Spotify Is An Enemy of Sustainable Arts

source quote 2010 figures. Absolute lowest end 'free' tariff might pay out that.

I'm sure premium spotify/apple/tiday pay out more than that.

Alternative is rampant piracy.

 

You know some suit somewhere is saying: You know, I can't believe we used to print all those sleeves, press all those albums, and distribute them. What with returns, damages, and fads. I'm so glad we got out of all that and use streaming reducing our overheads, and no returns!

Yuk.

 

$.99 downloads were not a viable business model and substitute for physical product 10-15 years ago prior to streaming. Artists earned very little and the labels had shrinking revenues. It was never a viable long-term distribution model, especially as a substitute for what physical product had generated.

 

The library always had more music than I could listen to/learn, and that was free . . . and artists got no royalties beyond the initial sale, regardless of how often something was played

 

I've never worked in a paperless office. Never seen one. I suspect my experience is more typical than your own. I could be wrong, but I'm thinking not.

 

Not really getting this analogy, but if people could have a cheeseburger delivered to them any time they wanted one, they wouldn't bother driving to McDonald's.

 

It's probably an age thing, and certainly a money thing. I used to buy loads of records and CDs when I was younger, and I was always interested in new musical trends. Now I own so much that I don't really find the time to listen to it, at the same time I've become picky (or should I say conservative) about new music. My main source for new discoveries is youtube recommendations.

 

I want to be you!

 

I guess this is why I have to get the hell out of this thread - you say "artists earned very little", yet they are earning far less now, and as far as labels having "shrinking revenues", well, boo hoo on that, rah rah capitalism at any cost I suppose. Gotta keep those CEOs buying mansions.

 

That may be true. Just imagine investing $500 for music and then owning the recordings indefinitely, not being subject to the availability by a streaming platform indefinitely, not leasing the music indefinitely. I get the ease and convenience of streaming -- I enjoy uploading my music and streaming it wherever and whenever I want. But I prefer to pay for it once, and not in perpetuity month after month, year after year.

 

Like the OP's thread title. Lots of great posts here condemning this business model and the apathy of it's many supporters.

It's a bit off topic, but wanted to share/vent about a somewhat related experience of buying a record from an independent artist this week. Bandcamp wanted 23 dollars to ship an LP to Canada and the record was reasonably enough priced at $24 USD, so I would pay close to $60 dollars Canadian to get the LP. Contacted the seller to ask if there was a cheaper way to send it, he kindly offered to sell it at his cost, but shipping would be around the same amount. I wanted to pay him more than his cost and paid him a measly $5 dollars more. So, record was $17, shipping was 23 and the good people at PayPal wanted a $5 dollar transaction fee, so the record ended up costing me nearly $60. This is not a sustainable model either, everyone his their finger in the pie and the sad reality is that it's becoming ever harder to support independent musicians.

 

Even just being a part-time local musician - treating it as "more than a hobby" but also not making any real money - people underestimate how much you have to cultivate a social media presence and keep your followers'/fans' attention and loyalty.

I know that's part of being an artist in the digital age, and I'm 38, so none of this is new to me.

But dammit, I hate it. Worst case, that's how our culture succumbs to crap like the Fyre Festival. Social media can take up enough mental energy on both ends that at times, it seems the music comes second (or third, or...). "Working Instagram" is the 2019 version of "working the room," making people feel like there's some chummy connection where there is none.

I hate to be "that guy" but as Frank Zappa told Davy Jones in "Head," "it doesn't leave much time for your music."

 

There's actually a lot to unpack in this short sentence, but we did have the equivalent of the streamers back in the "glory days" - record/CD club "sales". Lots of threads on this board are practically nostalgic for them. Look around the web some time for commentary from artists who chafed under these deals.

 

You said whether it "reduced demand is a cause or effect is debatable, and mostly irrelevant." How could the reduced demand at McDonalds, as a cause(?) or effect of the appearance of the home delivery model, be debatable or irrelevant?

 

Not being privy to Peter's royalty and bank statements it's only conjecture on my behalf but I didn't and still doing believe his quote about his royalties. I can't remember the ins and outs from the thread about this tweet but I believe his quote relates to his income as a writer from a cover of his song and he doesn't the specify time period.

I'd like him to quote his actual received royalties from apple/spotify/tidal etc for 'all' his music since day 1 and then I may feel some sympathy for him if it's a pittance.

 

Much of the streaming I do is of CDs/LPs I already own, I use streaming for the convenience option. So I guess in my case the artists are getting double/triple paid by me for stuff I've already bought once or twice over (or for a song like, say, 'Satisfaction' many multiple times over as I have it on numerous comps/singles).

 

There have been a lot of tech-driven changes: gaming, for one. And demands on mental energy mean short attention spans, or demands for immediate gratification. And multi-tasking. So people hear music as part of their gaming experience, or social-media experience, or pumped into their feeds, etc.

People clucked about the heyday of piracy before streaming, but it really didn't make any sense to anyone on the Internet, digital native or older, that within minutes they could find a video of a [blank] [blanking] a [blank], but they couldn't hear Metallica tunes.

 

To torture this analogy further, if McDonald's decided to close every store and go with delivery-only, customers would choose that even if they'd rather eat at McDonald's. But the analogy breaks down when you consider all the other options a customer has - namely a cheeseburger from a different supplier that may not have the same quality (bitrate) as a Big Mac but is free and always available.

 

1. A cover of "Baby I Love Your Way".
2. Which appeared on a successful movie soundtrack in the 90s.
3. And which was THEN placed in 2 popular Spotify playlist/feeds
4. Which have always paid a different (and lower) rate than on-demand streams.

 

On the other side of that, I can't tell you how annoying it is to add "take video to post on Instagram" to the agenda for your band practice, when you're already working on new songs or trying to tighten arrangements for live playing. Now you have to be "on."

The last band I quit, that was part of why. We had a fairly sizable "following" if you went by our social media posts/likes. But the songs weren't getting any better (they were getting worse, actually) and we weren't pulling people out to shows. It's like we weren't aware that we were just giving way to artifice.

 

Indeed, the 2010 iconographic used the fee of $0,0016 per stream. However, it was gradually and significantly decreased over the ensuing decade.



Exclusive Report: Spotify Artist Payments Are Declining In 2017, Data Shows

In 2017 Spotify fee per stream was only $0.00066 per stream (in the better premium model), a half of their 2010 fee. Thanks for singling it out.

Well, if they do not get it for free/peanuts, they'll steal it anyway, so I should not complain, right?

 

My daughter, who's in her freshman year of college, only pays 4.99 for Spotify every month. They discount it heavily for college students.

 

Funny, the first two threads I lucked-into this morning, were this one, and How to save purchased Amazon video to a hard drive, both raising interesting points about price-vs-ethics, and the marketplace putting unreasonable expectations onto a current business model. You can extrapolate both of these discussed topics into the marketplace creating a situation where the public is bound to be dissatisfied, with no clear definition of who's to blame.

If I pay Universal the same amount of money for a copy of Animal House that I paid in 1978 to see the movie in a theater, suddenly I am presented with the possibilities of expanded options for using this "ownership", that were not even considered when my only options were buttered or not-buttered. Now I "expect" to have perpetual viewing rights on my handheld device, "backup" my TiVo'd recording to my server, or even excise a musical performance from the film, to make a copy of "Shout" to use on the flash drive in my car...or, bring it to the wedding, and ask the deejay to play it at the reception.

Funny, when I purchased that extra air filter for my 1981 k-car, there was no market expectation that I should be able to hold onto it until the 21st Century, to use it in my new Tesla. But the customer somehow can justify an argument that either Universal or Spotify not raise hackles when I strip the DRM from their movie, so I can turn Otis Day into my indentured servant. (*metaphor purposfully-infused with controversial descriptive terms for purposes of illustration of level of outrage) Senator Blutarsky would no doubt be appalled.

Furthermore, just the other week I was watching Matt Damon, a poor botanist stuck marooned on the planet Mars, complaining to his "employers" because the only music available on the whole base station, were the digital files of disco music left behind among the personal effects of a "co-worker". So, not only does he have to "suffer" the "inconvenience" of endless plays of "Dancing Queen" while turning a common-area into an unauthorized potato patch, but also (while digging up a radioactive isotope - clearly not approved for this purpose, I should point out! - to use as a makeshift heater in his "company vehicle") enjoying Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" as he drives, on the surface of another planet!

So, issues with H. R. notwithstanding, it has not yet been established whether these music files have even been cleared for use outside the jusisdiction of Earth! (and DON'T EVEN get me started as to whether Kristen Wiig's character actually purchased these files from the iTunes store, or simply ripped them from her brother's Samsung Galaxy! )

(And, yes, just to make the point even more convoluted, I actuall copied my own post from the other thread, "stripped" it of the link to this thread, replaced that with a link to the original thread...and re-posted it here in this one...despite full knowledge that this post is technically no longer my property, but the property of the Hoffman Board!

Come and get me, ya commie pinko gort-lawyer bastards! )

 

Yeah, I see the multiplicity of platforms, and it'd be a full time job maintaining a "presence" on all 4(?) if you were just posting cat .GIFs.

 

Streaming is so cheap so people will "get on board" ... then when they have you by the boo boo's the gotcha moment will come.

In the words of Olivia "Let's Get Physical, Physical .... I wanna Get Physical, Let's Get into Physical" and I would never argue with Olivia