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The thesis of the article is that the payment structure is incentivizing artists to record shorter songs. But this also means that the platforms should have an
by jsnell 3y ago
The thesis of the article is that the payment structure is incentivizing artists to record shorter songs.
But this also means that the platforms should have an equal incentive to make listeners listen to longer ones. Spotify seems to pay out about $7 billion / year in music licensing. If they can make the average song listened to by a user just 1 second longer, they reduce that by about 0.5%. That's saving like $35 million / year for each second! Move the average up by 10 seconds, and it's enough to actually make Spotify profitable.
Considering how much of the modern music listening is driven by algorithms either directly or through recommendations, it seems like it'd be incredibly easy for a streaming platform to put a thumb on the scale in favor of the longer songs being what gets listened to. That in turn should make the artists record longer songs. Why isn't that happening?
Or is it happening, and the current state is just the equilibrium we've arrived at when those competing incentives were resolved?
- rm999 3y ago> If they can make the average song listened to by a user just 1 second longer, they reduce that by about 0.5%. This isn't how music royalties work - rather, Spotify (and most other on demand streaming services) pay out a % of their net revenue to rights holders. This % does not change based on how many streams there are in total, but it IS distributed proportionally based on the number of streams, so it's more profitable for a music rightsholder to have more streams (the topic of the article). Some high level information: https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/royalties/ https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/royalties/
- morkalork 3y agoSeems like they should measure proportions using seconds streamed vs units streamed?
- foota 3y agoWhite noise and other background sounds cause issues here.
- theLiminator 3y agoHow so, maybe that just means those white noise tracks bring the most value.
- morkalork 3y agoRight? As a user, if I listen to 2 hours of content split equally between sources A and B, it seems fair that they each get half of my subscription fee (less Spotify's cut). Regardless of if A views B's content as "less worthy". On the other hand I wouldn't sign up for a monthly white noise service and if A went on strike and didn't renew license agreements, that's what Spotify would become. Record labels do have leverage over white noise which is a commodity (right? y'all aren't beholden to certain streams are you??)
- internet101010 3y agoI actually do have certain episodes/streams saved that are my go-tos. Navigating "rain sounds" has become a lot more difficult lately specifically due to record labels complaining, particularly if you want one continuous 8hr stream. Instead all I can find now are playlists with a bunch of things I don't want. If I didn't have my favorites already saved I wouldn't be able to find them at all now.
- conradfr 3y agoThat's why you'll see more of this: https://www.universalmusic.com/universal-music-group-and-deezer-to-launch-the-first-comprehensive-artist-centric-music-streaming-model/ https://www.universalmusic.com/universal-music-group-and-dee... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-09-07/universal-music-group-and-deezer-aim-to-fix-the-broken-economics-of-streaming https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-09-07/univer...
- lotsofpulp 3y agoSo Universal Music Group is depending on its competitor, Warner Music Group (owned by Access Industries which also owns Deezer)? Interesting. I thought Universal/Warner/Sony were propping up Spotify as leverage for when they need to negotiate with Apple/Google/Amazon.
- reducesuffering 3y agoThey both seem primitive. If a user paid $10/month for a subscription, each month they should divvy that $10 to the proportional minutes listened of each artist for that month. That’s paying out to the people that are keeping that person subscribed. Minus Spotify’s cut of course
- wryun 3y agoBut also: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/06/deezer-and-universal-music-sign-deal-to-focus-royalties-on-big-artists https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/06/deezer-and-...
- lotsofpulp 3y agoCan you define “net revenue”? Do you mean gross revenue, because Spotify does not earn profit (aka net income)?
- datavirtue 3y agoThey must be evil communists/socialists.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MuffinFlavored 3y agoIs a stream defined as wonderful listen through the song or like maybe halfway through?
- thenickdude 3y agoYouTube Music has a "(From Youtube:) Long Listening" section of recommendations on the homepage feed that could support that idea.
- mbg721 3y agoAny longer than 2:40, and the needle might jump the track on the 45.
- PopAlongKid 3y agoMany vinyl 7-inch 45 RPM releases were much longer than that and played just fine. For example, Hey Jude (Beatles) was over 7 minutes long.