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I don't think the world is ready yet.. but here is my idea on how to let artists make money in a fair manner without consumers paying too much. Imagine a clone

by earlz 13y ago

I don't think the world is ready yet.. but here is my idea on how to let artists make money in a fair manner without consumers paying too much. Imagine a clone of Spotify. You can do offline streaming and such for all the music in it. You pay $10/month for the privilege (which I think is fair). $5 or so goes to the company to maintain their servers and such. The other $5 though you can do interesting things with. Basically, each month you have $5 worth of "tip money". You can send however much money you want to whatever artist you want.. or you could alternatively setup other neat dynamic setups (the author gets 50 cents when you favorite his song, etc). .. The point being that it's under the user's control. And, if the user chose to not tip any artists this month(or they have left over tip money), then it's evenly split between all the artists they listened to for the month (depending on song count or whatever). This model I believe would work because the biggest thing standing in the way from giving your favorite band a tip is that it's through services that you are not already using. I don't want to go to their website and then sign up for paypal to give them a $1. The thing with this method payment is already accounted for. You already paid. Now you just get to pick which band deserves your money. This could even work with a free version by doing a model like for every 10 ads you must listen to in a month, you get 10 cents added to your tip money.. If I knew anything about the music industry, this would be the startup I'd be behind. This wouldn't work with the label model, and giving artists tips isn't really something I think most people would understand at this point... but some day... some day.

ivasilov 13y ago
A month ago, in a similar thread like this one, someone posted their side project [1]. It looks a lot like what you described. Sort of like flattr for musicians. Me personally, hope that it will get bigger exposure and gain traction. It seems like a viable model. [1] http://musiclove.rs/ http://musiclove.rs/
saalweachter 13y ago
That "totally fair" $10/month figure is the problem. Spotify's benefit to the consumer is they pay less for listening to the same music. Compare that to iTunes which doesn't save you any money, it just makes it a whole lot more convenient. (As an aside, I was far more appalled by the discrepancy between retail albums and iTunes albums: Both cost the consumer $10, but the label gets 5x more from iTunes while the artist gets slightly less than the $1 they get from retail.) You can save the consumer a certain amount of money by cutting out middle-men, but at the end of the day if consumers are paying less money the producers are earning less money. It only makes sense to the producers if it doesn't cannibalize their existing revenue streams.
- TylerE 13y ago
  You're ignoring price discrimination. Many who would pay $10/month for unlimited streaming would just go back to torrenting if you took their shiny toy away, they're NOT going to spend that $10 on iTunes instead.
- earlz 13y ago
  The "totally fair" figure isn't the problem. It's Spotify deciding that artists on the top 100 list should get paid substantially more per listen than some indie artist. No matter how good or bad the person on the top 100 is nor how good or bad the indie artist is. Also, some bands I would much rather tip with 50 cents than to give .2 cents for listening to them 5 times or whatever. And yes, I'm of the general opinion that albums and songs that are /bought/ are overpriced... kind of. I don't care if I own my music. I care that I can listen to many different artists without having to buy $200 worth of albums to discover all their music.
- AndrewDucker 13y ago
  I pay £10/month to Spotify. I was not spending anything like £120/year on music for several years before I got my Spotify subscription.
  - saalweachter 13y ago
    ... and you use Spotify because you pay less than £120/year for more music than you would otherwise get for that value?
    - AndrewDucker 13y ago
      I use Spotify because I have the convenience of not having to think about music - it's just _there_ whenever I want it, without me having to transfer it anywhere, dig out CDs to rip, etc. I've listened to vastly more new music since I got Spotify, because I could try things without having to buy a single or an album. That's worth £10/month to me.
GuiA 13y ago
$10 a month per user doesn't cut it. Spotify actually makes more money off free users than paying users, because the ad placement they achieve for free users is worth more than $10/month/user. In reality, it's their interest to keep the free user/paying user ratio to a certain zone, or they'd be losing too much money.
21echoes 13y ago
this is actually exactly how Google Play works (http://play.google.com/intl/ALL_ALL/about/artist-terms.html http://play.google.com/intl/ALL_ALL/about/artist-terms.html). The numbers aren't as clean and simple as "pay 5 to us, 5 wherever you want", but effectively what's happening when you pay those $10 is that it's split proportionally over the artists you listen to by the number of times that you listen to them that month.

by earlz 13y ago

ivasilov 13y ago

A month ago, in a similar thread like this one, someone posted their side project [1]. It looks a lot like what you described. Sort of like flattr for musicians. Me personally, hope that it will get bigger exposure and gain traction. It seems like a viable model. [1] http://musiclove.rs/ http://musiclove.rs/

saalweachter 13y ago

That "totally fair" $10/month figure is the problem. Spotify's benefit to the consumer is they pay less for listening to the same music. Compare that to iTunes which doesn't save you any money, it just makes it a whole lot more convenient. (As an aside, I was far more appalled by the discrepancy between retail albums and iTunes albums: Both cost the consumer $10, but the label gets 5x more from iTunes while the artist gets slightly less than the $1 they get from retail.) You can save the consumer a certain amount of money by cutting out middle-men, but at the end of the day if consumers are paying less money the producers are earning less money. It only makes sense to the producers if it doesn't cannibalize their existing revenue streams.

TylerE 13y ago
You're ignoring price discrimination. Many who would pay $10/month for unlimited streaming would just go back to torrenting if you took their shiny toy away, they're NOT going to spend that $10 on iTunes instead.
earlz 13y ago
The "totally fair" figure isn't the problem. It's Spotify deciding that artists on the top 100 list should get paid substantially more per listen than some indie artist. No matter how good or bad the person on the top 100 is nor how good or bad the indie artist is. Also, some bands I would much rather tip with 50 cents than to give .2 cents for listening to them 5 times or whatever. And yes, I'm of the general opinion that albums and songs that are /bought/ are overpriced... kind of. I don't care if I own my music. I care that I can listen to many different artists without having to buy $200 worth of albums to discover all their music.
AndrewDucker 13y ago
I pay £10/month to Spotify. I was not spending anything like £120/year on music for several years before I got my Spotify subscription.
- saalweachter 13y ago
  ... and you use Spotify because you pay less than £120/year for more music than you would otherwise get for that value?
  - AndrewDucker 13y ago
    I use Spotify because I have the convenience of not having to think about music - it's just _there_ whenever I want it, without me having to transfer it anywhere, dig out CDs to rip, etc. I've listened to vastly more new music since I got Spotify, because I could try things without having to buy a single or an album. That's worth £10/month to me.

GuiA 13y ago

$10 a month per user doesn't cut it. Spotify actually makes more money off free users than paying users, because the ad placement they achieve for free users is worth more than $10/month/user. In reality, it's their interest to keep the free user/paying user ratio to a certain zone, or they'd be losing too much money.

21echoes 13y ago

this is actually exactly how Google Play works (http://play.google.com/intl/ALL_ALL/about/artist-terms.html http://play.google.com/intl/ALL_ALL/about/artist-terms.html). The numbers aren't as clean and simple as "pay 5 to us, 5 wherever you want", but effectively what's happening when you pay those $10 is that it's split proportionally over the artists you listen to by the number of times that you listen to them that month.