So... Reasons to Abandon Spotify... one of the reasons is that it gives you "unfettered access to the entire history of recorded music for $10/month." That sounds more like a reason why it's just crazy NOT to have Spotify.
Or am I supposed to think there's something unethical about this fantastic freedom to listen that is cheap enough for just about everyone?
I know, the musicians want to get paid more. Ross quotes singer-songwriter Damon Krukowski:
Spotify used the financial model of arbitrage to obtain a cheap if not free product—digital music—and resell it in a new context to realize profit. In other words, Spotify’s profit requires that digital music have no value. Spotify continually talks down the value of music on their platform—they offer it for free; they tell musicians we are lucky to be paid anything for it; they insist that without their service, there is only piracy and zero income.
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Left out of the story, "Swedish music streaming service Spotify has paid over $23 billion in royalties to rights holders, including over $5 billion in 2020, which is up from $3.3 billion in 2017."
As Young and Mitchell just proved, anyone can pull their music from Spotify and sell it elsewhere. Musicians and other content providers don't have to sell to Spotify.
As Rogan and Apple Records (Beatles record label) proved, content providers can negotiate higher payments from Spotify.
And Spotify isn't the only music streaming service.
Musicians and other content providers have lots of options if they don't like what Spotify is paying.
My understanding is that Spoitfy pays artists the least amount for their songs compared to others, which has pissed off the artists. From the consumer side, there are other services that stream at a higher rate, which gives much better sound quality, albeit at a higher monthly price. I pay $15/month for Quobuz but there is also Deezer, Tidal and Apple and I believe each has a higher quality stream. I believe Quobuz gives me as good a selection as Spotify with better quality sound for a few bucks a month more. I also think the artist gets more.
I only have Spotify for Rogan and find it better to watch it on the TV app rather than listen.
$10 seems about right. Amazon charges $8/mnth ($15 for a family plan).
It must have some value or Spotify wouldn't negotiate to use it. Capitalism is about voluntary associations. If you don't want them to use, it don't sell it to them.
I would think that in the music business any exposure is good exposure. Especially if you're an old has been looking for a new audience.
I am going to point out that I am using NCS music right now.
No Copyright Sounds.
You can use the music that is posted on youtube or whatever platform you are on in any creative endeavor and make money from it.
There is some good NCS music out there. The musicians get paid based on views so a link back to the song from your video is good form.
Eventually all music will be sold in the form of an NFT - Non-Fungible Token.
Web 3.0 is going to eliminate things like recording companies. Democratization of music comes.
Spotify used the financial model of arbitrage to obtain a cheap if not free product—digital music—and resell it in a new context to realize profit. In other words, Spotify’s profit requires that digital music have no value.
This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George gets fixed up with Marisa Tome, "You just threw in 'stocky', George." There is nothing about arbitrage that requires that the music have "no value." If it had "no value," then the whole scheme would collapse and investors would head home to lick their wounds.
"they insist that without their service, there is only piracy and zero income"
Yes, that's true, and....? The last few decades of the twentieth century, when musicians (and their parasites, particularly their parasites) could become phenomenally wealthy selling recorded music seem to have been a historical anomaly. Musicians are back to getting payed for playing music. Live and in person. Recordings are something you do for promotion (or for the love of it). I don't know if it's fair, but it's where we are.
Yes, the issue is the paltry royalties the musicians receive for the music they created and performed and which hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people are enjoying for free Remember, most working musicians are not David Bowie or Neal Young, et. al, earning tens or hundreds of millions on the sales of their publishing rights.
As with any job, pay the workers!
I find the streaming services are a great way for me to find new artists. They have allowed me to expand my interests dramatically when compared to the old CD and vinyl days when each purchase of a new, unknown artist's work had a risk/reward calculation attached to it. Streaming allows me to add a new artist to my rotation simply and eliminate them if I don't like their work. My guess is that it's a smaller revenue stream for established artists but a more immediate and potential larger revenue stream for new artists. Whenever I get Downbeat magazine I go through the reviews and sample the album and add to my rotation as I see fit.
"Musicians and other content providers have lots of options if they don't like what Spotify is paying."
Which is exactly the point of encouraging artists to take their music down from Spotify. They need to take control of who can stream their music. They have a right to negotiate for fair compensation. (Except in those cases where naive, unknowing young musicians signed publishing and/or recording deals that funneled most earnings to everyone but the musicians, a reality rampant in the music industry.)
they insist that without their service, there is only piracy and zero income.
There is a lot of truth to this. One need only look at YouTube Music to find many songs and videos that are recordings made by a third person either by phone or from a tv show. While the quality isn't always great, it is better than many radios transmissions. Of course, before the internet, many people simply recorded songs played on the radio on to a cassette tape and then redubbed without the commercials and listed to their favorite song over and over. This lowered the price for obtaining music. To make money, artist have to do live performances in front of a crowd, where each individual ticket typically costs far more than obtaining a digital copy of the music, unless you watch the concert on Youtube, but now I repeat myself.
The real issue here, which, weirdly, is almost never mentioned, is that all streaming services, not just Spotify, pay streaming rates that are set by a congressional board. In the early days of streaming, these companies' lobbyists convinced Congress that streaming should be treated essentially like radio, where one rate (more or less) is paid out in order that they might avoid having to negotiate directly with every artist or label on their platform (depending on whether it's the artist or label that owns the masters). Of course, in reality, nothing of the sort would happen. There would be one or two governing boards that would do the negotiation on behalf of its artist, publisher and label members. But Spotify, Amazon and Google/YouTube can't have that because if the rates aren't kept laughably low by Congress, Spotify, Amazon streaming and Google/YouTube go out of business. (I'm leaving Apple Music out of it because after the last increase they chose not to fight it, unlike the other streaming services).
It's actually a lot more complicated than that (largely by design), so much so that it's no wonder that most musicians can't assess the situation properly other than to say, "this doesn't seem right."
But the long and the short is artists and publisher DON'T want the government involved. We want to negotiate our own rates. Spotify, Amazon streaming and Google/YouTube DO want the government to intervene on their behalf because that's the only thing keeping them from having to negotiate with representatives for artists/publishers and labels, which would likely put them out of business. And, because that's the way the system is set up, artists, publishers and labels fight (via lobbyists) to have the government side with US to impose higher rates. It's a see-saw because the rates are reviewed every few years and are always subject to change, depending on whose lobbyists are more effective. And in a business that's already volatile by nature, it creates even more uncertainity. Since the passage of the Music Modernaization Act a couple years ago things have improved somewhat for artists/publishers/labels re: streaming rates, but that can change quickly and fairly radically if the Copyright board so decides .
But if it were put to a vote, we'd vote to cut the government out completely. Spotify and the other gangs would vote to keep the government involved.
I'm dying to go see live music, and would gladly pay for it, but there aren't much offerings in my podunk Midwestern town, despite it having a decent sized state university. Spotify is pretty much all there is.
‘Spotify’s profit requires that digital music have no value.’
Mr. Krukowski is a dumbass. As I mentioned the other day: Earth, Wind and Fire has been paid $23M by Spotify for just one of their songs. Hardly of no value…
I pay $15/month for Quobuz but there is also Deezer, Tidal and Apple and I believe each has a higher quality stream. I believe Quobuz gives me as good a selection as Spotify with better quality sound for a few bucks a month more. I also think the artist gets more.
Yes, most services pay better and yes, o fthe ones you mentioned, at least Quobuz and Tidal offer better sound quality. Apple does too on some releases, but they leave it to the label/artist so it's not the case on every release, But I think hi-res files are a requirement for Quobuz, and, I believe, Tidal.
I pay no dollars to services but buy CDs. Latest Takahashi and Lehmann Bach/Reger Brandenburg Concertos for piano four hands, even though it's all on youtube.
And I've stuffed actual physical dollars into an envelope and sent it to Tiffany Eckhardt for various albums as they came out, with double extra to cover international postage and currency hassle.
Many vendors also charge $10 per month for consumption of the recorded music commodity. Old timers also compete with hundreds of self-produced releases created on computers in people's houses. Amazon charged $79 per year for Prime Music (on top of the regular $120 annual fee). Still, that amounts to $6.58 per month. Why is Spotify special?
Why should any musician expect to receive millions of dollars for spending a few hours in a studio recording 2-3 minutes of singing over 3-4 minutes of music? Hundreds of one-hit-wonders of the 1950s to 1990s did just that.
As with the fall of the establishment news media, this reveals the sour grapes of an industry losing its hegemony over the means of production and distribution. The anti-establishment "Marxists" of the 1960s were actually capitalists in disguise!?! Who would have guessed the world has wolves clothed as sheep? Who I say? Villains! I'm shocked!
I think before the advent of relatively inexpensive streaming (video/audio, etc.) a massive amount of worldwide bandwidth was dedicated to using torrent clients to pirate music and video (and software and everything else that can be reduced to 1s and 0s). In that regard, I don't think Spotify is wrong that, in the absence of services such as theirs, people would very easily just steal the music in its MP3 or AAC or .FLAC format.
Frankly, the less these musicians make selling digital versions of their songs, maybe they'll get out on the road and tour a bit more. Here's hoping. For me anyway, there's nothing quite like live music. So, Professional Musicians, get out on the road and start selling tickets and tour t-shirts/posters.
Singers/Musicans are UNDERPAID? Give me a fucking break. Joni Mitchell just sold her "song catelog for $100 million. Neil Young and others have done the same thing. Yoko Ono is a BILLIONAIRE. BoB Dylan sold his songs for $300 million.
They're getting all this $$$, because of streaming. Blackrock and others are buying these songs, and then streaming them to make $$. If you're a nobody musican you're not getting much, but nobody musicans have NEVER gotten much.
Copyright per the Constition exists only as an incentive for people to create art and science. Its not supposed to make them rich for 70 years. Copyright is also supposed to be limted in time. Originally it was 20 years. Now its almost infinite, because Disney and others bribe the greedy asshole Congressmen,
Audio recording is pretty recent in history of humans.
AM/FM Radio has always been free.
Live music endures. That’s where the money is.
BTW, I love how people use the "Moral" or "Ethical" when their position is based on nothing more than Greed for more $$
There's also a lot of pipe dreaming going on vis a vis digital streaming services. They don't pay much, but then neither did Top 40 radio stations back in the day. What really keeps musicians from earning are things like iTunes and Amazon Music that will let you download single tracks instead of having to buy an entire album (lp or cd) worth of music.
Record companies made quit a bit of money off that model in the past, which led to them doing things like subsidizing national tours and allowed the musicians to make money off ticket sales. Since that's gone away musicians are now having to do what Frank Zappa did for decades and fund their own tours.
Maybe I shouldn't speak up, but I still get a lot of what I want without subscribing to much of anything. I think Keith Jarrett's first album, "Facing You," has disappeared from YouTube. So I bought the CD at my local used store. Maybe 10 bucks. Did Keith or his business people get sick of people wanting to listen for free to such old stuff, when he is so creative, innovative, etc.? I don't know. Joni Mitchell has been in the news: I see the full album "Blue" is still on YouTube, and there are quite a few of her live performances of individual songs, and lots of great covers of her songs. Except maybe for the Jarrett stuff, I can't really remember the last time I went looking for something specific, either original or a good cover, and failed to find it. I guess I'm not expecting to find all albums by all artists.
Recently I went down the rabbit hole of Ray Stevens (whom I once saw live), leading to his buddies from Atlanta days, Jerry Reed and Joe South. Next thing I know, I'm looking up a very tiny woman named Brenda Lee, who basically worked in Nashville, but was constantly striving with some success (or her business people were striving) to be "pop." When I went looking for songs by these people, I had no trouble finding fun and interesting material.
I've been having fun with DJs from the 60s and 70s--including the high-energy, beat never stops, voice goes very high and very low, very fast, lots of jokes people. I believe some of the videos are called video air checks. Fun. Here's a fairly new one, in what I would call the old style.
I don't Spotify, so I have to ask--
Does it really provide "unfettered access to the entire history of recorded music"? Or does it provide cheap and easy access to the recorded music that Boomers like?
Big difference.
Link apparently didn't make it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWiWrSuc_fs
How much money does Ross Grady deserve for his musical works? And how does one arrive at that number?
The opportunistic quality of this article is suspect. NYT- are you genuinely using the Rogan situation to bitch about musician compensation or is it just another leftie morality fable to encourage the Rogan outcome you want?
As with any job, pay the workers!
Labor theory of value from Cook. No surprise. What if nobody wants what you are trying to sell?
The way to get more money for your music is to not license it to streaming services. Find a different distribution method that is cheaper so that more of the fees go to the creators. Or charge more. But if you hold the rights to the music, you can limit the who and how of availability. Of course, there is the risk that people will just move on to the next song more conveniently available.
Oh, how unethical and unsustainable, this unfettered free choice in the open marketplace! Intolerable cruelty, the Injustice!
Now do radio. I can't find any data on how much $$$ artists get/got from radio airplay. Or how it compares to Spotify revenue. I suppose such data would blow up the artists' anti-Spotify sentiment. I suspect artists have lowballed their remittances. I suspect they long for a reset to the radio model, but it ain't gonna happen.
Musicians throughout history were not paid very much, and often relied on patrons for support. There was but a very brief shift when recorded music became available, and means for the ordinary American to play this music became cheap and available, that musicians achieved higher incomes, which hit their peak via recorded music - without the need for touring - at the height of rock, Seventies/Eighties or so. That height is what every musician sets as the proper baseline, and they grumble about having to actually play shows to make money these days.
"As with any job, pay the workers!"
They're not workers. They're creators. If as a creator you have no control of what you created then you sold it.
I don't see why artists and musicians should be expecting to be paid so much anyway. As long as they're making above minimum wage they're still coming out ahead, right? Better (read more popular) music is worth more, but don't they get paid at least somewhat based on how many times a song is streamed/listened to?
"they insist that without their service, there is only piracy and zero income"
This is the Chinese business model, I'm surprised that Alibaba doesn't stream knockoff imitations of popular music done by poorly paid foreign singers. Why not? snob appeal, we only like cool people.
If these artists want to be paid for their work they should do it the right way, have your dad become President.
The whole copyright system is corruption by cool kids sucking up to congress. How long should you get to keep a copyright, a patent is only 20 years. Why should your grand children get money from something you wrote. At some point, Neil Young has enough money, right? Classic congress move: I'll make your copyright last forever if you donate 10% of what you get to my campaign.
Most of the money in non-streaming music is sucked up by a handful of supergroups, most of whom are past their prime. Spotify may pay relative peanuts, but far more artists have access to those peanuts than they did under the old "equitable" more-money-for-artists system.
"I would think that in the music business any exposure is good exposure. Especially if you're an old has been looking for a new audience."
Not if you're not getting paid for it, (or paid poorly). I have friends who are illustrators and it is common for them to be asked to provide illustrations for no fee, because, they're told, "the exposure" will be a benefit enough for them. This might be marginally true for a complete newcomer just beginning to get jobs, but once one is a professional, trying to make a living wage, working for "exposure"is for chumps, and is offered only by cheapskates and thieves.
If a musician has spent time and effort making music and others are listening to is and enjoying it, he or she should be paid, and paid fairly. What good is "exposure" without compensation? One cannot eat or pay the rent with "exposure."
Last Chance Harvey (2008) has a phased-out musician, a very nice old-person romcom. Dustin Hoffman Emma Thompson. Stupid crisis act but it's not intrusive.
In Harmony (2015) Cecile de France, another musician edge-person, also very nice quasi-romcom, French and subtitles.
The problem isn't making money at it.
You can also support your favorite artists through patreon.com. I wonder how much an impact this site has on their income.
the issue is the paltry royalties the musicians receive for the music they created and performed and which hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people are enjoying for free
How much, per play, does a musician or "label" earn when a customer plays a 78 or an LP or a CD from his physical collection?
The local thrift store is turning over LPs for ten cents each. I'm pretty sure it's not illegal for the owner of the physical media to listen -- and almost as sure it's not illegal to cable the "aux out" port of the turntable to the "record in" port on the PC and make an MP3 file from the signal brought across. So is Spotify competing with the thrift store, and if so, which pays the musician better or more fairly?
"As I mentioned the other day: Earth, Wind and Fire has been paid $23M by Spotify for just one of their songs."
I can find no indication that Spotify has paid that amount to EWF. Drake, Ed Sheeran, and the rest have made tens of millions each (more than 50 mil for Drake), but that's for all their songs over the history of their association with Spotify. EWF aren't shown on any Spotify top earners list I've seen, and no single song has ever made that much from streaming.
"I don't see why artists and musicians should be expecting to be paid so much anyway. As long as they're making above minimum wage they're still coming out ahead, right? Better (read more popular) music is worth more, but don't they get paid at least somewhat based on how many times a song is streamed/listened to?"
Most musicians, even those who make records, do not make the huge fortunes associated with artists such as Neal Young or David Bowie,etc. Many make modest or even meager incomes. But, that aside, if a musician has written and/or recorded a song that is popular, they should be paid for each time that song is played on and any each broadcast and streaming medium where that song is played. Why should they not be compensated if the work they produced, even 20 years ago, is still being played and enjoyed by listeners. The songs and recording are the product of their work, and they should be paid fairly.
Robert Cook said...
If a musician has spent time and effort making music and others are listening to is and enjoying it, he or she should be paid, and paid fairly. What good is "exposure" without compensation? One cannot eat or pay the rent with "exposure."
What is fair?
Who determines that?
I was surprised to find that no classic rock artist is in the top earners on Spotify, but I wonder if cumulatively the oldsters account for the biggest slice of the streaming pie.
"Does it really provide "unfettered access to the entire history of recorded music"? "
Pretty much. For instance, a couple of examples I came up with randomly:
- I just typed in "1927" (no particular reason, just wanted to see what I got). A user generated playlist of "Top of the Pops 1927" popped up. Each of the songs was taken from an album filled with more music from 1927 (or from the artist's career).
- I typed in "Brahms Symphony" and got literally dozens of recordings of his works.
Sure, there are holes, but, mostly, it's all there. It's quite remarkable.
I don't Spotify. It is so popular, I figure there is something wrong with it. And, gosh gee whiz, there is. I will stick with Pandora and Jango and pay zero dollars. My only concern is that Hildegard of Bingham and The Bambi Molesters may pull their music.
Maybe it's my friend group, but there's PLENTY of music piracy going on. I have access to multiple servers with thousands of recordings that are all higher quality than all but a few services provide.
Spotify can claim to have cut down on piracy, but based on what I see there's quite easy access to most recorded music and perhaps easier than a decade ago .... and Spotify themselves are not doing anything to actually combat piracy.
Spotify's stock has been plummeting, it and Meta seem to be proverbial hot potatoes that no one wants.
Historically musicans made their money from live audiences and sheet music. And throughout most of the 20th century, its the Record execs - not the singers - that made most of the $$.
So cry me a river, if you'r a musican not getting Millions for your music that few listen to. I also have zero desire to pay for a streaming service, when I've already paid $$ for the same songs after buying them in cassettes, records, and CD's.
What BiG Music and BIG entertainment want to do is stream everything. That way you'll always have to pay them to listen or watch. Right now, you can buy digital music or movies - but I'll bet that will be phased out or made extremely expensive. The Entertainment industry has gotten people to pay for TV - which used to be free. Yes, you can still get over the air TV for free, but it has almost nothing of value. For example, ESPN has now walled off most the College Bowl games.
"Labor theory of value from Cook. No surprise. What if nobody wants what you are trying to sell?"
Then they won't make any money!
Don't be so willfully obtuse. You're not that stupid.
I think the inflated wealth that western artists of all types have enjoyed post-WW2 has been a net negative for the masses. Artists typically have a poor understanding of how to structure a healthy society. Their $$$ & influence have boosted many very bad ideas. Anything that reduces their power to destroy is a good thing.
Copyright per the Constitution exists only as an incentive for people to create art and science. Its not supposed to make them rich for 70 years. Copyright is also supposed to be limted in time. Originally it was 20 years. Now its almost infinite, because Disney and others bribe the greedy asshole Congressmen,
The Constitution at Article I Section 8 says " that Congress shall have the power to "promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” One could make the argument that this clause requires the "limited times" for patent and copyrights be the same - the clause does not separate out the two different types of intellectual property.
One could also argue that, to the extent different times are contemplated, policy should dictate that patent terms be longer than copyright terms. Invention typically requires considerable time, effort, and money to develop and require a significant incentive to promote. Copyright, on the other hand, covers subject matter that primarily inexpensive to produce (and that digital technology has rendered inexpensive to reproduce/distribute) and that people seem driven to produce regardless of remuneration. If you did away with both patent and copyright protection, far more songs would get written than new drugs developed.
If an indie rocker falls in the forest, but there is no streaming service to deliver the sound to her fans, did she make a living? If streaming services don't exist, artists won't make a dime more. But in that alternate timeline, nobody pays for the music because nobody hears it.
"Labor theory of value from Cook. No surprise. What if nobody wants what you are trying to sell?"
Robert Cook: "Then they won't make any money!
Don't be so willfully obtuse. You're not that stupid."
Yeah, its not as if a lefty govt would ever use its power to drive the non-preferred companies out of business or force citizens to purchase govt mandated products and services....
Of course, you'll never get Cookie to admit the obvious about his marxist pals!
Cookie STILL denies the commies murdered over 100 million people in the 20th century! Just ask him!
So good luck getting him to understand the moronic labor theory of value in the real world.
Blogger Robert Cook said...
"Labor theory of value from Cook. No surprise. What if nobody wants what you are trying to sell?"
Then they won't make any money!
Don't be so willfully obtuse. You're not that stupid.
Still doesn't get it. Things, including music, are worth what someone is willing to pay for them. Work hard at something no one is willing to buy and it is worthless.
On the other hand, my daughter worked in an art gallery where women would write a check for $850,000 for a David Hockney painting that I would not use to patch a fence.
@Cookie
I've got a friend that used to work as a roadie. He told me that there's a saying in the music industry, "there's lots of money in the music industry, for everyone except for the musicians."
Spotify is my go to for music of all sorts. I read reviews of new music on the FT and NYT and Times of London and almost always find the albums already on the site. Remarkable. Sad to see dim wit artists pull their content because they have seen or have been told about a single Rogan episode they find “misinformation.” Spotify pays artists what they have agreed to be paid, Robert Cook.
I am not sure why it is unethical to buy something at a price agreed to voluntarily by all relevant parties. I suppose if I thought long and hard enough I could come up with some special cases, but music streaming seems to be a weird place to start.
It is interesting to get the latest installment of "pay more money, you sinners!" What is and is not affordable typically is whatever the author of the piece considers to be affordable to the author personally, ignoring everyone above and below their means and ignoring everyone with different levels of interest in the thing being considered. What I find affordable now is a lot different than it was a decade ago, and what I would spend money on has changed as well.
For the record, I will throw more money at things I enjoy to help make sure they continue to exist.
Remember when Ricky Ricardo had to go out and perform in clubs? I would love that if I could go to a club and see a first rate musician, while sitting at a table having drinks, not crushed in with the other patrons, the way it was portrayed on I Love Lucy.
If I had a dollar
For every song I've sung
Or every time I had to sing
While people sat there drunk.... - Lodi
It's the musician's life, and as Willy Nelson put it:
"The night life, ain't no good life, but it's my life."
"Then they won't make any money!" - Robert Cook
He's so close...
" Spotify’s profit requires that digital music have no value. Spotify continually talks down the value of music on their platform—they offer it for free; they tell musicians we are lucky to be paid anything for it; they insist that without their service, there is only piracy and zero income."
Your grain "has no value" without a way to store it, keep it out of the stomachs of vermin, and get it to market. The grain elevators and railroads and Great Lakes shipping didn't make your flails and horse drawn wagons illegal. You could still use them, should you choose. Without the streaming services, those ones and zeros sequentially written to memory devices are without value.
What value would the stacks of old vinyl records have to the artist, when they are no longer printed and sold new, but merely changed hands at the record store, with the artist never getting a cut? But the last thing I would suggest to anybody is that they not hold out for the best deal they can get, just don't expect me to join in your protests.
Thanks for the info, Ficta (and others). Like a lot of others I have bought and continue to buy CDs, and while listening to music has always been a preferred pastime for me, I find that with Youtube I can watch performances. Which is just a more satisfying experience, analogous to the difference between recorded and live performance.
Our local PBS station is still doggedly broadcasting classical (and local non-c) music, which I doggedly support on the automatic contribution plan. That sounds like a better use of my $$$ than enriching the already richer than me.
May the millionaires and billionaires sort it out fairly, like they do everything else.
I haven’t made the switch from Apple iTunes to streaming yet, and I’m still purchasing the occasional CD. I’m curious, what happened to Pandora?
For musicians at the end of the long tail, messing with Spotify or any of the other streaming services is probably a bit like Althouse and Google Adsense. If Spotify is going in the AM radio direction with Joe Rogan, it may be getting even less interesting to those musicians.
So, is Joe Rogan the new Rush Limbaugh? His outlook is very different, but it does seem from the outside that he may be filling the void.
I have the Amazon family plan for around 16 bucks a month. Let's us listen to all we want. I do not have Spotify, but I have Pandora on my smart TV with sound bar, and it is as good as any stereo and CD or LP I have ever owned. And as I have said before, Pandors is uncanny in playing music I like and only music I like, and it is free, supported by ad revenue, and ads play every 10 minutes or so. The law of supply and demand rules, and the market, not Spotify, or Apple, or Amazon, has decided how much it is worth.
'"Labor theory of value from Cook. No surprise. What if nobody wants what you are trying to sell?" Robert Cook: "Then they won't make any money! Don't be so willfully obtuse. You're not that stupid.""
Ah, back to the transformation problem. But I believe Cook once said that he had never read Capital. Then again, practically no one actually gets to Vol. 3.
I love that the same evolution of technology that elevated lowly entertainers to godlike status is now dragging them back down where they belong. Sing or shut up.
Meanwhile, democraticals, like failed Democrat Congressional candidate Mark Judson, amongst others, are still calling for continued attacking of Gina Carano and other conservatives and even going so far, in Judson's case, of calling for Carano to literally be imprisoned because of the things she has said!
Of course, the execrable and horrific, bought and paid for by democratical billionaires fake-con grifter David French et al have not a thing to say about those calls for canceling someone.
Au contraire. David French et al openly and passionately support any cancel culture target that is right of center.
Such are David French's et al "principles".
Damon confuses value with price. Music has a tremendous value. The price of music has been free since the days of radio. Customers are paying 10/mo to get the same music on demand they get on the radio without ads.
Damon confuses value with price. Music has a tremendous value. The price of music has been free since the days of radio. Customers are paying 10/mo to get the same music on demand they get on the radio without ads.
Spotify is good tech platform, Twitter bad. Go Duck Go. Just admit it you hate free market capitalism because the Lefty librul tiblards are winning that Uniquely America First game.
Tweeted Ross Grady, "a mainstay of the North Carolina music scene,"
I’m in the Carolinas and the music scene here means on weekends most bars and many dining establishments feature ‘live music’ to sing covers. Quality ranges from mediocre to ruined my dinner. I’d say regardless of what they are being paid most are overpaid. Some hotels even pay buskers to sing at their swimming pool. There doesn’t seem to be a supply shortage of these performers…
Boomers like Spotify but they want Napster.
Prices are too damn low!
"If a musician has spent time and effort making music and others are listening to is and enjoying it, he or she should be paid, and paid fairly."
Cookie, I work hard on these comments. Why aren't you paying me more? See, you just read this one, and you haven't paid me a cent!
I pay about $20/mo for Sirius-XM radio. I'd love to pay $10/mo.
It Would be fair to say that 1 play of a record by WABC listened to by 1 million people would be the equivalent of 1mm Spotify streams.
So how much did Ronnie spector and the Ronnettes make each time WABC played Be my Baby for 10mm listeners?
Nothing. They didn't write the song, only performed it.
Radio stations pay royalties to the creatives who write the songs/music not to the people who perform it.
Is the old arts and crafts question. The creative "art" behind anything is almost always worth more than the "craft" involved in doing it. That's true whether it be music or landscaping or a video rental system
Anyone, even me, can sing "be my baby". Some, like the Ronnettes, better than others.
Very few can create it.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Two other points
I ditto others here who say if an artist doesn't like what Spotify pays, don't sell them your music.
There is a difference between a Joe rogan show and a niel young record.
Young put a lot of work into creating the song, music and record but is selling the same thing over and over again.
How rogan creates 250(#?) unique shows a year. Each 3 hr show probably involves at least another 3 hours directly or indirectly of his time.
Joe rogan has a pretty nice studio that he has designed and built. It also had ongoing costs (taxes, utilities, upkeep etc) those costs are paid by him.
He has staff 5-6 people(#?) bookers, covid test administrators, receptionist, sidekick, bookkeepers and so on. He pays them.
I think comparing what young and Rogan do and get paid is apples and orange and pretty stupid.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Perhaps more funding for artists produces more quality art. Who knows. Fact is, the cost of high quality production is low, the rewards for mass winners are still high, and we do see new quality music even at a low price per listen.
I have Pandora (have for years), mostly for working-day new agey or solo piano stuff that probably isn't going to make the artist's much money anyway, if it weren't for weirdos like me running it for like 8 hours a day.
Have Amazon Prime Music for listening to what I feel like at any given time -- including a bunch of old Neil Young stuff before the current dustup! -- but that's it as far as streaming.
As a consumer and long-time absolute music and audio aficionado, this is almost nirvana these days, although the sound quality can be iffy sometimes. I'm old enough to remember when having a cassette player in your car was like OMG I CAN LISTEN TO MY ALBUMS WHILE DRIVING. I have Pandora, Amazon, CDs, LPS, iTunes, radio. . . .all I need now is decent quality wireless streaming that doesn't eat up my relatively meagre data budget every month and I'd be set.
Howard said...
Spotify is good tech platform, Twitter bad. Go Duck Go. Just admit it you hate free market capitalism because the Lefty librul tiblards are winning that Uniquely America First game.
What do you think about GoFundMe withholding the Truckers money that they raised?
I like Spotify. I also still like I-Tunes (although I've never cottoned up to Apple Music). I go back and forth between them and pay for both. I hope Spotify survives and Neil Young doesn't.
Isn't this just supply and demand...producers negotiating to get the best deal for their product (music)?
If you don't like the deal, just walk away.
Nobody is forcing you to sell for cheap or for free...
I have been reading the work of the worlds greatest writers for free, for decades!! Well, except for library district taxes. I also resell books on Amazon without paying anything to the authors. There should be a law.
'I pay about $20/mo for Sirius-XM radio. I'd love to pay $10/mo.'
Just put the renew date on your calendar.
Call the 800 number a day or two beforehand.
There will be an automated message asking you to re-up at a certain rate.
I'm not sure how they determine that rate, but they offered me what I'm paying now which is about $6/month before taxes, etc.
The reason I got that rate is because I told them I would quit the service if I (as a long-time subscriber) if I didn't get the introductory rate.
I think they'd rather have you at less money than no money at all...
As the Mayor of East StLouis once said, what good is having a library if you spend all the money on books?
Musicians are not known for their understanding of economics.
Garth Brooks was upset that people could buy used CD's, the complaint being that the artist and record label didn't get a cut of that sale, too.
His proposal? Ban the sale of used CD's.
What a very practical and intelligent idea.
'I pay about $20/mo for Sirius-XM radio. I'd love to pay $10/mo.'
What Joe Smith said ^^^. I'm in for about $10/mo. this year after telling them their original re-up price was more than I wanted to pay. I have read (though I have not been willing to work that hard at it myself) that you can get them to go lower if you really try.
I've been with them for 10 years now and it's the same rodeo every year. But it does work.
The younger, undiscovered, fringe musicians have the most to complain about since volume is the only way to get paid with the extremely low prices per song (far less than a penny) — but streaming services allow me as a listener to discover them far easier than in the old days when I had to decide to spend $15 or more on ONE CD.
They need to think harder. It’s not all downside, and as soon as someone can quantify the value to artists of “ease of discovery” for new listeners and whether they want to give that up, then their financial models will be more complete.
I love streaming and have discovered several new artists that way, and can do deeper dives into genres I like such as bossa nova and bluegrass.
I found this link interesting on the economics of the streaming model https://redstate.com/dennis_santiago/2022/02/02/tech-talk-are-spotify-boycott-artists-angry-about-joe-rogan-or-digital-rights-pricing-n516362
"Cookie, I work hard on these comments. Why aren't you paying me more? See, you just read this one, and you haven't paid me a cent!"
Because I'm not enjoying your work!
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