 70% goes to royalties. That’s a smaller cut than record stores/distributors took in the CD era. Activity levels might also vary, but nobody publishes those.

Comparing a 70/30 cut with “what labels used to take” in the physical media era is a false equivalency; Spotify isn’t handling manufacture and distribution of physical media

And no, per-stream rates aren’t scaled— well, they will be, next year, when sub-1000 payout is eliminated— but they could be scaled; there are many possible methods of creating a tenable business model here! if the people in charge were interested in doing so, rather than this predatory gut-the-industry practice they’re engaging in

And no disrespect to intuitions, but my “assertions” about the user-centric model are based on running the numbers for it on actual Spotify data. Not sample data, full actual data, every month for years. You don’t have to trust me, but either I’m lying or it’s the most authoritative information possible.

30% is also less than Apple took in the iTunes download era.

And no manufacturing, true, but plenty of distribution. Also, your record store didn’t have to provide you with home CD storage and collection management tools.

But if you think 30% is too much, that’s an opinion. Bandcamp takes only 15% (but they do less). If all streaming services could operate sustainably on 15% of revenue, artists would get 21% more than they get today. Would that be “fair”?

What if the streaming services cost $100 a month.

I was gonna say that the cost of the plans really should be higher. $10/month for unlimited on-demand streaming seems… unbalanced compared to how recorded music has traditionally been priced.

(I know there’s traditionally a tipping point at which people would resort to piracy, but maybe not so much now? Downloading MP3s and loading them into a phone is a PITA in todays world)

well, presumably since spotify's income follows that of the labels/artists they would raise the subscription price if they thought it was viable? I'm sure people with excel sheets have looked into this

And no disrespect to intuitions, but my “assertions” about the user-centric model are based on running the numbers for it on actual Spotify data. Not sample data, full actual data, every month for years. You don’t have to trust me, but either I’m lying or it’s the most authoritative information possible.

what's your take on the user-centric model Glenn? would it not really make a difference?

In short: a single stream is worth $0.00003 (or whatever the hilarious number is) not because musicians have signed contracts, but because “the big three”— who not-coincidentally are also major shareholders in Spotify— have agreed to dilute the worth of recorded music to this point.

Help me understand this. (Asking in good faith, not facetiously.) Because this is the part that always irritates me in the vilification of Spotify. You’re saying the Big Three negotiated the deals and are shareholders in Spotify… yet all the outrage is directed at Spotify and not the Big Three. And also how can you point at the Big Three negotiating the deals and they say the problem is not that musicians signed contracts with their labels, who did a poor job of representing them in this negotiation? The only scenario I see that isn’t about “musicians signed the contracts” is all the artists who aren’t on majors, because the majors’ scale and influence is so vast that they set precedent for everyone.

Not to be a Gen X Punk about it but the history of musicians getting fucked over the years are due to the corporate labels (your Big Three).

I was gonna say that the cost of the plans really should be higher. $10/month for unlimited on-demand streaming seems… unbalanced compared to how recorded music has traditionally been priced.

But the 12-CD a year person is getting a ton more value for roughly the same yearly outlay (even if they’re not taking advantage of it).

presumably since spotify's income follows that of the labels/artists they would raise the subscription price if they thought it was viable?

“Viable” in what sense, though? Maximizing their profits, sure; but maybe at the expense of a still-“viable” but less profitable business that would pay out more to artists?

they would raise the subscription price if they thought it was viable

what if they hadn't launched with a price calculated to make people eschew other methods of music consumption

I’m lying or it’s the most authoritative information possible.

Didn’t mean to imply that you were lying— I acknowledge that my wording did just that, and for that I apologize— just that I recall that an examination of the financial reports yielded some obvious opportunities for artist-friendly restructuring.

The point I tried to make, and felt I did make, and make again: the amount per-play that is offered by Spotify was negotiated by the business itself and holding companies who had no loyalty toward/no interest in fostering a profitable model for working musicians, and as a result, the value of “listening to a song” has deprecated to a point that working musicians can no longer look to recording music (for the purpose of DSP distribution) as a meaningful form of income— and that DSPs have replaced most other income sources for recorded music (beyond commercial endeavors like film scoring).

Comparing rates to iMusic’s rates is irrelevant— iMusic did not significantly deprecate the value of recorded music, as DSPs have done.

Steaming models could be created, simply, easily, effortlessly, that would allow for working musicians to look to “making albums” etc. as a viable career; this will not happen as long as the DSP models are designed by people who don’t have a vested interest in it.

As far as I’m concerned, Spotify has not restructured the recorded music industry, it has restructured the piracy industry; it has found ways of profiting off of existing catalogues by devaluing their use while foisting the same devaluation on working musicians. It is theft and it should be outlawed. Yes, musicians sign contracts agreeing to this devaluations; there is no other option (beyond giving up entirely and finding other income streams).

yet all the outrage is directed at Spotify and not the Big Three

... is there a lack of outrage directed at major labels?

The only scenario I see that isn’t about “musicians signed the contracts” is all the artists who aren’t on majors, because the majors’ scale and influence is so vast that they set precedent for everyone.

Spotify cutting sweetheart deals with the majors to protect itself from the outset, screwing non-major label artists even more than major label artists is the crux of the issue, no?

no one who works for these companies should have their defenses of these companies taken seriously.