# Soundstripe and other subscription based libraries - Sustainable?



## will_m (Sep 24, 2018)

Lately I've seen a few subscription based libraries such as Soundstripe, they offer unlimited in perpetuity licenses with seemingly no restrictions on usage. From a recent Fb post they are selling this at 100 dollars for the year.

I don't see how this can be worthwhile for the artists.

Taking a look at their site I'd estimate they have around 250 artists, so say they have 10,000 subs in a year that's $1m in revenue. Say they give a standard 50% to the artist that's $500k split between all 250 of them. That's 2k per artist per year.

Apparently an average of 400 tracks are added to the library each month, or 4,800 a year. Split between the artists evenly that's about 20 tracks a year. So that would mean that at 2k for the year each track brings in $100.

I guess this all hinges on how many subscribers they can get to join. As its such a bargain for the users maybe they do have huge number. It values the licenses at an incredibly low rate though. A user could for example pay $100 and download 100 tracks, so a license becomes a dollar.

I'm also not sure if there's anything in place to stop a user simply downloading the entire catalogue and then cancelling the subscription.

Does anybody have any experience of how these sites operate? Are my numbers on this in the right ballpark?


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## Dear Villain (Sep 24, 2018)

I have no experience with sites like this, but it doesn't surprise me to see yet another business model that devalues the artist and essentially reduces their work to nothing. We live in a time with so much content being churned out by so many people that the supply completely outpaces the demand, which of course, necessitates such models to allow the few at the top to continue to make money by "herding" artists. It's always the library, the agent, the studio, etc. that makes money, because they rely on income from a large roster of artists. The individual artist will never get their just due through such organizations.

As content increases exponentially, the value of individual products/tv shows/music, etc. decreases proportionally. I was recently looking at my CD and DVD collection, which occupies a giant wall of shelves in my basement. I thought about how many thousands of dollars went in to acquiring all those physical CDs/DVDs, and how virtually none of them have been viewed in years. If starting a collection today, I could get access to all that media for a $10 Netflix membership, and free streaming from Spotify/Soundcloud/YouTube, etc. It's only lucrative at the top of the distribution food chain today...individual artists and film makers (obviously referring to those independents, not the big players) are having to do more than ever to make less than ever...or just to survive.


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## gsilbers (Sep 24, 2018)

im guessing same as pond5 and envato. if the track is a hit then that one dude gets a ton of money and might be worth it. for the rest... maybe a place to upload those 10yr old track that stopped getting royalties from other shows etc. or just bad demos that never went anywhere. 

but yeah... the only one winning on these type of sites is the site owner. streaming and low pay for music have become standard. thats why i hope that new EU law about copyright wil help artists get more money from social media plays and other streaming options and raise the price for music in general.


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## Desire Inspires (Sep 24, 2018)

Dear Villain said:


> It's only lucrative at the top of the distribution food chain today...



I agree. That is why you need to stop working for other people and take back control of your assets.


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## jneebz (Sep 24, 2018)

Desire Inspires said:


> I agree. That is why you need to stop working for other people and take back control of your assets.


Can you elaborate? Do you mean self-publishing?


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## Jeremy Spencer (Sep 25, 2018)

will_m said:


> Say they give a standard 50% to the artist that's $500k split between all 250 of them. That's 2k per artist per year.



That's if all of the tracks get used equally, which would never happen. If your tracks never get used, you never get any royalties. The only one collecting the cash is the owner of the site.


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## Dear Villain (Sep 25, 2018)

jneebz said:


> Can you elaborate? Do you mean self-publishing?



Self-publishing gives you the power to put whatever you want out there on your own terms, and earn all/the majority of money for yourself, cutting out those opportunistic middle men, libraries, publishers, etc. However, the challenge has always been generating traffic; getting eyeballs (or ears) on your music; building a fan base/community; becoming known to a large enough following to generate the interest that will lead to monetizing opportunities. This is no small feat, so when people start talking about self-publishing, the vast majority of artists get lost in the mire.

Heck, even libraries, where there might be hundreds and thousands of artists pooled together under one site, are often barely generating any traffic/sales, and if the list of libraries that have gone under over the years is any indication, the number of significant, money-making libraries/publishers is going down each day, while the number of bedroom musicians releasing their stuff "independently" continues to grow. 

Just think about the over 4 million tracks on Spotify that have never been listened to once...and they're all free to listen to. As to licensing music for productions, the vast majority of people that will be successful doing this, will be building personal relationships, not relying on their tracks being sold on a library site with hundreds of thousands of tracks. Of course, there are exceptions, but generally, the deeper we get in to the "everyone can be a player on the internet" reality, the more successful artists will return to the relationship building, small community of colleagues mentality to find meaningful work opportunities. 

Dave


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## will_m (Sep 25, 2018)

Dear Villain said:


> I have no experience with sites like this, but it doesn't surprise me to see yet another business model that devalues the artist and essentially reduces their work to nothing.



I think this is my main issue with it, it sends a message to the users that music is cheap and 'all you can eat'. 

There were actually users in the comments section moaning that they had just paid the old price of $135. It's essentially unlimited music licensing for the about the yearly cost of Spotify.

I had a listen to a few of the tracks and I'd say the quality is equal or better than AJ, pond5 etc where licenses are already very cheap.


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