Musicians: "streaming will sweep us into poverty"

Chris not shenanigans…check that quote again "offers better returns to right holders". In Bette's case I imagine the majority of the $$$ went to Atlantic who then paid Bette according to some sort of royalty agreement they had/have with her. I remember reading that the labels were paid nearly a BILLION DOLLARS as an advance for permission to stream the masters to which they owned the rights.

As someone upthread mentioned the labels took the lionshare and paid the artists a pittance…where's David Byrne when you need him as it is…"same as it ever was"...

 

The thing is the only people making real $ on the streaming stuff like spotify are the executives of the companies and the VC investors. Nothing goes to the people providing the content really.

 

Basically, people will stop choosing to be musicians. Is that what you want?

 

I rounded off and copy-pasted straight from a quarterly earnings report for one of the artists I work with

 

ANd basically there already is this focus. The best action for artists is commercial placement now.

 

Lower the threshold for artist participation and raise the participation level beyond usury.

The necessity for streaming is a platform for greed. If you got to have it, we can decide what you get.

If a group of wealthy musicians decided to create a for pay streaming vehicle available to talent for cost, others might have to follow suit.

If the co. mentioned above is on the verge of making 400M, there might be enough to go around if those w/the cash said, "Take all income after covering basic fixed and variable costs."

 

If you only want stuff like Justin Bieber or Rihanna, this is a great plan.

 

I'd like to know how much she would receive from terrestrial radio royalties for 4,175,149 listeners.

 

If she's not the songwriter, that would be exactly.....zero dollars. Artists don't get paid for radio play in the US, and tmk it's been that way for a very long time. You only get paid if you're the songwriter.

Is broadcast radio "sweeping them into poverty" too?

 

What percent of new music should have been recorded for mass distribution (beyond family and friends or local community) over the past 3 years?

The recording industry has been around long enough that just maybe music worth recording has already been recorded. Live perfomances are another matter. And that's where the money is. Hm.

 

Ah BS, Galaxy 500 were fantastic. Because most people have bland and unsophisticated taste does not make the artist untalented. It just illustrates that the general public is of average or lower intelligence.

 

Also, if you are up on the topic, only the top acts really make money off of touring. It can actually cost money for smaller bands to tour when it comes down to it.

 

Unless both sides reveal exactly what they are paying everyone, we can assume that they're all crooks. The thing is, the record labels have been screwing artists for a lot longer, so I think we can take it as a given that they're better at it.

Right. Look through that list I posted. If she is talking about the songs she wrote or co-wrote, her payment sounds about right. She made money from the mechanical royalties from the songs that were included on her CDs, most of which were sold to people who were buying them for songs written by other people. Looking at the list, I think most of them were her buddy Carol Bayer Sager doing Bette a favor. And Bette is annoyed that people are no longer buying albums, just singles, and she is losing out on the filler tracks that her name was on.

 

Smaller acts, many of which have a great deal of talent, are going to have to work smarter. They have no right to make the living that the Stones or Springsteen do, but some of them are presumably doing just fine.

 

That is what "they" say, but I have friends who make their living from touring. Admittedly, they are doing it in a van rather than a tour bus, but they are employing a full-time manager, instrument tech and merch person. If they were losing money, they wouldn't keep doing it year after year.

 

It's pretty obvious that most people commenting here aren't trying to make a living playing music.

 

Well, of course, you can make negative dollars from a label deal with a major, if you are not a star...

 

Well, so you have limited bland taste. OK. But be aware that those big names from the last millennium (snore) were mostly young struggling artists at some point.

 

This whole discussion makes Jack White grumpy.

 

I agree with this but there are other ways on the internet to find new artists, besides the big streaming companies that are exploiting the content to make millions for the CEOs.

 

Streaming and You Tube which artists complain about are the best thing that could possibly happen to unknown artists.I myself have bought CD's and attended concerts of bands I never would have heard of had it not have been for these technologies.An artist who doesn't take advantage of such exposure is cutting of their nose to spite their faces.Sure,the huge artists can afford to make these gestures just like super wealthy actors and entertainers love to make empty gestures that only they can afford.Technology has changed things for the better and for the worse but i think it is fair to say that the technology allows access to a worldwide audience to unknown performers that never existed in the past.The truth is except for the big name acts few artists ever made very much money selling records at 2 dollars a pop back in the good old days and with the decline of the physical product today this is the only game in town so rather than complain artists should try to find ways to maximize the potential!Personally,I pay for Spotify and use it to sample music i would never hear ordinarily and decide whether i want to buy the CD!

 

That's awesome. Thanks.

 

Well, we'd had to discount YT which is essentially a horse of a different color. Maybe Bandcamp? Bandcamp kind of reminds me of MP3.com (the version from ~2002 or so, not the current iteration) in that it can be a real nightmare to maneuver around. This is where streaming / subscription services offer a benefit.

The problem is that whenever something more Indie becomes successful, it's almost inevitable that it will get gobbled up by a larger company. Or becomes a larger company itself.

 

Some even seem anti-music and anti-artist. Or at least anti-anything that doesn't come from Liverpool or was recorded before say 1975.

 

unless she wrote the tunes, zilch, but thats not the point. most of those listeners didnt ask to listen to her, it came on without prior notice. many of them if they liked went out to buy the record, as that was the only way to re listen to the music they liked outside if waiting on the radio playing it again.