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Those numbers are shocking. $0.00029 per streamed song. I just back-of-the-enveloped my iTunes library, and with 8649 plays, it's worth $2.51 on Spotify. That'

Those numbers are shocking. $0.00029 per streamed song. I just back-of-the-enveloped my iTunes library, and with 8649 plays, it's worth $2.51 on Spotify. That's disgusting, considering the value I've gotten from it.

res0nat0r 15y ago
I thought that these small numbers everyone is quoting from Spotify are not so accurate. I thought there is more data related to artist compensation which isn't public knowledge, so this shouldn't be taken at face value?
- JshWright 15y ago
  Derek seems to imply that major labels get paid more, but it seems this particular small number is accurate for this particular independent artist.
- earl 15y ago
  Other known numbers, mostly sourced from wikipedia [1] "There are indie labels that, as opposed to the majors and Merlin members, receive no advance, receive no minimum per stream and only get a 50% share of ad revenue on a pro-rata basis (which so far has amounted to next to nothing)." Spotify also bought off the labels by giving them a bunch of shares (18%?) Better yet, even if an artist is with a major label, apparently the revenues labels might realize from share sales are non attributable to artists and hence stay purely with the labels. This seems like utter bullshit but there you have it. [2] A swedish band Magnus Uggla -- apparently well established -- said "after six months on the site he'd earned 'what a mediocre busker could earn in a day'" [2] A Norwegian record label called Racing Junior earned "NOK 19 ($3.00 USD) after their artists had been streamed over 55,100 times" [1] (english) [3] (swedish) British musician Jons Hopkins earned 8 pounds ($12.48 at current rates) for 90k plays, or $0.00013 per play [4,5]. Even if a normal purchaser played a song 250 times, (9e4/250 * 0.7) = $252, or 20 times more money. All in all, pretty appalling. I'm a Spotify subscriber but I'm going to have to rethink it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify#Criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify#Criticism [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/17/major-labels-spotify http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/17/major-... [3] http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/08/11/kultur/musikk/spotify/musikkbransjen/emi/7607953/ http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/08/11/kultur/musikk/spotify/mus... [4] https://twitter.com/#!/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336 https://twitter.com/#!/Jon_Hopkins_/status/13714775382964633... [5] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293641 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293641
  - klbarry 15y ago
    My friend and I with a guitar made $200 every 6 hours busking in nyc, and we're amateurs. Online pennies for offline dollars...
- mturmon 15y ago
  Here's a link from the OP saying Spotify royalties really are as bad as he's saying: http://matthewebel.com/2011/07/20/spotify-let-the-money-pour-in/ http://matthewebel.com/2011/07/20/spotify-let-the-money-pour...
  - shibboleth 15y ago
    Hm, Matthew Ebel is being paid around $.0015 per stream while Derek Webb is getting $0.00029 per stream. I wonder why there is such a large difference? Maybe Matthew's main streamers are from Spotify paid accounts?
paulrademacher 15y ago
"Derek, this is your manager. Let's start with the good news: your royalty check this month has a LOT of zeros..."
theallan 15y ago
I'd completely agree. However, imagine the next news item is that Spotify increases their prices 5 fold, to pay out more to the artists. The comments would be full of "there is no way it should cost that much" and "I'm not paying that"!
- wmf 15y ago
  That's the real problem: Spotify seems to be anchoring prices at an unsustainably low level. Netflix streaming is trying to do the same to video, but Hollywood is resisting. (Although some are claiming that Spotify's pricing is similar to the amount that the average person used to spend on CDs, so why are labels getting less from Spotify than they did from CDs/iTunes?)
  - JoshTriplett 15y ago
    > Netflix streaming is trying to do the same to video Think about the prices for a moment. Suppose you pay $7.99 per month for streaming. According to some recent estimates (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/january-2011-online-video-usage-up-45/ http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/january-20...), the average Netflix customer watches 11 hours of streaming video per month. That means about $0.73 per hour of video watched. Seems relatively reasonable. Even for users who watch several times that many hours, it still seems reasonable.
  - Tichy 15y ago
    You don't really own songs you buy on iTunes, either. Try reselling them...
    - ugh 15y ago
      Your definition of ownership is outdated. (I’m also not sure what you are responding to.)
      - Tichy 15y ago
        Weird, my comment really seems to be attached to the wrong parent. Sorry about that. If you mean my definition is outdated, you mean that there is no such thing as ownership in the future anymore? Ownership is outdated?
sleepyhead 15y ago
I'm not arguing that what Spotify pays artists is reasonable, but what many fail to understand is that streaming is very different from buying. I don't own the songs I listen to on Spotify thus pricing must be different. And I listen to a lot of music I would normally not buy making it more similar to radio in many ways.
- earl 15y ago
  I'd buy an argument like that for pandora, where you can't control play order or exactly what you listen to, but come on. Spotify is a total substitution for purchase: listen to pretty much whatever you want in the order you want as many times as you want up to and including 24x7. The $5/mo subscription gives you most even moderately popular music you want for the price of 4-5 cds, with shipping, per year. So obviously spotify shouldn't be forking out $.70 per track per play, but hearing things like artists like Jons Hopkins getting the price of a cd for 90 thousand plays (ie if a song is 5 minutes long listening to it for three hundred and twelve days) is far far too low. [1] I don't know how to set the right rate, but this isn't it... [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293892 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293892
- lt 15y ago
  Does "owning" a song makes any sense in the digital world, or is it a relic of the physical album days? Even besides the licensing/ownership fact (you have always purchased a license to listen to the music privately), I bet there's more music released in a given day than hours in that day. I keep thinking that the model where you can just listen to whatever you want for a flat flee makes a lot more sense in this universe.
- bad_user 15y ago
  You NEVER "own" the songs you buy. You only "own" the right of listening to those songs whenever you want. So how is "owning" a CD any different from Spotify? Also, the value of a song diminishes the more you listen to it. Seriously, even if you love a song, put it on repeat for a day and you probably won't listen to it again for a couple of months. So it's not like Spotify customers will one day buy the music, unless they really have very specific needs, like being somewhere with a bad or expensive Internet connection, but if you subscribed to Spotify in the first place then I doubt that.
sammyo 15y ago
I heard a recent song writers music playing at the grocery the other day, how much per play do you think the artist gets for that? It would make a more accurate metric than trying to compare CD sales.
ticks 15y ago
One thing to bear in mind is that you are comparing the price of buying something to a one-off rental. The rental business has always paid poorly, with retailers only purchasing a single copy and reusing it (i.e. they pay once, then rent it until it becomes too damaged). At least with Spotify, they hopefully pay each time.

res0nat0r 15y ago

I thought that these small numbers everyone is quoting from Spotify are not so accurate. I thought there is more data related to artist compensation which isn't public knowledge, so this shouldn't be taken at face value?

JshWright 15y ago
Derek seems to imply that major labels get paid more, but it seems this particular small number is accurate for this particular independent artist.
earl 15y ago
Other known numbers, mostly sourced from wikipedia [1] "There are indie labels that, as opposed to the majors and Merlin members, receive no advance, receive no minimum per stream and only get a 50% share of ad revenue on a pro-rata basis (which so far has amounted to next to nothing)." Spotify also bought off the labels by giving them a bunch of shares (18%?) Better yet, even if an artist is with a major label, apparently the revenues labels might realize from share sales are non attributable to artists and hence stay purely with the labels. This seems like utter bullshit but there you have it. [2] A swedish band Magnus Uggla -- apparently well established -- said "after six months on the site he'd earned 'what a mediocre busker could earn in a day'" [2] A Norwegian record label called Racing Junior earned "NOK 19 ($3.00 USD) after their artists had been streamed over 55,100 times" [1] (english) [3] (swedish) British musician Jons Hopkins earned 8 pounds ($12.48 at current rates) for 90k plays, or $0.00013 per play [4,5]. Even if a normal purchaser played a song 250 times, (9e4/250 * 0.7) = $252, or 20 times more money. All in all, pretty appalling. I'm a Spotify subscriber but I'm going to have to rethink it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify#Criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify#Criticism [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/17/major-labels-spotify http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/aug/17/major-... [3] http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/08/11/kultur/musikk/spotify/musikkbransjen/emi/7607953/ http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/08/11/kultur/musikk/spotify/mus... [4] https://twitter.com/#!/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336 https://twitter.com/#!/Jon_Hopkins_/status/13714775382964633... [5] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293641 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293641
- klbarry 15y ago
  My friend and I with a guitar made $200 every 6 hours busking in nyc, and we're amateurs. Online pennies for offline dollars...
mturmon 15y ago
Here's a link from the OP saying Spotify royalties really are as bad as he's saying: http://matthewebel.com/2011/07/20/spotify-let-the-money-pour-in/ http://matthewebel.com/2011/07/20/spotify-let-the-money-pour...
- shibboleth 15y ago
  Hm, Matthew Ebel is being paid around $.0015 per stream while Derek Webb is getting $0.00029 per stream. I wonder why there is such a large difference? Maybe Matthew's main streamers are from Spotify paid accounts?

paulrademacher 15y ago

"Derek, this is your manager. Let's start with the good news: your royalty check this month has a LOT of zeros..."

theallan 15y ago

I'd completely agree. However, imagine the next news item is that Spotify increases their prices 5 fold, to pay out more to the artists. The comments would be full of "there is no way it should cost that much" and "I'm not paying that"!

wmf 15y ago
That's the real problem: Spotify seems to be anchoring prices at an unsustainably low level. Netflix streaming is trying to do the same to video, but Hollywood is resisting. (Although some are claiming that Spotify's pricing is similar to the amount that the average person used to spend on CDs, so why are labels getting less from Spotify than they did from CDs/iTunes?)
- JoshTriplett 15y ago
  > Netflix streaming is trying to do the same to video Think about the prices for a moment. Suppose you pay $7.99 per month for streaming. According to some recent estimates (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/january-2011-online-video-usage-up-45/ http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/january-20...), the average Netflix customer watches 11 hours of streaming video per month. That means about $0.73 per hour of video watched. Seems relatively reasonable. Even for users who watch several times that many hours, it still seems reasonable.
- Tichy 15y ago
  You don't really own songs you buy on iTunes, either. Try reselling them...
  - ugh 15y ago
    Your definition of ownership is outdated. (I’m also not sure what you are responding to.)
    - Tichy 15y ago
      Weird, my comment really seems to be attached to the wrong parent. Sorry about that. If you mean my definition is outdated, you mean that there is no such thing as ownership in the future anymore? Ownership is outdated?

sleepyhead 15y ago

I'm not arguing that what Spotify pays artists is reasonable, but what many fail to understand is that streaming is very different from buying. I don't own the songs I listen to on Spotify thus pricing must be different. And I listen to a lot of music I would normally not buy making it more similar to radio in many ways.

earl 15y ago
I'd buy an argument like that for pandora, where you can't control play order or exactly what you listen to, but come on. Spotify is a total substitution for purchase: listen to pretty much whatever you want in the order you want as many times as you want up to and including 24x7. The $5/mo subscription gives you most even moderately popular music you want for the price of 4-5 cds, with shipping, per year. So obviously spotify shouldn't be forking out $.70 per track per play, but hearing things like artists like Jons Hopkins getting the price of a cd for 90 thousand plays (ie if a song is 5 minutes long listening to it for three hundred and twelve days) is far far too low. [1] I don't know how to set the right rate, but this isn't it... [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293892 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3293892
lt 15y ago
Does "owning" a song makes any sense in the digital world, or is it a relic of the physical album days? Even besides the licensing/ownership fact (you have always purchased a license to listen to the music privately), I bet there's more music released in a given day than hours in that day. I keep thinking that the model where you can just listen to whatever you want for a flat flee makes a lot more sense in this universe.
bad_user 15y ago
You NEVER "own" the songs you buy. You only "own" the right of listening to those songs whenever you want. So how is "owning" a CD any different from Spotify? Also, the value of a song diminishes the more you listen to it. Seriously, even if you love a song, put it on repeat for a day and you probably won't listen to it again for a couple of months. So it's not like Spotify customers will one day buy the music, unless they really have very specific needs, like being somewhere with a bad or expensive Internet connection, but if you subscribed to Spotify in the first place then I doubt that.

sammyo 15y ago

I heard a recent song writers music playing at the grocery the other day, how much per play do you think the artist gets for that? It would make a more accurate metric than trying to compare CD sales.

ticks 15y ago

One thing to bear in mind is that you are comparing the price of buying something to a one-off rental. The rental business has always paid poorly, with retailers only purchasing a single copy and reusing it (i.e. they pay once, then rent it until it becomes too damaged). At least with Spotify, they hopefully pay each time.