# [email protected] Spotify



## gsilbers (Apr 10, 2015)

http://www.businessinsider.com/spotify- ... ion-2015-4

worth it if its source of income is from sweat of low paid musicians?


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## reddognoyz (Apr 10, 2015)

+1


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## Hannes_F (Apr 11, 2015)

Am I reading this right as: They need 400 million USD of new funds, so they actually need to _spend _that money? And the alleged 8.4 billions is a purely virtual number that could easily be anything else?

To me it looks as if the whole model needs refinement.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 11, 2015)

Valuation is always very different from profit and revenue. No surprise there. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and countless others - all valued at far above their operating revenue.

I don't think the hate on Spotify is fair. They've paid over $2 billion to musicians, and, last I checked, the majority of their *revenue* is going to musicians.


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## Daryl (Apr 11, 2015)

zircon_st @ Sat Apr 11 said:


> Valuation is always very different from profit and revenue. No surprise there. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and countless others - all valued at far above their operating revenue.
> 
> I don't think the hate on Spotify is fair. They've paid over $2 billion to musicians, and, last I checked, the majority of their *revenue* is going to musicians.


Not to composers though.


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## Daniel James (Apr 11, 2015)

I have never understood musicians/composers who complain about Spotify. One is not forced to put their music on there, thats your prerogative. If your label or publisher puts it up there but they are within their rights to do so due to a pre arranged contract with the artist then that is their prerogative and you signed away the right to have a say there. 

Its really that simple, if Spotify are giving out shitty royalties, don't put your music on there. You know what to expect going in, you can't then act surprised and complain when the company operates exactly how you knew it would.

-DJ


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 11, 2015)

Thread title is a terrific contribution to the nuances and complexities in this debate.

Enough chit chat, I'm off to hit stuff with rocks.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 11, 2015)

Daniel is right. If you don't want to put your music on Spotify, you don't have to. But the bit about "composers" not getting paid... how common is it these days to be a writer and not a recording artist or copyright owner? This seems more and more like a relic of the past.


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## TGV (Apr 11, 2015)

Spotify is a vehicle to earn money for its principal investors. Like all such companies, they don't care how they do it. They've raised more money now, so it won't be to long before they will cash. After that, anything can happen: renegotiations, increases in prices, writing off their losses, being bought by Apple, etc.

> They've paid over $2 billion to musicians, and, last I checked, the majority of their *revenue* is going to musicians.

Well, that's not completely certain. Analysis of Spotify's cash flow suggests they don't pay their bills in full. And the amounts don't add up to $2B, so that may be an exaggeration as well.

Here's a nice, slightly incendiary graphic: https://imgur.com/xqbewMM


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 11, 2015)

I don't find that incendiary, really. What matters to me is, all things being equal, does the service make me money? And the answer is: yes, it does. I have a modest (but growing) fan base for my electronic music and I earn more from Spotify than any other online platform. Some of my colleagues are achieving just as much success if not far more, simply doing independent album releases with no label backing etc. 

That isn't to say that you'll magically earn money from Spotify, simply that it is indeed a very viable way of earning money from music if you have the fan base - even when comparing with traditional channels like iTunes, Amazon, etc


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2015)

Well, we've been through this before.

The fact is, these people are ripping off musicians by not paying enough for the music they sell. That needs to change.

Of course Daniel is correct, but so what? Lots of things are legal but wrong. It's not a meaningful argument, any more than the one you hear all the time about how much their overhead is (again so what; they still have to pay for the products they sell just like every other business does).

All irrelevant. People need to get paid for their work, and the current laws aren't working.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 11, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sat Apr 11 said:


> Well, we've been through this before.
> 
> The fact is, these people are ripping off musicians by not paying enough for the music they sell. That needs to change.



Well yes we have indeed been here before, and no, what you claim as a fact is nothing of the sort. I've started two threads now concerning Spotify, both of which point to the maths used to calculate royalties, not the overall consumer price points, being the problem.

Although Spotify return 70% to "artists"' it transpires only 10% goes to the composers / publishers, which then further shared 50/50 between them. Then there is the issue of how the streams are counted and shared - a crude combined figure of all streams that has been demonstrated to skew towards fodder-music, as opposed to a pro-rata share of each individual user's streams which would favour artists at all levels who have longevity. Add those two factors together, you can easily arrive at a figure of a couple of percent to a composer who doesn't own publsihing, not the headline figure of 70% that is frequently cited - circa 20x less than a casual observer might assume. This goes an awful long way to explaining the disparity between figures like $2bn of total claimed royalties and the pathetic scraps that arrive in a PRO statement. It also explains why the record companies are so keen on the model, while the artists are not.

If we are serious about engaging with this whole issue, that's where the battleground lies. In the UK, BASCA have these issues very much in their sights. Maths, maths, maths.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 11, 2015)

I would say that the vast, overwhelming majority of independent artists out there write and record their own music. Likewise the vast majority of them own their own copyrights. So, they're getting the full share of royalties from Spotify from those three perspectives.

There are very few people who are ONLY writers these days - i.e. they aren't producing / recording the music they write, AND they don't own the rights to said recordings. Even among composers it's pretty common that we're producing our own stuff (via samples or live instruments) and acting as our own "label". 

If you're entering into agreements where you're giving up copyrights then it isn't really Spotify's fault that you're not earning royalties as a copyright owner.


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## JohnG (Apr 11, 2015)

Most of the work composers do is owned by publishing companies or other entities that they don't control, so they don't have control over whether or not it goes to Spotify. Music made for networks or many video games is this way.

I find it irritating that they have built over $8 billion in value partly because of their paltry royalty rates.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 11, 2015)

I know a lot of game composers at all levels of the industry who maintain the soundtrack rights to their music, from the 'indie' production level to AAA. This is even for agreements that are otherwise buyout/exclusive. A lot of game developers have no interest in distributing soundtracks and are more than willing to let the composer handle that - possibly for a royalty split on soundtrack sales. 

TV work - sure, granted. 

With that said, I would venture that most composers are not working at a high enough professional level where they are signing away the rights to their music, but are mostly instead working on independent films, games, etc. They're working their way up. And composers likely make up a TINY sliver of the artist base on Spotify.

If you have a large enough fan base, and you own the rights to your own music, you will make money from Spotify by putting your music there.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2015)

> If we are serious about engaging with this whole issue, that's where the battleground lies



Why would any musician want to defend these people?!

What record company, hideous warts and all, was ever worth that much? (Yes, adjusted for inflation, from the era when there were dozens of records every year that still stand up 40 years later.) What retailer, more importantly?

Tower Records would still be in business if they were able to buy the CDs they sold for a fraction of a panny and only needed to pay five programmers with short beards, faux-studious glasses, tattoos, and salmon-colored pants that are too small.


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## JohnG (Apr 11, 2015)

zircon_st @ 11th April 2015 said:


> I know a lot of game composers at all levels of the industry who maintain the soundtrack rights to their music, from the 'indie' production level to AAA.



Interesting. When you say, "a lot," how many of these agreements have you actually seen? That is quite different from what I am hearing.


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## mac4d (Apr 11, 2015)

zircon_st @ Sat Apr 11 said:


> I would say that the vast, overwhelming majority of independent artists out there write and record their own music. Likewise the vast majority of them own their own copyrights. So, they're getting the full share of royalties from Spotify from those three perspectives.
> 
> There are very few people who are ONLY writers these days - i.e. they aren't producing / recording the music they write, AND they don't own the rights to said recordings. Even among composers it's pretty common that we're producing our own stuff (via samples or live instruments) and acting as our own "label".
> 
> If you're entering into agreements where you're giving up copyrights then it isn't really Spotify's fault that you're not earning royalties as a copyright owner.


There are a lot of songwriters who "don't own the rights the said recordings" cause they're cowriters on other artists and producers projects.

There are a lot of songwriters who "aren't producing / recording the music they write" cause they're cowriters on other artists and producers projects.

Some of these songwriters may be artists, musicians or producers too, but on certain projects, they're only writers. And there's way more the "very few" of them.



zircon_st @ Sat Apr 11 said:


> I know a lot of game composers at all levels of the industry who maintain the soundtrack rights to their music, from the 'indie' production level to AAA.


Like who (in AAA category)? Just curious, cause that would be news to me.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 11, 2015)

> Interesting. When you say, "a lot," how many of these agreements have you actually seen? That is quite different from what I am hearing.



Well, take a look at soundtracks that are being sold by composers via their own channels - this would be a strong indication that the composer owns the rights.

Jimmy Hinson / Big Giant Circles - Notably wrote the music for "Threes", the #1 iOS game of 2014
http://music.biggiantcircles.com/

Austin Wintory - Grammy nominee, one of the hottest composers games right now
https://austinwintory.bandcamp.com/

Danny Baranowsky - Super Meat Boy, Crypt of the Necrodancer etc
https://dbsoundworks.bandcamp.com/

C418 - Minecraft composer (enough said)
https://c418.bandcamp.com/

Disasterpeace - Fez, It Follows
http://disasterpeace.com/music

Joshua Morse
https://joshuamorse.bandcamp.com/

Christopher Tin - Grammy winner
https://www.christophertin.com/ 

Grant Kirkhope
https://grantkirkhope.bandcamp.com/

Ben Prunty
https://benprunty.bandcamp.com/

All of the 100+ artists and composers on the record label I co-founded, OverClocked Records
http://overclockedrecords.com/

In fairness, you see this MORE in the indie and mid level than traditional AAA with the very biggest studios. But the lion's share of music for games is coming through the indie and mid level scene, and many of these games are exploding in popularity and making as much or more money than AAA releases. Ben Prunty posted on Twitter last year that his FTL soundtrack, which he sells through his own Bandcamp page, sold over 100,000 copies. Now imagine how much that game sold...



> There are a lot of songwriters who "don't own the rights the said recordings" cause they're cowriters on other artists and producers projects.
> 
> There are a lot of songwriters who "aren't producing / recording the music they write" cause they're cowriters on other artists and producers projects.
> 
> Some of these songwriters may be artists, musicians or producers too, but on certain projects, they're only writers. And there's way more the "very few" of them.



Well, to be clear, if the argument is that Spotify should divvy up the pie differently, with more money going to writers than performers or copyright owners, I don't object. But I maintain that there are way more independent artists out there who are writing, recording and uploading their music via services like CD Baby (which alone publishes ~65,000+ albums a year) than there are composers/writers who aren't involved in production.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 11, 2015)

My argument is that Spotify has to pay a realistic price for the music they sell. It's that simple, yet the whole issue gets clouded by what their revenue is, how much their overhead is, or whatever the frick people quote to justify their paying next to nothing; none of that is relevant.

And I have no doubt you're right about self-publishing. That's a separate issue.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 12, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sun Apr 12 said:


> My argument is that Spotify has to pay a realistic price for the music they sell. It's that simple, yet the whole issue gets clouded by what their revenue is, how much their overhead is, or whatever the frick people quote to justify their paying next to nothing; none of that is relevant.



Restating this over and over never makes it any more true. Its not true in any another walk of life - if a public service is underfunded, does it always follow that more taxes have to be raised? Sometimes they do, but you won't get very far if you never even bother to look at the other factors - management, distribution of funds are not exactly irrelevant.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 12, 2015)

Take a look at the Spotify numbers from 2013.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... are_btn_tw

Revenue: 746.9m euro
% of revenue paid to artists via royalties: 82.5%
Operating loss: 93.1m euro

So, is the contention that they are not paying a big enough % of their revenue to artists? 82.5% isn't enough? They are literally operating at a loss because of how much money they are paying to artists. And that's 82.5% of REVENUE, not profit...


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## proxima (Apr 12, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Sun Apr 12 said:


> And I have no doubt you're right about self-publishing. That's a separate issue.


I don't see self-publishing as all that distinct when the question is how artists (composers and/or performers) get compensated. Streaming services make it easier than ever to cut out the middle man and still get your music heard and widely available. 

I'm not sure about Spotify's ad-supported accounts, but $10-20/mo streaming seems here to stay. Even the new Tidal service has the $10 tier. I wonder how much revenue per stream Spotify makes from the average ad-supported listener versus the average subscriber. Subscribers almost surely listen to more music each month than non-subscribers, but ad revenue is pretty pitiful in most cases, so I really don't know how it works out.

I also see an analogy between small independent artists and podcasts: people choosing to support their favorite artists in other ways. Nobody seems all that angry that podcast pricing is free because it was basically spawned from a public radio model.


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## Greg (Apr 12, 2015)

zircon_st @ Sun Apr 12 said:


> So, is the contention that they are not paying a big enough % of their revenue to artists? 82.5% isn't enough? They are literally operating at a loss because of how much money they are paying to artists. And that's 82.5% of REVENUE, not profit...



Sure those numbers sound fair. But you can argue that the artists should be entitled to some of the $8bn in value that Spotify built with our IP.

I could make a streaming service that charges 10 cents a year for a subscription and pay out 100% of my profit as royalties while skyrocketing the user base and company value into the stratosphere. Fair?


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## JohnG (Apr 12, 2015)

@ Andrew -- I see your lengthy list, but it's hard to tell if they are all self-published. I don't mean to be a dog on a bone about it, just intrigued by this question. 

I'm really just getting started in games and most I've worked on are not made in USA.

I like Austin Wintory's music. He really tries to do something unusual.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2015)

> So, is the contention that they are not paying a big enough % of their revenue to artists? 82.5% isn't enough?



It's incredibly simple.

MY CONTENTION IS THAT THEY ARE NOT PAYING ENOUGH MONEY TO THE ARTISTS. I don't give a flying hoot what percentage of their revenue it is.

If I open a supermarket, do you think farmers will supply me with food to sell for...not pennies on the dollar, *fractions of a penny* on the dollar - just because I show them my pathetic financials?!

Their response will include the words "shove," "sideways," and "I got your 82.5% right here!"

Why is Spotify any different? If they can't afford to pay for the products they sell, they have to charge more or they f-ing GO OUT OF BUSINESS!

Guy, I've read your posts. Got it. Thank you. I'm unimpressed by what I consider to be totally irrelevant arguments. Please stop telling me what I'm saying isn't true, because it's my opinion, and I happen disagree with you.


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## gsilbers (Apr 12, 2015)

not only doesnt pay enough money. 
its now diluting the overall price of music while the company looses enough money to be out of business soon. Leaving another experiment behind , the only thing left will be the perception that music should not be that expensive.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2015)

Sing it.


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## Soundhound (Apr 12, 2015)

Let me caveat this by saying I don't know anything about it, and will probably get this wrong. Move along, nothing to see here 

A good friend who writes and produces with/for big name artists (years ago he got a kid he worked with to help my wife pick out a guitar for me for my birthday, that kid is now Dr Luke) says that the problem (from my friend's pov I'm sure) is that when streaming came in, the record labels panicked and made lousy deals all the way around. The streaming companies are paying out a good amount of money, but too much is just going to the labels and very little (relatively to the way it used to be) to the artists. Apparently those deals are coming up over the next couple of years, and things are going to change for the better for writers.

Just passing it along.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 12, 2015)

> If I open a supermarket, do you think farmers will supply me with food to sell for...not pennies on the dollar, *fractions of a penny* on the dollar - just because I show them my pathetic financials?!



The average paid Spotify user generates more money for musicians than the average non-Spotify music consumer.

But it sounds like to you, Spotify could be making $20 billion, $200 billion, or $2 trillion for musicians every year, but that wouldn't matter if their per-stream rate is too low for your taste. To me, the per-stream rate is irrelevant in isolation. Thinking back to my college Econ and business classes, we learned that pricing a product at $100 doesn't mean you'll make more money than pricing it at $10 or $1. What matters is price x quantity.

In the case of Spotify, there is a tremendous quantity of those low-paying streams which has a net result of generating an enormous amount of revenue. The vast majority of this revenue is paid out to artists. I simply don't see the problem.


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## JohnG (Apr 12, 2015)

gsilbers @ 12th April 2015 said:


> not only doesnt pay enough money.
> its now diluting the overall price of music while the company looses enough money to be out of business soon. Leaving another experiment behind , the only thing left will be the perception that music should not be that expensive.



+1


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 12, 2015)

Andrew, what your business and economics classes taught you is how it works when there are no -opolies. Unfortunately -opolies are the norm rather than the exception, and you get "distortions" in the idealized "free market."

In this case we have a music industry on life support because people are selling their product for an unrealistically low price. You've heard the stories about Lady Gaga getting $5 for 50 trillion plays of her songs. You're right, the per-stream rate is too low for my taste, because my taste takes into account how much everything else costs; the economy of scale isn't adding up to a living.

I simply don't understand how anyone can say happy days are here again and there's no problem.

If you think I'm just being arbitrary, go to Wikipedia and put in, say, "1974 in music." Then put in "2014 in music." Do you think the difference is unrelated to this crap?

+++

This is a larger issue than music and Spotify, of course. No economy can survive with ten people owning everything that makes money and everyone else being forced to work for lower and lower amounts of money.


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## rgames (Apr 12, 2015)

gsilbers @ Sun Apr 12 said:


> its now diluting the overall price of music while the company looses enough money to be out of business soon. Leaving another experiment behind , the only thing left will be the perception that music should not be that expensive.


There's a precedent for this business model in the music world: iTunes.

Spotify's focus is on building a user base. They couldn't care less if that process generates any revenue right now: the actual streaming service will be a loss-leader for other monetization efforts down the road. Once that user base is well-established it will be used to market other products.

And those other products likely will be treated as separate business units so that Spotify can continue to claim losses on its music streaming business. That's exactly what Apple did with iTunes: Steve Jobs repeatedly said that iTunes doesn't make money but he didn't care becaue it helped sell Apple gadgets at ridiculous margins. Unfortunately musicians were never smart enough to pick up on that (I tried my darndest) and unwittingly drove Apple revenues into the stratosphere while reaping none of the benefits.

What needs to happen in the music business is musicians need to stop allowing their products to be loss-leaders for other products. Companies like Spotify (and Apple) need to take an ethics lesson and admit that musicians should have a right to receive compensation from ALL activities associated with the use of their music, not just the ones identified by the accountants as part of some bogus business unit that constantly posts losses. Of course, in the short term, that means no significant revenues from Spotify. But once Spotify moves to monetize their user base, musicians need to be sure to demand a share of those revenues. Probably too late in the case of Apple, but maybe that company will grow an ethical heart at some point and do what's right. Yeah right...

And yes - "Keep your music away from Spotify" is an option. But not really. Just like keeping your music away from iTunes is not an option. We have anti-trust laws in the United States that ought to be employed in these situations. But, for reasons I have never understood, they never have been.

Microsoft gets sued for anti-trust violations becuase it effectively monopolized the browser market (which, let's be honest, had no real impact on anything) but Apple monopolizes the downloadable music market and screws over countless musicians and nobody seems to care. And now Spotify is moving towards doing the same for streaming.

Alas.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 13, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Mon Apr 13 said:


> Guy, I've read your posts. Got it. Thank you. I'm unimpressed by what I consider to be totally irrelevant arguments. Please stop telling me what I'm saying isn't true, because it's my opinion, and I happen disagree with you.



Exactly - it's your opinion. I'm not saying it isn't true, I'm calling you on your claim for it to be a fact:



Nick Batzdorf @ Sat Apr 11 said:


> *The fact is*, these people are ripping off musicians by not paying enough for the music they sell.



It's not a fact, or anything close to one as I don't see you've offered any evidence to support it - it seems to just be an ideological principle I guess. It's your opinion and of course you're as much entitled to it as I am to point out that songwriters are getting perhaps 5-10% of the amount that people think they're getting. For reasons that I can't comprehend, the notion that your income could be boosted by 1000% is of an irrelevance to you, but at least BASCA in the UK are taking up the cause for those of us who consider that the issues are rather more complex that this spectacularly unhelpful thread title suggests.

So Nick aside, for those who are interested, here's that BASCA link that I posted in another thread - http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/w ... g-payouts/ . BASCA do have some political clout here in the UK. I hope PROs and other industry groups get behind changing this bizarre imbalance.


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## impressions (Apr 13, 2015)

i'm with nick.
all those "money makers" for musicians are hoaxes. musicians which already have a good fan base are the ones getting the bigger paycheck. but most of spotify's users are the ones unknown to public. they could be putting amazing music and barely get 0.000001 of a penny. as nick put out so well. 
so these companies are not exactly helping the majority of musicians out there. whatever numbers they are showing. 
on the contrary, they are instilling a false belief that their music is worth something. or worse, worth that low. so these the way of the world for the unbelievers, and that's how spotify succeed. because too many musicians don't believe in selling their music. by selling i mean fair trade. and not what most get.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 13, 2015)

Mark the day: I agree with Richard.

And impressions (Ariel) is an extremely smart man, of course.  From a purely business point of view, an act's product (in the record industry) has always been their fan base.

I may have ranted about this once or twice before re: what I said about looking up "1974 in music" on Wikipedia. The missing ingredient is *artist development.* Historically, the hits finance the flops - in music, publishing, and many other fields.

What does raising VC money have to do with that? At least YouTube helps people with 10K views develop shows, offering them soundstages and equipment. Spotify and the next website with every album ever recorded may well bottom-feed a lot of money in the short term, but they're fishing with dynamite (killing the reef).

That's why I agree with gsilbers' premise for this thread.


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## SergeD (Apr 13, 2015)

rgames @ Mon Apr 13 said:


> That's exactly what Apple did with iTunes: Steve Jobs repeatedly said that iTunes doesn't make money but he didn't care because it helped sell Apple gadgets at ridiculous margins.



Your reply clearly summarizes the current situation. Sadly, the musicians are fertilizer to make grow more money in the trees. They also made the fortune of internet service providers some years ago.

All in all Spotify is a step in the right direction. Let's hope that the free market will make emerge Trade Fair within few years.


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## pixel (Apr 13, 2015)

Hmm reading this topic I have a feeling that it's not problem with paying enough $ for artist (because popular artist's get a lot of $ from Spotify). It looks like the problem is Spotify doesn't support unknown artists to get enough play rate (that means more $)

BUT

Spootify is not a PR or marketing company. Let's face it. It depends ON YOU what you will do to promote your music to make your fanbase huge. We can't blame Spotify for low play rate. 
If you want to get solid fanpage and you don't know how, rent a promotion company to do it. Does anyone here belives that big names spend time to make pr/marketing research etc? Nope. They have people to make "dirty job" for them. Music business is still business. There is many ways to collect huge fanbase.

Other thing: how I have to know about X artist music? Spotify have enormous database of music and artists. They cannot promote them all and how you imagine they could do it? By spamming your e-mail with 10k emails about new artists every day? Or... ? Any logical ideas? 
We can sit here and blame whole world for bloody unjustice or we can spend that time promoting our staff. 
Nobody said that it gonna be easy


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 13, 2015)

No, the problem IS with them not paying enough $ for artist and popular artists don't get a lot of $ from Spotify.

http://time.com/3554468/why-taylor-swift-spotify/


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## rayinstirling (Apr 14, 2015)

In the 1970's performance sold records. Now, recorded music sells performance and that is how it should be. The hayday has passed, get over it. Music exists to serve and those able to make a living from it are a lucky few. They always have been the exception not the norm. So many arguments here are through a living in a bubble perspective.


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## Daryl (Apr 14, 2015)

Ray, my problem with Spotify is not just with the low payouts, or that "well known" artists get paid more per play, it's that composers are on such a low percentage. There is real inequality between composers and "artists" and this is not fair.

D


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## rayinstirling (Apr 14, 2015)

Believe me Daryl, I understand but, what we think in our bubble ain't going to make twopence worth of difference. People (laypeople if you prefer) don't care. Recorded music is a background to life take it or leave it. It is a poor substitute for seeing and hearing live performance. If the monetary value of recorded music dissolves into pennies there will still be music out there. Because making music is based on the love of making music and that doesn't need an industry.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 14, 2015)

Daryl @ Tue Apr 14 said:


> Ray, my problem with Spotify is not just with the low payouts, or that "well known" artists get paid more per play, it's that composers are on such a low percentage. There is real inequality between composers and "artists" and this is not fair.



Yes, exactly. And of course the public don't care how the money is divided - why on Earth should they? Its why BASCA are targeting exactly that issue politically. I can understand artists wanting to leave Spotify because the system is engineered to benefit the record companies not the actual composers.

I've little tine for those who say there's no good music any more and no-one cares about good music any more. That's just called "getting old", and it has always been so - yes in 1974 when the Bay City Rollers were ushering in the end of the musical world. There's a mountain of good music and artists out there today. Getting the mechanism right to support them financially is the issue.

Although I don't subscribe to Spotify or any other streaming service, there are two specific factors about it which I find both attractive and very hopeful for the future of music in general. 1 - it's a cinch for someone to try out a new artist if they hear something or get a recommendation and 2 - if you love an album and play it for years, the artists get royalties for years directly from you. Vinyl / CD has always been ambivlent to whether or not a record is any good - you pay upfront the same regardless if it is played once or a million times thereafter, this model (in theory) rewards talent appropriately. The two things that need to change to fulfil those things are 1 - an individual's subs being shared between the artists they have personally played (not a global sum and divide) and 2 - the revenue split 50/50 between mechanicals and publishing as BASCA lobby for.

But as this thread proves, its much easier to ignore all that, throw up your hands and say we're all going to hell in a handcart because things are different to how they were in 1974.


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## rayinstirling (Apr 14, 2015)

You're right Guy,
A performer if good enough or (in the case of the Rollers) promoted well enough will survive and the rest of the "industry" can go to hell on a handcart.
Just as an aside.....I've performed (Vocal/Guitar) Shang-A-Lang with Alan Longmuir 
Filled the dance floor EVERY time


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## Daryl (Apr 14, 2015)

rayinstirling @ Tue Apr 14 said:


> Because making music is based on the love of making music and that doesn't need an industry.


That works for amateurs, but not for professionals, particularly when more than a handful of musicians are involved. Try telling the LSO that they should just play for the love of music...!

D


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## rayinstirling (Apr 14, 2015)

Daryl @ Tue Apr 14 said:


> rayinstirling @ Tue Apr 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Because making music is based on the love of making music and that doesn't need an industry.
> ...


Who gives a toss outside the music bubble?
What is your definition of the word amateur?
I know and have known so many fantastic musicians never to have been full time professional performers. Are they amateurs just because they are fortunate to be good at other things that pay well?
Music will survive in some form as long as there are listeners.


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## Daryl (Apr 14, 2015)

rayinstirling @ Tue Apr 14 said:


> Daryl @ Tue Apr 14 said:
> 
> 
> > rayinstirling @ Tue Apr 14 said:
> ...


My definition of a professional musician is someone who earns their living writing or performing music, so yes, those people you talk about are amateurs. It has nothing to do with how good or bad they are. However, without getting paid there would be no LSO, and for me that would leave the world a poorer place.

D


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## rayinstirling (Apr 14, 2015)

Getting back on topic, I subscribe to Spotify but I mainly use it as a reference library rather than as a source of music to sit back and admire. If I wish to be entertained then everytime I'm going to go for performances on the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert site or YouTube with stuff like https://youtu.be/lVXziMFEqX0

The audio is good enough to accompany the visual performance. Not as any match for attending a real live concert but, much better than just listening IMHO.


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## rayinstirling (Apr 14, 2015)

Daryl @ Tue Apr 14 said:


> My definition of a professional musician is someone who earns their living writing or performing music, so yes, those people you talk about are amateurs. It has nothing to do with how good or bad they are. However, without getting paid there would be no LSO, and for me that would leave the world a poorer place.
> 
> D


I can't disagree but, this forum won't and can't solve this conundrum.
Get on the forum where all the mega-rich entrepreneurs hang out and advise them they should do the same thing Rockefeller and Carnegie did to absolve their souls of the indiscretions towards their workers and anyone else getting in their way. Supporting orchestras everywhere.


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## Hannes_F (Apr 14, 2015)

rayinstirling @ Tue Apr 14 said:


> Because making music is based on the love of making music and that doesn't need an industry.



Slight groaning from here too. Let us live, please, it is hard enough.  I know I need the industry in order to survive and keep my playing level.


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## gsilbers (Apr 14, 2015)

SergeD @ Mon Apr 13 said:


> rgames @ Mon Apr 13 said:
> 
> 
> > That's exactly what Apple did with iTunes: Steve Jobs repeatedly said that iTunes doesn't make money but he didn't care because it helped sell Apple gadgets at ridiculous margins.
> ...




agree with the first part. 


its such a huge shift in technology that many of use don't realize that the new big boys in town (tech companies) are reaping of profits from the work of artists on the basis of helping them out with distribution. 
how long it took the whole royalty system in the broadcast side to take place? and now all that goes to hell in streaming?! 
at the same time, those tech companies are getting the $700 for the smartphone, laptops, Internet provider, OS, etc. 
so people don't care to pay for that but for music etc, they don't?! how fuked up that these companies made it so that people just now think a song is $1 and that's too much compared to streaming?! of course seeing those videos of rap and pop artsits showering with gold and money which gives the consumer the impression that we already have enough money.

on the second part, I don't know.. 
spotify has already lost so much money. the valuation is risky and like other streaming companies it seems to stay about the same. so it might go south and still give the impression that music is not worth it at all.


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## impressions (Apr 14, 2015)

that system is made up to make itself money, not for composers. that's the bottom line. you can all check it. there are millions of users which make pennies which sum up to that company in its worth today.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 14, 2015)

> Recorded music is a background to life take it or leave it. It is a poor substitute for seeing and hearing live performance.




I disagree as strongly as it's possible to disagree. More strongly than that, actually!

Record production is a highly evolved art form that many incredibly talented people have devoted their life's work to! It's a totally different thing from live performance, in many important ways.

You listen to recordings over and over, while live performances go by once. There's a whole creative suspension of disbelief in recordings that doesn't exist in live performance. Production details as simple as having the snare drum in a different room from the bass drum don't exist in live performance, and there are thousands of things like that. I could go on and on.

We all grew up listening to albums, and lots of kids still do.

(But live performances are great too, of course, just a different experience.)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 14, 2015)

> If the monetary value of recorded music dissolves into pennies there will still be music out there. Because making music is based on the love of making music and that doesn't need an industry.



How cynical can you get?

Sure there will always be music, but you're completely missing the way human progress works, Ray. Everyone stands on everyone else's shoulders.

You need lots of people working on music for there to be great music. Same with books, movies, theater...and not just the arts. Most scientific experiments don't work, but you need them for the successes.

Music absolutely does need an industry, and I'm not going to write it off yet!


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 14, 2015)

Also, lots of things are based on the love of doing them, beyond the arts!

On a tangent, I've never understood why so many people think only the arts are creative. We have no lock on that.


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## rayinstirling (Apr 15, 2015)

Nick, nothing I’ve said in these replies gives me any pleasure what so ever and I agree, art needs craft at every level. I worked as a craftsman in nonferrous metals for 25 years and I believe I produced more than one work of art in that time. I know how little skill there is around these days through lack of instruction for young people never mind the fact, many young folks seem to want no more physical activity than pushing a button. We see it here in music production where every new library or plugin supposedly offers an easier route to producing an audio masterpiece mostly ignoring the fact that our ears play as big a role in achieving such results. Please tell me your vision moving forward because everything I’ve said on this board isn’t my vision (or wish) but that of those around me not directly involved in music production.


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## TGV (Apr 15, 2015)

Today I read what Pandora paid Pharell for Happy over 2014: $2700 for 43M streams.


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## pixel (Apr 15, 2015)

TGV @ Wed Apr 15 said:


> Today I read what Pandora paid Pharell for Happy over 2014: $2700 for 43M streams.



and Ronson gettin 65k/week from Spotify  
http://www.nme.com/news/mark-ronson/82843


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 15, 2015)

pixel @ Wed Apr 15 said:


> TGV @ Wed Apr 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Today I read what Pandora paid Pharell for Happy over 2014: $2700 for 43M streams.
> ...



(shared among 3 co-writers, a publisher and the label. So if he doesn't own publishing or master rights and on equal shares with the others, by my maths that's £1.1k per week... not the NME's greatest headline, that).


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## Kejero (Apr 15, 2015)

pixel @ Wed Apr 15 said:


> TGV @ Wed Apr 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Today I read what Pandora paid Pharell for Happy over 2014: $2700 for 43M streams.
> ...



Isn't the 65k just the weekly total (100%) revenue though?

Edit: What Guy said


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## gsilbers (Apr 15, 2015)

pixel @ Wed Apr 15 said:


> TGV @ Wed Apr 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Today I read what Pandora paid Pharell for Happy over 2014: $2700 for 43M streams.
> ...



yes, nice try/.... 
per the source of the article:


Again, using Spotify’s per-play average, that means the song is now earning around $100k each week globally on the service (15m x $0.007 = £105k); a figure that will be shared between Ronson, his label Columbia plus his publisher Imagem and his co-writers, Jeff Bhasker, Bruno Mars and Philip Lawrence of The Smeezingtons.

the labels have accountants, marketing team, distribution team, production team, managers, coordinators, photographers, designers....
kickbacks to the radio promoters.. AROUND THE WORLD. 
rent all of those people have to pay on the business side and also mortgages, kids, cars, food, living expenses. 
And this is only one success story. 
that song has been heavily marketed.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 15, 2015)

> Please tell me your vision moving forward because everything I’ve said on this board isn’t my vision (or wish) but that of those around me not directly involved in music production.



I wish I had a clear vision, Ray, but I do know that part of it has to be that money is collected and paid out for music that gets downloaded or streamed.

Much as I dislike the idea, you have to wonder whether a tax on internet access to pay for music - and everything else - isn't the only practical solution.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 15, 2015)

The Mark Ronson "story" is the perfect example of the problem, isn't it? A fantastic looking headline figure, but digging deeper it all evaporates.

To be fair, if you've only 25% share in a writing royalty, you're obviously only gonna get 25% of any pie. Had Ronson written it solo, he'd be getting about £5k per week. That may sound decent over a year, but we are talking about one of the biggest hits in the last couple of years - in that context it's pretty poor. But let's now adjust for the imbalance between publishing and mechanicals as lobbied by BASCA - that over triples the figure to around £18k. From one streaming company (and assuming no publishing rights), that ain't so shabby - nearly a million pounds over a year for a sole songwriter of a big hit from one company. IF the royalties were split evenly.


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## Andrew Aversa (Apr 15, 2015)

Again I'll just put forth my own experience as a success story... I'm making more from Spotify than any other service or store right now. It overtook iTunes in 2013 for me. And other independent artists I'm connected with are doing as good or better. None of us are affiliated with labels and we don't spend any money on marketing. We have no PR... none of us are getting radio airplay. We HAVE cultivated a fan base over the years but that fan base is a tiny fraction of what a major artist has.

Without naming names... I'm connected with an artist who has a fanbase of about 70k subscribers/followers on social media/YouTube. They are making 6 figures a year from Spotify. Again, no label backing. He/she makes music from their home studio and releases it online, that's it. 

So take that for what it's worth.

Edit: Also, to preempt the question of "why don't we hear more stories like that?" I would wager it's because (a) most people are not keen on sharing their income if they're doing well, and (b) most artists I know in this category don't visit forums like VI, KVR, Gearslutz. They are on social media every day, they connect with friends/acquaintances that way. They stream on Twitch.tv, post videos on YouTube, use Patreon, etc.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 15, 2015)

Andrew that is fantastic to hear - inspiring stuff. With the model as it is, there are great opportunities for self-published no-record-company artists, most of the problems arise with more conventional artists with publishing / record deals.


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## bwmusic (Apr 15, 2015)

zircon_st @ Wed Apr 15 said:


> Without naming names... I'm connected with an artist who has a fanbase of about 70k subscribers/followers on social media/YouTube. They are making 6 figures a year from Spotify. Again, no label backing. He/she makes music from their home studio and releases it online, that's it.



I probably know who you're talking about. :mrgreen: He/she sure has got a war chest of sample libraries... :shock: 

But anyways, good post.

Unfortunately anything negative, whether it be bad reviews or just a few people doing bad things, always seem to overshadow and tarnish the image of the majority. 

Something to do with human psychology but I forget the word that describes this phenomenon.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 16, 2015)

bwmusic @ Wed Apr 15 said:


> Unfortunately anything negative, whether it be bad reviews or just a few people doing bad things, always seem to overshadow and tarnish the image of the majority.
> 
> Something to do with human psychology but I forget the word that describes this phenomenon.



I do find it interesting and significant that no-one from the [email protected] Spotify camp has responded to Andrew's excellent post. When all the bluster is taken away, the objections do seem to be ideological, not practical. And as you say, often the negative always rises to the top in internet debates.


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## TGV (Apr 16, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Apr 16 said:


> I do find it interesting and significant that no-one from the [email protected] Spotify camp has responded to Andrew's excellent post. When all the bluster is taken away, the objections do seem to be ideological, not practical. And as you say, often the negative always rises to the top in internet debates.


I thought the problems in that post were evident.


> Without naming names... I'm connected with an artist who has a fanbase of about 70k subscribers/followers on social media/YouTube. They are making 6 figures a year from Spotify. Again, no label backing. He/she makes music from their home studio and releases it online, that's it.


Six figures, that is at least $100k. Spotify has paid out $500M in 2013. Divide them, and you'll see that no more than 5000 artists could have made that amount out of Spotify. There are 30 million songs on Spotify, so that means at least 100,000 artists (that's assuming 300 songs per artists, which seems exceedingly high to me, so the real number of artists is probably higher). So that would leave 95% of Spotify's artists without a penny.

Now, in reality, every distribution follows Zipf's law approximately. So for every artists that earns $100k, there are thousands that earn $100, and in reality it will not be not 95% without a penny, but something like 99% that earn less than $1000 per year.

That's why Andrew's post is so problematic: it's just one example. But it's like saying: everyone go tour! It worked so well for these four guys from Liverpool! There is no essential difference between being a big name on Spotify and being a big name in sales: it's only for a lucky few. Spotify, however, pays considerably worse.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 16, 2015)

TGV @ Thu Apr 16 said:


> That's why Andrew's post is so problematic: it's just one example. But it's like saying: everyone go tour! It worked so well for these four guys from Liverpool! There is no essential difference between being a big name on Spotify and being a big name in sales: it's only for a lucky few. Spotify, however, pays considerably worse.



Thanks for responding, but there seems to be an obvious problem with your logic. Andrew isn't claiming to have 6 figures, though he does know of one who, at 70,000 followers, still isn't the Beatles. He is nevertheless clearly getting significant revenues. And yet he is one of the little guys (relatively speaking)....so at least some little guys are doing very nicely. Unless you're calling him a liar (not saying you are) none of the maths in the world can take that away. Just one example of course, but no less valid for it.

Maybe that six figure sum was just in 2014, when Spotify paid out over $1bn - dunno ( http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/ ).

The touring analogy is perfect, btw. Some smaller bands still make money touring, who have a solid core audience and market. Others lose. The big guys get loads of course. On the one hand there's no magic road to fame and fortune by touring, on the other it isn't inherently evil because not everyone makes a mint on it.


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## Daryl (Apr 16, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Thu Apr 16 said:


> bwmusic @ Wed Apr 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Unfortunately anything negative, whether it be bad reviews or just a few people doing bad things, always seem to overshadow and tarnish the image of the majority.
> ...


Because he still hasn't answered the question "what about composers?"

D


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 16, 2015)

Daryl @ Thu Apr 16 said:


> Guy Rowland @ Thu Apr 16 said:
> 
> 
> > bwmusic @ Wed Apr 15 said:
> ...



I don't see Andrew not responding to any question, he gives his answers on p1.

FWIW, your question tacitly acknowledges that Spotify works fine for artists who own mechanical rights, but composers / songwriters get a raw deal and that's something of course I agree with.


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## gsilbers (Apr 16, 2015)

zircon_st @ Wed Apr 15 said:


> Again I'll just put forth my own experience as a success story... I'm making more from Spotify than any other service or store right now. It overtook iTunes in 2013 for me. And other independent artists I'm connected with are doing as good or better. None of us are affiliated with labels and we don't spend any money on marketing. We have no PR... none of us are getting radio airplay. We HAVE cultivated a fan base over the years but that fan base is a tiny fraction of what a major artist has.
> 
> Without naming names... I'm connected with an artist who has a fanbase of about 70k subscribers/followers on social media/YouTube. They are making 6 figures a year from Spotify. Again, no label backing. He/she makes music from their home studio and releases it online, that's it.
> 
> ...



so 100,000 divided by 4? or is it 900,000 divided by two?
good to hear a maybe success story. hard to say. but good to know. 
the issue for me is that they should be paying more. but tech companies in general has devalued the price of art in general. cheap product get them to sell other stuff like ads, hardware, subscriptions etc.


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