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This is all about streaming platforms commandeering royalties away from artists. The way royalties get assigned is based on a percentage of your listening vers

This is all about streaming platforms commandeering royalties away from artists. The way royalties get assigned is based on a percentage of your listening versus your monthly payment. For example, spend an entire month listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, she gets the entire royalty share. But if you listen to the album 100 times but then listen to lofi beats 900 times, Taylor only gets 10%. The “earnings per stream” number you’ll see cited is only an average and varies greatly because there’s only so much money to go around since your listening is unlimited. But now you have services like Spotify that are removing real songs from “mood” playlists and replacing them with AI music that directs royalties toward Spotify. Another factor that has happened: record labels have been working to screw over artists so much that they actually negotiated lower royalty rates with Spotify in exchange for company stock. Giving up royalties but then instead owning a part of Spotify effectively directs money away artists and toward the labels.

AlexandrB 4mo ago
> For example, spend an entire month listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, she gets the entire royalty share. > But if you listen to the album 100 times but then listen to lofi beats 900 times, Taylor only gets 10%. Hahaha, I wish this was how it worked, but it's not. At all. Suppose I spend all month listening only to Fugazi. Now some miniscule tiny fraction of my (and everyone else's) monthly payment will go to Fugazi. The biggest portion of my monthly payment will go to Taylor Swift because she got the most plays on the platform. This means it actually matters very little what I listen to because I listen to only a few hours of music a week. A coffee shop running Spotify will generate 16+ hours of listening per day and this will determine who gets my subscription money far more than my actions will. What you're describing would be like heaven for independent artists compared to the status quo. Having said that, you're right that AI music is partially about funnelling more money to the streaming platform. Even before AI generated music, Spotify was cutting deals with "chill vibes" artists where they would receive a smaller payment per play than a "normal" artist[1]. Mysteriously those artists ended up getting placed on "chill vibes" playlists more often than you would expect. Funny how that works. I expect the same chicanery is happening with AI. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_fake_artists_on_Spotify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_fake_artists_...
ch_sm 4mo ago
>The way royalties get assigned is based on a percentage of your listening versus your monthly payment. For example, spend an entire month listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, she gets the entire royalty share. But if you listen to the album 100 times but then listen to lofi beats 900 times, Taylor only gets 10%. Not sure about Tidal, but that’s not how it works on Spotify. Instead, artists get paid per stream — about 0.003$. Anything from you the pool of your monthly payment allocated for royalties that you did not use gets distributed proportionally between the artists with the most streams. So say: - I pay 10$ a month - 5$ of that is reserved for royalties - I listen to 330 songs a month (~ 1$) - 4$ remain in the pot and are paid to the most popular artists

AlexandrB 4mo ago

> For example, spend an entire month listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, she gets the entire royalty share. > But if you listen to the album 100 times but then listen to lofi beats 900 times, Taylor only gets 10%. Hahaha, I wish this was how it worked, but it's not. At all. Suppose I spend all month listening only to Fugazi. Now some miniscule tiny fraction of my (and everyone else's) monthly payment will go to Fugazi. The biggest portion of my monthly payment will go to Taylor Swift because she got the most plays on the platform. This means it actually matters very little what I listen to because I listen to only a few hours of music a week. A coffee shop running Spotify will generate 16+ hours of listening per day and this will determine who gets my subscription money far more than my actions will. What you're describing would be like heaven for independent artists compared to the status quo. Having said that, you're right that AI music is partially about funnelling more money to the streaming platform. Even before AI generated music, Spotify was cutting deals with "chill vibes" artists where they would receive a smaller payment per play than a "normal" artist[1]. Mysteriously those artists ended up getting placed on "chill vibes" playlists more often than you would expect. Funny how that works. I expect the same chicanery is happening with AI. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_fake_artists_on_Spotify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_fake_artists_...

ch_sm 4mo ago

>The way royalties get assigned is based on a percentage of your listening versus your monthly payment. For example, spend an entire month listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, she gets the entire royalty share. But if you listen to the album 100 times but then listen to lofi beats 900 times, Taylor only gets 10%. Not sure about Tidal, but that’s not how it works on Spotify. Instead, artists get paid per stream — about 0.003$. Anything from you the pool of your monthly payment allocated for royalties that you did not use gets distributed proportionally between the artists with the most streams. So say: - I pay 10$ a month - 5$ of that is reserved for royalties - I listen to 330 songs a month (~ 1$) - 4$ remain in the pot and are paid to the most popular artists