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I find it hard to feel sorry for a company that has somehow found a legal-ish business model based on screwing artists. Their demise cannot come fast enough.
by mikece 3y ago
I find it hard to feel sorry for a company that has somehow found a legal-ish business model based on screwing artists. Their demise cannot come fast enough.
- Sankozi 3y agoWhat? How are they screwing artists? Why are you suggesting they are not legal? Music streaming helped to almost double music industry revenue. https://www.statista.com/chart/4713/global-recorded-music-industry-revenues/ https://www.statista.com/chart/4713/global-recorded-music-in...
- futurecat 3y agoDoubling music industry revenue doesn’t mean doubling artists’ revenues.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 3y agohttps://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-04-19/spotify-artists-royalty-rate-apple-music https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-... > Moreover, notes Werde, within the pie chart detailing the total revenue that Spotify generates through music streaming, “roughly 70% of it is going to rights holders,” he says. The actual recording artists? “They’re keeping anywhere between 5% and a quarter.” The impact on actual album sales likely hits hard, too; I recall an artist on NPR talking about how one CD sale nets them more into their actual pocket than a hundred thousand streams.
- aetherane 3y agoThis has always been the case for revenue from recordings.
- ceejayoz 3y agohttps://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/743775196/the-success-of-streaming-has-been-great-for-some-but-is-there-a-better-way https://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/743775196/the-success-of-stre... > So none of [the royalty system] makes sense... if a song is played on the radio, 100% of the royalties go to the songwriter. But if the same song is played on a streaming service, only about 20% of the royalties go to the songwriter. Where does that come from?"
- paxys 3y agoRadio uses public airwaves, and is largely an exception to how the music business works. Not even recording artists get revenue from radio plays, only the songwriters (aka copyright holders).
- mochomocha 3y agoAfter all this time if Spotify could have found a way to cut off the middlemen, they would have happily done it. From your own quote, you should be mad at Universal & co, not Spotify.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> From your own quote, you should be mad at Universal & co, not Spotify. The point is that "helped to almost double music industry revenue" from upthread doesn't actually help the folks I want helped; it's a misleading stat.
- rat9988 3y agoHelp them then. Spotify did no wrong and doesn't care about your selfless sentiment.
- dilippkumar 3y agoThe Taylor Swift episode on the Acquired podcast actually does a fantastic job of explaining how this works and why artists barely make money on streaming services - as opposed to radio broadcasts for example.
- nbaugh1 3y agoIndustry revenue might be up, but that absolutely does not mean that artists have seen any of it
- piva00 3y agoAnd that's an issue with the music industry being disproportionately represented by 3 major labels wielding most of the power against the artists, not on distributors.
- xwowsersx 3y agoI'm not arguing that Spotify is screwing artists. I don't know. However, I would just point out that revenue growth in and of itself does not necessarily mean that they are improving the lot of artists. They could 10x revenue, but if profits are being cut in half, as just an example, then this isn't improving artists' business.
- vlunkr 3y agoI understand if you don’t like the company or the business model, but I don’t know of anything that qualifies it as “legal-ish”
- piva00 3y agoBlame music labels, Spotify tried to propose other models of payment to artists, always blocked by labels with the threat of removing their catalogues in case that goes through. As in any passion-driven industry: artists/creative gets shafted and exploited by middlemen (music labels, game studios/publishers, movie studios, etc.) solely because there's a never-ending stream of passionate individuals that will be exploited to have their creations out in the world.
- echelon 3y agoAfter Napster fired a warning shot across the bow of the music industry, it was Apple that came to collect [1]. Paying just $0.69 or $0.99 for songs without having to buy a full album represented a tectonic shift. But who needs to buy a song? Spotify (and Pandora, Grooveshark, etc.) brought the same streaming feature from YouTube and Netflix to music. That was even more consumer friendly. [1] https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1413534752699830275 https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1413534752699830275
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoAh Grooveshark. What a place.