4 ms·

Nobody is gonna download a 300TB torrent just to get the latest Taylor Swift album. There are much easier avenues than that. What’s actually scummy is Spotify

by WD-42 10mo ago

Nobody is gonna download a 300TB torrent just to get the latest Taylor Swift album. There are much easier avenues than that. What’s actually scummy is Spotify paying artists $1 per 1000 streams. Buy CDs. Use Bandcamp.

basisword 10mo ago
How about we let the individual artists decide?
- WD-42 10mo ago
  In most cases, they couldn't make that decision even if they wanted to. Only independent artists and those that are so large as to have enough sway (Niel Young for example) would be able to. The vast majority of artists you probably listen to don't actually own the rights to their own music. So let the rights holders make the decision? They would never. Music rights exist for them to extract profit above all else. They don't care about preserving culture or legacy. Which is why it's important that somebody does.
- venturecruelty 10mo ago
  Did they get to decide when their music was pirated and sold originally by Daniel Ek?
ChadNauseam 10mo ago
> What’s actually scummy is Spotify paying artists $1 per 1000 streams. My spotify wrapped says I listened for 50,000 minutes this year. Assuming 2 minutes per song, that's 25,000 streams. I paid them $110, aka $0.004/stream. Assuming I'm a typical user, they obviously could not afford to pay any more than that per stream. I googled "spotify pay per listen" and the first result is a reddit comment saying "The average payout on Spotify is only $0.004 per stream." The google AI overview says "Spotify [..] pays artists a fraction of a cent, typically $0.003 to $0.005 per stream". So I'll assume it's something in that ballpark. So it seems like Spotify's payouts are completely reasonable, given their pricing. Is my logic wrong somewhere?
- manuelmoreale 10mo ago
  That’s a fun math. I just checked mine: 96000 minutes. 2 minutes per song is way too generous as an assumption, for me everything seems to be > 3 minutes so ~20000 streams. I’m paying for a family account (that’s around 250/year) and there are 5 people on it so my usage is 1/5th of that (50/year) So that’s 0.0025€ per stream. I don’t think your assumption is unreasonable.
- Gander5739 10mo ago
  I suppose it depends on what the mean listening time is. I suspect the kind of person who comments on a discussion about music would listen more.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
cm2012 10mo ago
No but the rip is a perfect tool for bad actors to profit from the music without paying licensing fees
hbs18 10mo ago
> Nobody is gonna download a 300TB torrent just to get the latest Taylor Swift album Well, no. They'll just select the album download it selectively from the torrent.
komali2 10mo ago
> What’s actually scummy is Spotify paying artists $1 per 1000 streams. I'm pretty sure it's waaaay lower than that per 1000 streams.
- paddim8 10mo ago
  It's not. What makes you say this?

by WD-42 10mo ago

basisword 10mo ago

How about we let the individual artists decide?

WD-42 10mo ago
In most cases, they couldn't make that decision even if they wanted to. Only independent artists and those that are so large as to have enough sway (Niel Young for example) would be able to. The vast majority of artists you probably listen to don't actually own the rights to their own music. So let the rights holders make the decision? They would never. Music rights exist for them to extract profit above all else. They don't care about preserving culture or legacy. Which is why it's important that somebody does.
venturecruelty 10mo ago
Did they get to decide when their music was pirated and sold originally by Daniel Ek?

ChadNauseam 10mo ago

> What’s actually scummy is Spotify paying artists $1 per 1000 streams. My spotify wrapped says I listened for 50,000 minutes this year. Assuming 2 minutes per song, that's 25,000 streams. I paid them $110, aka $0.004/stream. Assuming I'm a typical user, they obviously could not afford to pay any more than that per stream. I googled "spotify pay per listen" and the first result is a reddit comment saying "The average payout on Spotify is only $0.004 per stream." The google AI overview says "Spotify [..] pays artists a fraction of a cent, typically $0.003 to $0.005 per stream". So I'll assume it's something in that ballpark. So it seems like Spotify's payouts are completely reasonable, given their pricing. Is my logic wrong somewhere?

manuelmoreale 10mo ago
That’s a fun math. I just checked mine: 96000 minutes. 2 minutes per song is way too generous as an assumption, for me everything seems to be > 3 minutes so ~20000 streams. I’m paying for a family account (that’s around 250/year) and there are 5 people on it so my usage is 1/5th of that (50/year) So that’s 0.0025€ per stream. I don’t think your assumption is unreasonable.
Gander5739 10mo ago
I suppose it depends on what the mean listening time is. I suspect the kind of person who comments on a discussion about music would listen more.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

cm2012 10mo ago

No but the rip is a perfect tool for bad actors to profit from the music without paying licensing fees

hbs18 10mo ago

> Nobody is gonna download a 300TB torrent just to get the latest Taylor Swift album Well, no. They'll just select the album download it selectively from the torrent.

komali2 10mo ago

> What’s actually scummy is Spotify paying artists $1 per 1000 streams. I'm pretty sure it's waaaay lower than that per 1000 streams.

paddim8 10mo ago
It's not. What makes you say this?