6 ms·

I hope you don't really think that $10 is "bit high, but fair". Spotify is horrible for artists and pays them next to nothing. Assuming you fully own the rights

I hope you don't really think that $10 is "bit high, but fair". Spotify is horrible for artists and pays them next to nothing. Assuming you fully own the rights to your music it takes 232,000 plays per month just to make minimum wage for a single artist [1]. Now consider that Spotify, and similar streaming services, are losing money hand over fist and it's obvious this model can not last [2]. Personally I put Spotify at the same tier as piracy. I mean that not in terms of morals or ethics but in regards to the viability of the industry. If you want to copy all music ever recorded that's fine, go for it. We're almost all guilty to some extent. If however you'd like to see new music created in the future then you owe it to yourself to compensate the artists you enjoy. The most dangerous thing about Spotify is that people genuinely believe listening to a few ads an hour or paying a mere $10/month is enough to support the industry they love. [1] http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120730infamous http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120730infamou... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-revenue-2012-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-revenue-2012-10

robryan 14y ago
What I don't get though is why doesn't spotify pick a more sustainable subscription price. I guess there is the issue of less sustainable competitors. I would be happy to pay at least double, that would be a vast collection of music vs 2 albums a month.
- forrestthewoods 14y ago
  I would assume because their goal is not to create a sustainable business model but to grow a massive user base and sell/IPO for >$1 billion.
shpiel 14y ago
I don't think anyone (with the possible exception of the Spotify marketing department) thinks that Spotify will be the savior of the music industry. Most popular artists know this. Popular artists like Radiohead, Taylor Swift, or Arcade Fire either distribute only a portion of their work on Spotify, or distribute it with a delay. And Spotify is better than piracy for record labels. (i) Spotify provides useful data for labels (at least those that have an ownership stake in Spotify), (ii) the revenue, in aggregate, is not insignificant and certainly better than revenue from piracy (again this benefits the labels with ownership stakes), and (iii) gives them a measure of messaging control. Essentially, Spotify is marketing channel for major labels.
tlong 14y ago
According to Spotify, they are cutting a fair deal with labels, who are then screwing over the artists. But the full numbers are not available, so it is tough to say. I think the idea that streaming music will destroy the music industry is a bit extreme. http://paidcontent.org/2012/12/10/interview-spotify-exec-on-royalties-and-keeping-labels-happy/ http://paidcontent.org/2012/12/10/interview-spotify-exec-on-...
- mark-r 14y ago
  Screwing over the artists is absolutely nothing new for the music industry. I wonder what percentage of musicians made minimum wage or above under the old model?
Maakuth 14y ago
If I consider myself, I've never spent even half of the 120€ a year on music as I now do with Spotify. I'm fairly sure that my case isn't that uncommon with others of my generation, born in 80s or later. A big part of this generation has never gotten into buying music and it seems Spotify is a way to get at least some revenue from us. Nobody outside Spotify and the labels owning it knows the exact details of their finances, but I doubt they're going to disappear, at least not the business model. Otherwise our generation just goes back to pirating.
- joeguilmette 14y ago
  Exactly. With music you pay for distribution. $10 to stream me a large catalog for a month is good. $10 for 14 tracks is not good.
joeguilmette 14y ago
I know a couple musicians, some of them earn enough to survive thanks to their art, most don't. I know that if I had talent I could create and distribute an album on my laptop and distribute it globally. We used to pay record labels for this. Now we pay them to stand in the way of artists and their fans. Regardless, musicians don't really make money from people listening to their music and never really have - unless you're talking about A-listers, but since we're talking about starving artists we're probably not talking about Metallica and Katy Perry. Musicians make money from playing live - even all electronic musicians like Deadmau5. Most electronic musicians give their music away on Soundcloud and then tour to make money. This is the future of the industry. The problem is it just doesn't leave a lot of room for record labels. This is something that no one will miss...
- cobralibre 14y ago
  "Musicians make money from playing live... This is the future of the industry." I see this sentiment repeated often. I don't buy it. It seems like a better way to put it is that if musicians are going to make money at all, then it must come from live performance. It certainly won't come from recordings, because more and more consumers don't want to pay for recordings, regardless of the practices of major labels, who have always been irrelevant to the majority of practicing musicians anyway. I have only anecdotal data to back myself up with, but of the independent musicians I know, most of them lose money or make trivial earnings from live performance. They do it because they find it rewarding, to be sure, but they're not doing it for money. And touring is usually mutually exclusive with a sustainable day job.
  - joeguilmette 14y ago
    Remember - music existed before money. Selling recorded performances is relatively new - how long have records been around? I doubt the first users of the tech in the early 1900s spent enough on records to support any type of professional musician, let alone create Lady Gaga like stars. Yet, somehow, there have been professional musicians for likely thousands of years. Record companies solved the distribution problem. The Internet proved them obsolete and for the next few years they'll continue their death rattle until they blossom into something that looks like Spotify (which is replacing radio as well), or someone else will fill their shoes (as Spotify is doing today). And then no one will care about programs designed to put lipstick on my 80gb mp3 pig as iTunes does... Unless they roll out their own all you can eat service :)
balbaugh 14y ago
A lot of the trash talking about Spotify is poorly researched. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4834767 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4834767
crag 14y ago
Spotify is good for popular music. But try being classical/opera fan and using Spotify. Though I hear it's getting better. I have a 120GB music library in iTunes. And most of it was ripped from CD's. I'm not happy about iTunes 11 due to Cover Flow an DJ being dropped (I liked both) and - I don't know, maybe I'll give Spotify another go.
- technoslut 14y ago
  To be fair, classical music suffers in general when it comes to availability. For two months I was looking for 8 CD box set of 'The Budapest String Quartet Plays Beethoven' to be available anywhere as a download. I had to resort to buying the box set, ripping it and fixing the tags myself. I paid far less than I would have but I paid it back in hours of getting everything right.

robryan 14y ago

What I don't get though is why doesn't spotify pick a more sustainable subscription price. I guess there is the issue of less sustainable competitors. I would be happy to pay at least double, that would be a vast collection of music vs 2 albums a month.

forrestthewoods 14y ago
I would assume because their goal is not to create a sustainable business model but to grow a massive user base and sell/IPO for >$1 billion.

shpiel 14y ago

I don't think anyone (with the possible exception of the Spotify marketing department) thinks that Spotify will be the savior of the music industry. Most popular artists know this. Popular artists like Radiohead, Taylor Swift, or Arcade Fire either distribute only a portion of their work on Spotify, or distribute it with a delay. And Spotify is better than piracy for record labels. (i) Spotify provides useful data for labels (at least those that have an ownership stake in Spotify), (ii) the revenue, in aggregate, is not insignificant and certainly better than revenue from piracy (again this benefits the labels with ownership stakes), and (iii) gives them a measure of messaging control. Essentially, Spotify is marketing channel for major labels.

tlong 14y ago

According to Spotify, they are cutting a fair deal with labels, who are then screwing over the artists. But the full numbers are not available, so it is tough to say. I think the idea that streaming music will destroy the music industry is a bit extreme. http://paidcontent.org/2012/12/10/interview-spotify-exec-on-royalties-and-keeping-labels-happy/ http://paidcontent.org/2012/12/10/interview-spotify-exec-on-...

mark-r 14y ago
Screwing over the artists is absolutely nothing new for the music industry. I wonder what percentage of musicians made minimum wage or above under the old model?

Maakuth 14y ago

If I consider myself, I've never spent even half of the 120€ a year on music as I now do with Spotify. I'm fairly sure that my case isn't that uncommon with others of my generation, born in 80s or later. A big part of this generation has never gotten into buying music and it seems Spotify is a way to get at least some revenue from us. Nobody outside Spotify and the labels owning it knows the exact details of their finances, but I doubt they're going to disappear, at least not the business model. Otherwise our generation just goes back to pirating.

joeguilmette 14y ago
Exactly. With music you pay for distribution. $10 to stream me a large catalog for a month is good. $10 for 14 tracks is not good.

joeguilmette 14y ago

I know a couple musicians, some of them earn enough to survive thanks to their art, most don't. I know that if I had talent I could create and distribute an album on my laptop and distribute it globally. We used to pay record labels for this. Now we pay them to stand in the way of artists and their fans. Regardless, musicians don't really make money from people listening to their music and never really have - unless you're talking about A-listers, but since we're talking about starving artists we're probably not talking about Metallica and Katy Perry. Musicians make money from playing live - even all electronic musicians like Deadmau5. Most electronic musicians give their music away on Soundcloud and then tour to make money. This is the future of the industry. The problem is it just doesn't leave a lot of room for record labels. This is something that no one will miss...

cobralibre 14y ago
"Musicians make money from playing live... This is the future of the industry." I see this sentiment repeated often. I don't buy it. It seems like a better way to put it is that if musicians are going to make money at all, then it must come from live performance. It certainly won't come from recordings, because more and more consumers don't want to pay for recordings, regardless of the practices of major labels, who have always been irrelevant to the majority of practicing musicians anyway. I have only anecdotal data to back myself up with, but of the independent musicians I know, most of them lose money or make trivial earnings from live performance. They do it because they find it rewarding, to be sure, but they're not doing it for money. And touring is usually mutually exclusive with a sustainable day job.
- joeguilmette 14y ago
  Remember - music existed before money. Selling recorded performances is relatively new - how long have records been around? I doubt the first users of the tech in the early 1900s spent enough on records to support any type of professional musician, let alone create Lady Gaga like stars. Yet, somehow, there have been professional musicians for likely thousands of years. Record companies solved the distribution problem. The Internet proved them obsolete and for the next few years they'll continue their death rattle until they blossom into something that looks like Spotify (which is replacing radio as well), or someone else will fill their shoes (as Spotify is doing today). And then no one will care about programs designed to put lipstick on my 80gb mp3 pig as iTunes does... Unless they roll out their own all you can eat service :)

balbaugh 14y ago

A lot of the trash talking about Spotify is poorly researched. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4834767 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4834767

crag 14y ago

Spotify is good for popular music. But try being classical/opera fan and using Spotify. Though I hear it's getting better. I have a 120GB music library in iTunes. And most of it was ripped from CD's. I'm not happy about iTunes 11 due to Cover Flow an DJ being dropped (I liked both) and - I don't know, maybe I'll give Spotify another go.

technoslut 14y ago
To be fair, classical music suffers in general when it comes to availability. For two months I was looking for 8 CD box set of 'The Budapest String Quartet Plays Beethoven' to be available anywhere as a download. I had to resort to buying the box set, ripping it and fixing the tags myself. I paid far less than I would have but I paid it back in hours of getting everything right.