Always tilted by the megastars that pretend to be part of the protest when in fact their asymmetrical comp is a large part of why small musicians get such as a low payout
Call me naive, but can't an artist just refuse to be listed on Spotify? No meetings, groups, boycotts necessary. If an artist feels like the payout isn't high enough, they can just exclude their catalog from the app. And if they don't own their own catalog, then that's a decision they made knowingly and they gave up their right to control where it gets hosted. If they got exploited or didn't know, then they should take it up with their agent, whoever was advising them or the person that owns the rights. They can also try to buy their rights back. Has nothing to do w/ Spotify.
This anger against Spotify and other streaming services just strikes me as misdirected. Spotify pays out ~70% of its revenue to music rights holders, which strikes me as reasonable, although I have nothing really to base this on. But I feel like the people behind this kind of movement expect a much bigger payout, so even if Spotify paid out 100% of their revenue to rights holders, they would still think its too low.
> Call me naive, but can't an artist just refuse to be listed on Spotify? No meetings, groups, boycotts necessary. If an artist feels like the payout isn't high enough, they can just exclude their catalog from the app.
Actually no. Or at least not completely. Radio-style play has mechanical licensing with statuatory royalties. Users wouldn't be able to request specific songs, but they could request a similar songs or similar artists station and likely hear your music.
This is so stupid. Spotify pays out over 50% of its revenue to small artists, at a much higher rate than radio did. They dont have much pricing power or margin either.
Yeah, sure, I get it, Spotify==Big Tech==Bad, self-hosting is nirvana, et cetera.
But, one simple question: how are the Creators (especially those not signed with a Big Bad Label) expecting to be paid in this marvelous post-Spotify era? Because, fact: like 80% of revenue (if not more, and the rest is pretty much evenly divided between YouTube, the remains of iTunes, and some niche portals like Beatport) flows through them these days.
And, for all Spotify's flaws, that revenue stream might be something to have a pretty good plan to replace, and I don't see any hints at that in the linked article?
Distribution and discovery existed in the before times, it’s just that they didn’t take such an obscene slice of the pie. Bandcamp and iTunes at least give you the option to purchase music outright. The artist gets a more substantial cut and that music is yours to keep.
To your point though, streaming allows people to listen to a greater variety of music for little cost, and I’ve discovered music through other peoples playlists that have been really enjoyable. I think most people want to have a larger library without paying more and that’s a significant part of the problem.
I feel that the algorithmic listeners problem will not be solved with this. Nothing to solve there actualy. That's how some paople are, and that is all fine. They will not become more engaged in conscious music listening. And those paying attention can use it the way they need, seek out music they like, not leaning into the lukewarm stream of suggestions.
I used Spotify a lot until I quit many years ago not because of not having my freedom to listen (their approach of lossless drove me away). I use Tidal, it is a piece of sh*t, the player is made by unattentive stupid children with no clue, the single worst piece of software I had the unfortune to use, but the access to the catalogue and the reasonable price I got keeps me there still. I can browse, discover, build up my own beautiful playlists that I listen to for months so the individual palylists become the sound of an era in my life.
If there was a different service from musicians themselves with rich database - must contain lukewarm lemonade too! as sometimes it is lukewarm lemonade day, also oldies and goldies - and not too high prices but a better player (not hard to do), I'd switch in an instant never looking back.
Just like I did with Spotify (for a different reason).
Well, what I found is that 'music quality' is not the same as how compressed a song is. Tidal tends to have different mastered versions of album's that do give a different listening experience.
Yeah I've used TIDAL for 8 years now and I've loved it. The fact that they pay artists better and even have a system for paying the artist you listened to the most each month is pretty neat.
Tidal is using a revenue share model, just like Spotify. A higher per-steam payout just means users on Tidal are listening to less music than Spotify users.
If you want to migrate off Spotify but are worried you’ll lose your library, feel free to checkout my tool Libx (libx.stream). It’s a tool to export your entire Spotify library to a nice and neat CSV file
I like minimalistic websites, but I feel like that's too far. No information what so ever about anything at all, just a "Login with Spotify" button. What happens once you're logged in? No one knows.
> “I find it pretty lame that we put our heart and soul into something and then just put it online for free,” Rose says.
How absolutely entitled. Almost 20 years ago I would have killed for a distribution platform as slick as what there is today. Is it a generational thing maybe? I don't know, but just because you create doesn't obligate people to consume.
Indeed, very strong "One fish turns to another and asks, What is water?" vibes.
Even if you exclude all the discoverability functionality, just the pure distribution aspect, at this scale, makes the Spotify system impressive. Why should that system and all the work that went into it, be free?
I don't think there are any legal barriers for someone to go ahead and build their own music distribution system that is more fair than Spotify. It's just a matter of putting in the time, no?
Before that, it said:
"Others such as pop-rock songwriter Caroline Rose are experimenting too. Her album Year of the Slug came out only on vinyl and Bandcamp, inspired by Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee, which was initially available only on YouTube and the filesharing site Mega."
So her inspiration was someone distributing for free online. The whole article has the feel of an anarcho get together with half the participants stoned.
You're grossly misquoting Rose, as harvey9 also pointed out. Noone suggested "just because [musicians] create [doesn't] obligate people to consume". They're criticizing the compensation rate for lesser-known artists on streaming.
How is this that much different to criticizing the cut that a dominant distributor takes from vendors in e-commerce or video games?
Interesting, though I wonder what they propose as an alternative for allowing discoverability. Do they just want platforms that give artists better terms, like Bandcamp? Or are they proposing moving away from online platforms altogether, in which case I guess we would go back to radio to find new stuff?
As a consumer, my primary objection to streaming platforms is that you don't own any of the stuff you pay for. That's obviously different to these artists' main objection, but if the solution they propose (whether it's switching to Bandcamp or something else) also addresses that concern I could get on board with it (and will always have sympathy for artists who want a bigger cut vs the middle man).
I do still pay for Spotify despite that objection. I find it provides just enough value to justify the cost. I have found it good for discoverability and, unlike other streaming services, Spotify gives me access to pretty much any music I might like to listen to. (Others with more niche tastes might disagree.)
As a very casual music listener, I have spent ~5x more on music through subscription services than I have before they existed.
If they went away tomorrow, that spend would not magically be transferred to a more artist-friendly form or platform. I'd just not pay for new music. There's already more than enough old music I own/free music than I would ever need.
This seems like a good time for musicians to start doing their own distribution. Not sure about the technical aspect; but I guess it's still possible to sell albums in iTunes? Or some other app?
The problem with Spotify, Apple Music's streaming and YouTube music's algorithm is that it wants you to keep listening and it will feed you whatever it guesses you will like. Which means they will feed listeners AI-generated slop if they can get away with it. So I guess it's time for independent musicians who can prove their humanity to just put a damn ad for their music in front of potential listeners and try the direct sales routes. Mind-you, a non-AI generated ad, created by actual human filmmakers with AI-free tools and workflows.
Of course, there may be a second problem, and that's the youth who can enjoy happy music are broke. Middle-agers are too busy caring for kids and for the elderly, and thus naturally depressed and running in coping mechanisms, and that's before coming to our ossified musical tastes. And anybody older than that must use their running-out time wisely and only shop for funerary tunes. Woe if the arts should depend on our patronage.
I like Spotify but it has got a bit bloated with audiobooks, podcasts and features like videos that I do not care for. I also find Spotify makes finding and listening to albums less intuitive, it feels like everything is setup for passive listening to algorithmically generated playlists. That's fine and it is how I listen to music sometimes, particularly for music discovery. But I use other services and means to have a library because Spotify's UI for it isn't great. I can't help but think that's intentional for some reason.
I will also throw some points Spotify's way for having half decent support for API clients, decent hardware support (that is for consumers, not sure what the experience is like for a developer). I have an NFC card system setup for albums and playlists so I can have a limited physical library. This uses Spotify's libraries because the support is good.
For no fuss music Tidal has been good, but it certainly has fewer artists.
I'm old enough to remember physical media, mp3s, Napster and Spotify. As a consumer, I'm very happy with it. Low monthly price, everything I could ever want. Im sure it's not ideal, but considering the evolution, it's pretty amazing.
Is blockchain the next evolution for tracking media ownership, access rights, and consumption? I hate "blockchain" being the fix for everything, but seems logical.
If the boycott was actually about artist payouts it would have happened a lot sooner. The real reason for the boycott is Daniel Ek being on the board of Helsing, a company developing AI military strike drones (AI murder drones, to put it emotionally). This is the man that become a billionaire off the backs of hard-working musicians and used that money to invest in a company furthering the militarization of AI. Morally unconscionable for a lot of people.
As a counter-point to streaming services and to try and provide an alternative, I'm busy building https://jam.coop - the intention is to be a music store owned collectively by artists and the people who build it. I think it's really important to explore alternatives in this space.
putting the energy into LIVE music
and getting a few bucks, and a case of beer to split back stage is going to be a bigger pay day than what many ,many thoudands ever get
from shitif6, oops,spottyfeh, sorry
guitarer here,clumsy without strings attached, anyway the web is chock full of tunes so good it's a job to give some small percentage of that a proper listen, and it seems that most of it is stashed somewhere that it just plays when you hit the button, click, music, click music, oh! look a guitar
My favourite band (king gizzard) removed all their music from Spotify. I took the opportunity to switch to navidrome with tailscale and started obtaining music via bandcamp and ripping old CDs. It works much better than I expected, even transcoding from flac to mp3 on the fly from my phone app.
Investing the Spotify fee every month into my own music collection is a great investment, and it has meant that I am actually listening to the music and not just playing the same songs off a Spotify playlist every now and then again
Something I’ve heard said within the last 5 years and I find true in practice:
Nobody (not enough) pays for music, and streaming made that even more true.
Most of the music I don’t intentionally listen to, I instead hear is often out in public (or outside my control): grocery store, restaurant, hotel lobby, subway station, park, neighbors speaker, person on a bike, etc.
A lot of this music is often either the radio or ad-based streaming platforms.
The only people who pay for music are either die hard fans or people who have been guilted into paying for a streaming subscription. Often times even die hard fans/enthusiasts will purchase an vinyl LP or only use the streaming purchase to offset the pirating they do for high quality formats or rarity reasons.
Most listeners of music are not paying for it; if you are…you’re a sucker.*
I remember when Sony wanted to launch their own music streaming service. Naturally only with their catalogue. They're large in Japan, but really small elsewhere. Didn't go well.
This has been coming up every other year. The problem is that everyone trying to build a platform wants $10. I'm not paying for two such services, because the marginal benefit over the first is maybe $2. Perhaps the solution is regulation, I dunno. But keeping marginal costs down needs to be part of the solution. Or it'll be Netflix all over where movie studios started doing the Sony thing, and (some) customers went back to pirating.
42 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 57.0 ms ] threadThis anger against Spotify and other streaming services just strikes me as misdirected. Spotify pays out ~70% of its revenue to music rights holders, which strikes me as reasonable, although I have nothing really to base this on. But I feel like the people behind this kind of movement expect a much bigger payout, so even if Spotify paid out 100% of their revenue to rights holders, they would still think its too low.
Actually no. Or at least not completely. Radio-style play has mechanical licensing with statuatory royalties. Users wouldn't be able to request specific songs, but they could request a similar songs or similar artists station and likely hear your music.
But, one simple question: how are the Creators (especially those not signed with a Big Bad Label) expecting to be paid in this marvelous post-Spotify era? Because, fact: like 80% of revenue (if not more, and the rest is pretty much evenly divided between YouTube, the remains of iTunes, and some niche portals like Beatport) flows through them these days.
And, for all Spotify's flaws, that revenue stream might be something to have a pretty good plan to replace, and I don't see any hints at that in the linked article?
To your point though, streaming allows people to listen to a greater variety of music for little cost, and I’ve discovered music through other peoples playlists that have been really enjoyable. I think most people want to have a larger library without paying more and that’s a significant part of the problem.
Like 99.98% of the music I've ever looked up is there, even pirate sites don't have that much coverage.
I use the free version and put up with the ads. I make playlists of my favorite songs, sometimes Spotify suggests great music I didn’t know about.
It’s superior to any other way of listening to music, for me. I’ll keep using it ‘till something better comes along. Hooray for progress!
I used Spotify a lot until I quit many years ago not because of not having my freedom to listen (their approach of lossless drove me away). I use Tidal, it is a piece of sh*t, the player is made by unattentive stupid children with no clue, the single worst piece of software I had the unfortune to use, but the access to the catalogue and the reasonable price I got keeps me there still. I can browse, discover, build up my own beautiful playlists that I listen to for months so the individual palylists become the sound of an era in my life.
If there was a different service from musicians themselves with rich database - must contain lukewarm lemonade too! as sometimes it is lukewarm lemonade day, also oldies and goldies - and not too high prices but a better player (not hard to do), I'd switch in an instant never looking back.
Just like I did with Spotify (for a different reason).
Doesn't Spotify do lossless now? How can it get better than lossless?
> Great playlists
That sounds like a skill issue if I've ever heard one.
How absolutely entitled. Almost 20 years ago I would have killed for a distribution platform as slick as what there is today. Is it a generational thing maybe? I don't know, but just because you create doesn't obligate people to consume.
But I think that's more about lack of knowledge rather than anything else.
Even if you exclude all the discoverability functionality, just the pure distribution aspect, at this scale, makes the Spotify system impressive. Why should that system and all the work that went into it, be free?
I don't think there are any legal barriers for someone to go ahead and build their own music distribution system that is more fair than Spotify. It's just a matter of putting in the time, no?
How is this that much different to criticizing the cut that a dominant distributor takes from vendors in e-commerce or video games?
As a consumer, my primary objection to streaming platforms is that you don't own any of the stuff you pay for. That's obviously different to these artists' main objection, but if the solution they propose (whether it's switching to Bandcamp or something else) also addresses that concern I could get on board with it (and will always have sympathy for artists who want a bigger cut vs the middle man).
I do still pay for Spotify despite that objection. I find it provides just enough value to justify the cost. I have found it good for discoverability and, unlike other streaming services, Spotify gives me access to pretty much any music I might like to listen to. (Others with more niche tastes might disagree.)
If they went away tomorrow, that spend would not magically be transferred to a more artist-friendly form or platform. I'd just not pay for new music. There's already more than enough old music I own/free music than I would ever need.
I can't imagine I'm an outlier.
The problem with Spotify, Apple Music's streaming and YouTube music's algorithm is that it wants you to keep listening and it will feed you whatever it guesses you will like. Which means they will feed listeners AI-generated slop if they can get away with it. So I guess it's time for independent musicians who can prove their humanity to just put a damn ad for their music in front of potential listeners and try the direct sales routes. Mind-you, a non-AI generated ad, created by actual human filmmakers with AI-free tools and workflows.
Of course, there may be a second problem, and that's the youth who can enjoy happy music are broke. Middle-agers are too busy caring for kids and for the elderly, and thus naturally depressed and running in coping mechanisms, and that's before coming to our ossified musical tastes. And anybody older than that must use their running-out time wisely and only shop for funerary tunes. Woe if the arts should depend on our patronage.
I will also throw some points Spotify's way for having half decent support for API clients, decent hardware support (that is for consumers, not sure what the experience is like for a developer). I have an NFC card system setup for albums and playlists so I can have a limited physical library. This uses Spotify's libraries because the support is good.
For no fuss music Tidal has been good, but it certainly has fewer artists.
Is blockchain the next evolution for tracking media ownership, access rights, and consumption? I hate "blockchain" being the fix for everything, but seems logical.
putting the energy into LIVE music and getting a few bucks, and a case of beer to split back stage is going to be a bigger pay day than what many ,many thoudands ever get from shitif6, oops,spottyfeh, sorry guitarer here,clumsy without strings attached, anyway the web is chock full of tunes so good it's a job to give some small percentage of that a proper listen, and it seems that most of it is stashed somewhere that it just plays when you hit the button, click, music, click music, oh! look a guitar
Investing the Spotify fee every month into my own music collection is a great investment, and it has meant that I am actually listening to the music and not just playing the same songs off a Spotify playlist every now and then again
Nobody (not enough) pays for music, and streaming made that even more true.
Most of the music I don’t intentionally listen to, I instead hear is often out in public (or outside my control): grocery store, restaurant, hotel lobby, subway station, park, neighbors speaker, person on a bike, etc.
A lot of this music is often either the radio or ad-based streaming platforms.
The only people who pay for music are either die hard fans or people who have been guilted into paying for a streaming subscription. Often times even die hard fans/enthusiasts will purchase an vinyl LP or only use the streaming purchase to offset the pirating they do for high quality formats or rarity reasons.
Most listeners of music are not paying for it; if you are…you’re a sucker.*
* I have a Tidal subscription
This has been coming up every other year. The problem is that everyone trying to build a platform wants $10. I'm not paying for two such services, because the marginal benefit over the first is maybe $2. Perhaps the solution is regulation, I dunno. But keeping marginal costs down needs to be part of the solution. Or it'll be Netflix all over where movie studios started doing the Sony thing, and (some) customers went back to pirating.