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Payola laws should be extended to include Spotify pay-to-play IMO

thaumasiotes 6y ago
Extended? Why do we want them at all? How is it better for a radio station to monetize by airing commercials than to monetize by airing music?
- p1necone 6y ago
  The music probably ends up being better when it's not just highest bidder first.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    Maybe? But I am not sure if that is a priori true. I would imagine record labels would pay to promote the artists they think are the best, and most likely to generate good returns for their advertising investment. That might end up with better music on the radio. Or it might end up with worse. I would be curious how you could test this.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
I had to look that up: Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing this information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola I'm not a big fan of how tech companies have and continue to ignore existing regulations and legislation simply because "on the internet" or "it's an app" is somehow perceived by them as different. By analogy: like we have analogue drug laws that deem substances prohibited even before they're invented, we should have analogue services law where a fucking taxi company is a fucking taxi company regardless of what technology underlies it, and a radio service is a streaming service etc. You don't get to ignore broadcasting rules just because the delivery tech is Internet Protocol based rather than radio. Whether or not one agrees with the existing legislation on either of those particular matters is beside my point here, so let's skip straight past that distrsction please.
- al2o3cr 6y ago
  There's an important part in that definition: "commercial radio station" - the general premise of telecommunications regulation has been that using a finite resource (radio spectrum) comes with obligations (FCC licensing, content restrictions, etc). That's also why you'll see the giant "THIS IS A PAID PROGRAM" warning on late-night infomercials. Internet streaming doesn't fit into that "finite resource" model.
  - bilbo0s 6y ago
    Well, internet bandwidth is a finite resource, but it's limited on the consumer side. If the consumer doesn't stream Spotify, his/her bandwidth is not used. By contrast, spectrum is consumed whether a given consumer tunes in or not. In this sense, the spectrum is a shared public resource whereas the consumer's bandwidth is a non-shared private resource.
  - powvans 6y ago
    The finite resource in the Internet model is attention. We could redefine our regulations with that in mind. Perhaps that would helpful for addressing the filter bubble phenomenon.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    I think this widely misses my point. Maybe I can rephrase it? Interacting with someone comes with obligations. This, then, allows us to peer deeper in to the problem: some people think it's okay to run roughshod over existing norms because "on a computer". I'd argue it's not okay to exploit people's weaknesses just because "implemented using new(er) / different technology". Other people seem to be quite happy to build an empire doing so. I guess this is why I'm likely to remain relatively poor.
- kortilla 6y ago
  > You don't get to ignore broadcasting rules just because the delivery tech is Internet Protocol based rather than radio. Of course you do, the whole purpose of the Payola law has jack shit to do with music. It’s about sponsored airtime being transmitted over public frequencies without being identified as such. It’s very specifically a property of how the FCC wants public radio incentives disclosed. Payola doesn’t apply to MTV and it certainly doesn’t apply to a TCP/IP connection from a browser to a server requesting a song download. Payola doesn’t even apply to Sirius/XM. It’s a property of public broadcast, not music.
wodenokoto 6y ago
For what it’s worth: In this case I don’t think Spotify receives money. My understanding is that the curators are people with public playlists on Spotify. We’ve probably all seen that drawing of a kid studying to chill music that everybody seems to get recommended on YouTube. They also have that playlist available on Spotify and Apple Music. My guess (with emphasis on guess) is it’s those kinds of playlists by third parties, that OP was paying a middle man to get onto. Which is even more interesting imho. I’d get there where money exchanged in order to get on Spotify’s own heavy rotation (just like radio). Either by giving Spotify a discount per play or simply by Spotify having cost of a track as part of the algorithm that decides what to recommend. But paying for 3rd party playlists one way or another hadn’t struck my mind at all.
- OvidNaso 6y ago
  the radio station owner's didn't recieve money moat of the time either in the payola days. it was the DJs amd programming managers..cant divvy up a 1/4 kilo of coke as a dividend payment.
driverdan 6y ago
Payola laws should apply to everything and everywhere. Anyone receiving payment to promote something should have to disclose it.

Extended? Why do we want them at all? How is it better for a radio station to monetize by airing commercials than to monetize by airing music?

p1necone 6y ago
The music probably ends up being better when it's not just highest bidder first.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Maybe? But I am not sure if that is a priori true. I would imagine record labels would pay to promote the artists they think are the best, and most likely to generate good returns for their advertising investment. That might end up with better music on the radio. Or it might end up with worse. I would be curious how you could test this.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

I had to look that up: Payola, in the music industry, is the illegal practice of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing this information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola I'm not a big fan of how tech companies have and continue to ignore existing regulations and legislation simply because "on the internet" or "it's an app" is somehow perceived by them as different. By analogy: like we have analogue drug laws that deem substances prohibited even before they're invented, we should have analogue services law where a fucking taxi company is a fucking taxi company regardless of what technology underlies it, and a radio service is a streaming service etc. You don't get to ignore broadcasting rules just because the delivery tech is Internet Protocol based rather than radio. Whether or not one agrees with the existing legislation on either of those particular matters is beside my point here, so let's skip straight past that distrsction please.

al2o3cr 6y ago
There's an important part in that definition: "commercial radio station" - the general premise of telecommunications regulation has been that using a finite resource (radio spectrum) comes with obligations (FCC licensing, content restrictions, etc). That's also why you'll see the giant "THIS IS A PAID PROGRAM" warning on late-night infomercials. Internet streaming doesn't fit into that "finite resource" model.
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  Well, internet bandwidth is a finite resource, but it's limited on the consumer side. If the consumer doesn't stream Spotify, his/her bandwidth is not used. By contrast, spectrum is consumed whether a given consumer tunes in or not. In this sense, the spectrum is a shared public resource whereas the consumer's bandwidth is a non-shared private resource.
- powvans 6y ago
  The finite resource in the Internet model is attention. We could redefine our regulations with that in mind. Perhaps that would helpful for addressing the filter bubble phenomenon.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  I think this widely misses my point. Maybe I can rephrase it? Interacting with someone comes with obligations. This, then, allows us to peer deeper in to the problem: some people think it's okay to run roughshod over existing norms because "on a computer". I'd argue it's not okay to exploit people's weaknesses just because "implemented using new(er) / different technology". Other people seem to be quite happy to build an empire doing so. I guess this is why I'm likely to remain relatively poor.
kortilla 6y ago
> You don't get to ignore broadcasting rules just because the delivery tech is Internet Protocol based rather than radio. Of course you do, the whole purpose of the Payola law has jack shit to do with music. It’s about sponsored airtime being transmitted over public frequencies without being identified as such. It’s very specifically a property of how the FCC wants public radio incentives disclosed. Payola doesn’t apply to MTV and it certainly doesn’t apply to a TCP/IP connection from a browser to a server requesting a song download. Payola doesn’t even apply to Sirius/XM. It’s a property of public broadcast, not music.

wodenokoto 6y ago

For what it’s worth: In this case I don’t think Spotify receives money. My understanding is that the curators are people with public playlists on Spotify. We’ve probably all seen that drawing of a kid studying to chill music that everybody seems to get recommended on YouTube. They also have that playlist available on Spotify and Apple Music. My guess (with emphasis on guess) is it’s those kinds of playlists by third parties, that OP was paying a middle man to get onto. Which is even more interesting imho. I’d get there where money exchanged in order to get on Spotify’s own heavy rotation (just like radio). Either by giving Spotify a discount per play or simply by Spotify having cost of a track as part of the algorithm that decides what to recommend. But paying for 3rd party playlists one way or another hadn’t struck my mind at all.

OvidNaso 6y ago
the radio station owner's didn't recieve money moat of the time either in the payola days. it was the DJs amd programming managers..cant divvy up a 1/4 kilo of coke as a dividend payment.

driverdan 6y ago

Payola laws should apply to everything and everywhere. Anyone receiving payment to promote something should have to disclose it.