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> That would be a reasonable argument if the market set the price for streaming services. But to a significant extent it does not. It's been a minute, but didn
by ethbro 10y ago
> That would be a reasonable argument if the market set the price for streaming services. But to a significant extent it does not.
It's been a minute, but didn't CDs and records usually get sold at the same price point?
Also, the article you linked is about songwriters, not performers (and happens to be co-written by one of its case studies for "I got paid far less than I think I should have" afaict).
I was under the impression that Spotify allocated revenue according to total listens on individual tracks, which seems fair enough.
- chc 10y agoCDs and records were not sold on a basis that's comparable to Pandora. You had to buy a CD or a record — you didn't pay a fee and get unlimited pieces of CDs and records for the rest of the month.
- ethbro 10y agoI think they're analogous. I bought a CD and could listen to it (but only it) an infinite number of times. So streaming is less time, but more variety. And per above comment, I don't see people wanting to think about variable pricing (which a market would require) in a streaming context. $.05 to play your playlist this month, $.10 next month, $.02 the next, etc...
- chc 10y agoI don't take your point at all. You asked "Isn't the price point for CDs the same as streaming services?", I answered that what you're buying is so different that it's difficult to define a unit price for comparison, and in this response you essentially point out how different they are, being at opposite ends of two spectra. So all I can say is, yes, that's why it doesn't make sense to say they are the same price (from the artist's standpoint, even if you don't see a difference from where you are).
- ethbro 10y agoWrong parse. My statement started with 'weren't CDs and records sold at the same price point as others of the same type' (e.g. CD 1 costs same as CD 2, etc). Point being that flexible pricing for a fungible good over a streaming service is likely to be a non-starter in terms of market acceptance.
- chc 10y agoOh, in that case, definitely not, at least in California where I lived in the '90s. I remember prices ranging from the single digits up to to the $20s.
- ethbro 10y agoTried to look up an actual number, but got distracted. http://pitchfork.com/features/article/9628-how-much-is-music-really-worth/ http://pitchfork.com/features/article/9628-how-much-is-music... Seems you're correct though, it varied.
- rayiner 10y agoSpotify, because it lets you choose your song, is not eligible for compulsory licensing. But the compulsory license still anchors the market price. Content owners can't charge the "real" market rate for songs because streaming services and downloading services are to an extent fungible with each other.
- ethbro 10y agoHow would one determine the real market rate for a song in the first place? In an ephemeral streaming context, a market seems like it would be nigh impossible to implement. "I bid $.02 for an hour of streaming music, only play me songs that are under that"?
- rayiner 10y agoThe same way they do now when there is no compulsory license: the publisher negotiates the value of songs with the streaming service up front.