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200+ Labels Withdraw Their Music From Spotify and Other Streaming Services

30 points by mikeknoop 15y ago

mikeknoop 15y ago
Spotify's response is spot-on: “In addition, ‘revenue per stream’ totally misses the point when considering the value generated by Spotify. The relevant metrics are: 1) how many people are being monetized by Spotify; 2) who these people are (usually young people previously on pirate services which generate nothing for artists and rightsholders); and 3) how much revenue per user Spotify generates for rightsholders.
- jsz0 15y ago
  The number of people being monetized by Spotify is great for the aggregated interests of all the labels on the service but may be meaningless to individual labels/artists. If they are indeed losing record sales and Spotify isn't making up for the difference it must be pretty hard to justify staying there. The argument about piracy could be weak too depending on how many pirates go on to buy the music. 1000 streams for 1 cent each = $10 vs. 10,000 downloads that turns into just 2 sales $10 each = $20. (fake made up numbers but they illustrate the point)
  - eric-hu 15y ago
    To play the devil's advocate in favor of mikeknoop's comment: The claim is (a - n) + b < a : n > 0 a: record sales (a-n): record sales minus would-be sales due to spotify b: additional profit spotify generates from would-be piraters The fallacy (IMO) of the label is that "a-n + b" is in all situations less than "a". They're deciding that it's less profitable to distribute content with spotify without examining what "b" is. You may very well be right that a spotify-license system is less profitable. I think it's jumping to conclusions to decide this, though. "b" (the profit generated from would-be piraters) is a study-able quantity, and should be measured before making any claim.
- chrischen 15y ago
  > who these people are (usually young people previously on pirate services which generate nothing for artists and rightsholders); What the hell is a pirate service anymore these days? Previously I used YouTube to listen to songs. Now I use Spotify. But in many cases when I come across a new artist that I REALLY like I would purchase them on iTunes or from their site. However that becomes harder to justify now that I can legally get the music from Spotify. I think a lot of people will also falsely think that Spotify is the same amount of support as purchasing a song or album.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Rdio more or less annihilated my monthly spend on music from iTunes; it was the easiest cost-justification ever, which seems to imply to me that it was a terrible deal for the labels.
Tycho 15y ago
Recent top-sellers like Coldplay and Adele have actively avoided Spotify for their newest albums, because their management know the record will sell widely regardless and Spotify’s audience isn’t likely to be especially keen on those artists anyway. Seems dubious. I'd expect Coldplay and Adele to be extremely popular with Spotify users. Anyway, I'm not surprised labels are withdrawing from Spotify. It's outrageously cheap.
neilrahilly 15y ago
They had to do a study to find out streaming is a substitute for other forms of music distribution? Of course it is. Raise the price, but please don't make me go back to less covenient systems (e.g., iTunes, bittorrent, CDs, etc.). It would be like insisting that you're only releasing 8-track. Fine, but I'll find something else to listen to that doesn't force me to deal with an antiquated hassle.
joejohnson 15y ago
I'm unclear from this article which labels pulled their content? Can anyone point me to a list of artists that are no longer available?
- mikeryan 15y ago
  Its one distributor, with about ~280 labels, these are likely niche and smaller labels. I wouldn't be surprised if many weren't less then 10 artists (some likely only one artist) http://www.stholdings.co.uk/label_list/ http://www.stholdings.co.uk/label_list/
  - ra 15y ago
    That's generally the stuff I like to listen to though. EDIT: Not that I'm about to go and hunt down the CD's, I probably wouldn't have heard of most of the artists if it were not for streaming services that facilitate discovery.
terinjokes 15y ago
I spent the most on physical album sales (majority of that being vinyl records) when I worked for a streaming music company. I agree with some of the commenters, being able to listen to those artists, really helped in making the decision to spend my hard earned cash. I realize I'm in the minority, but there are sales being done as a direct result of artists being on these streaming services. And for the record, I would listen to Coldplay, thank you very much. ;)
canes123456 15y ago
Why are we looking at how much they make per play? $120 a year is still more than a would spend music before rdio. I assume the average customer spends less than $120. How is this not more profitable then selling discs?
- mikeknoop 15y ago
  I was spending nowhere near $120/yr on music previously and now I am about to eagerly pay just that via Spotify. Obviously labels/artists are only seeing a certain percentage of that but could easily get around it by setting up their OWN equally good streaming service to mirror Spotify et. al. and charge the same/more and take the entire cut.
marknutter 15y ago
Funny, piratebay.org still works...
gkoberger 15y ago
This is why SOPA exists. Rather than give users an easy way to listen to music legally, content holders are making downloading the only viable option and then using the government as their muscle. I have never pirated anything that was available on Rdio/Netflix/Hulu.
- kittxkat 15y ago
  "I have never pirated anything that was available on Rdio/Netflix/Hulu." Now that is exactly how it should work. I wish I could say the same, but sadly not any of those services are available overseas. I really wish they could finally open up for everyone, my money's just waiting to be spent on Netflix!

30 points by mikeknoop 15y ago

Spotify's response is spot-on: “In addition, ‘revenue per stream’ totally misses the point when considering the value generated by Spotify. The relevant metrics are: 1) how many people are being monetized by Spotify; 2) who these people are (usually young people previously on pirate services which generate nothing for artists and rightsholders); and 3) how much revenue per user Spotify generates for rightsholders.

jsz0 15y ago
The number of people being monetized by Spotify is great for the aggregated interests of all the labels on the service but may be meaningless to individual labels/artists. If they are indeed losing record sales and Spotify isn't making up for the difference it must be pretty hard to justify staying there. The argument about piracy could be weak too depending on how many pirates go on to buy the music. 1000 streams for 1 cent each = $10 vs. 10,000 downloads that turns into just 2 sales $10 each = $20. (fake made up numbers but they illustrate the point)
- eric-hu 15y ago
  To play the devil's advocate in favor of mikeknoop's comment: The claim is (a - n) + b < a : n > 0 a: record sales (a-n): record sales minus would-be sales due to spotify b: additional profit spotify generates from would-be piraters The fallacy (IMO) of the label is that "a-n + b" is in all situations less than "a". They're deciding that it's less profitable to distribute content with spotify without examining what "b" is. You may very well be right that a spotify-license system is less profitable. I think it's jumping to conclusions to decide this, though. "b" (the profit generated from would-be piraters) is a study-able quantity, and should be measured before making any claim.
chrischen 15y ago
> who these people are (usually young people previously on pirate services which generate nothing for artists and rightsholders); What the hell is a pirate service anymore these days? Previously I used YouTube to listen to songs. Now I use Spotify. But in many cases when I come across a new artist that I REALLY like I would purchase them on iTunes or from their site. However that becomes harder to justify now that I can legally get the music from Spotify. I think a lot of people will also falsely think that Spotify is the same amount of support as purchasing a song or album.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Rdio more or less annihilated my monthly spend on music from iTunes; it was the easiest cost-justification ever, which seems to imply to me that it was a terrible deal for the labels.

Tycho 15y ago

Recent top-sellers like Coldplay and Adele have actively avoided Spotify for their newest albums, because their management know the record will sell widely regardless and Spotify’s audience isn’t likely to be especially keen on those artists anyway. Seems dubious. I'd expect Coldplay and Adele to be extremely popular with Spotify users. Anyway, I'm not surprised labels are withdrawing from Spotify. It's outrageously cheap.

neilrahilly 15y ago

They had to do a study to find out streaming is a substitute for other forms of music distribution? Of course it is. Raise the price, but please don't make me go back to less covenient systems (e.g., iTunes, bittorrent, CDs, etc.). It would be like insisting that you're only releasing 8-track. Fine, but I'll find something else to listen to that doesn't force me to deal with an antiquated hassle.

joejohnson 15y ago

I'm unclear from this article which labels pulled their content? Can anyone point me to a list of artists that are no longer available?

mikeryan 15y ago
Its one distributor, with about ~280 labels, these are likely niche and smaller labels. I wouldn't be surprised if many weren't less then 10 artists (some likely only one artist) http://www.stholdings.co.uk/label_list/ http://www.stholdings.co.uk/label_list/
- ra 15y ago
  That's generally the stuff I like to listen to though. EDIT: Not that I'm about to go and hunt down the CD's, I probably wouldn't have heard of most of the artists if it were not for streaming services that facilitate discovery.

terinjokes 15y ago

I spent the most on physical album sales (majority of that being vinyl records) when I worked for a streaming music company. I agree with some of the commenters, being able to listen to those artists, really helped in making the decision to spend my hard earned cash. I realize I'm in the minority, but there are sales being done as a direct result of artists being on these streaming services. And for the record, I would listen to Coldplay, thank you very much. ;)

canes123456 15y ago

Why are we looking at how much they make per play? $120 a year is still more than a would spend music before rdio. I assume the average customer spends less than $120. How is this not more profitable then selling discs?

mikeknoop 15y ago
I was spending nowhere near $120/yr on music previously and now I am about to eagerly pay just that via Spotify. Obviously labels/artists are only seeing a certain percentage of that but could easily get around it by setting up their OWN equally good streaming service to mirror Spotify et. al. and charge the same/more and take the entire cut.

marknutter 15y ago

Funny, piratebay.org still works...

gkoberger 15y ago

This is why SOPA exists. Rather than give users an easy way to listen to music legally, content holders are making downloading the only viable option and then using the government as their muscle. I have never pirated anything that was available on Rdio/Netflix/Hulu.

kittxkat 15y ago
"I have never pirated anything that was available on Rdio/Netflix/Hulu." Now that is exactly how it should work. I wish I could say the same, but sadly not any of those services are available overseas. I really wish they could finally open up for everyone, my money's just waiting to be spent on Netflix!