I finally got my discover weekly playlisthttp://i.imgur.com/U8AJ7IV.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/TCXGAgc.png
― Cosmic Slop, Monday, 27 July 2015 19:00 (nine years ago) link
i haven't looked but if neil really took off everything but Decade that's pretty smart. You wanna play "Southern Man" on a loop, knock yerself out, i'll await my check for five bucks every quarter. You wanna find out if The Monsanto Years is good, I WANT CASH.
― da croupier, Monday, 27 July 2015 19:00 (nine years ago) link
think the smartest model, esp for established artists, is release singles initially and then eventually put the album up. what beyonce did basically.
that all sounds to me like a potential smart model for LABELS. as for artists, i think the smartest model is whatever the hell they want to do with their art whenever the hell they want to do it.
― fact checking cuz, Monday, 27 July 2015 19:02 (nine years ago) link
it means i'm much less likely to listen to yr musici
Yeah, and because fewer people will listen if an artist pulls out, and spotify employees and other tech industry mouthpieces will spin it as "saying fuck-you specifically to your own fans" and "not actually understanding it", these major artists like Young, Prince, and Swift are the only ones with the clout to actually pull out. It's too risky for smaller artists. So good for them for getting the ball rolling. Because the absence of a label like Drag City (as noble as that is) isn't going to lead to any real change.
― wk, Monday, 27 July 2015 19:04 (nine years ago) link
If you're gonna take your music off streaming services take it off all of them (including YouTube) or you're a repulsive corporate heel.
― nashwan, Monday, 27 July 2015 19:05 (nine years ago) link
This was interesting. Much re-hashing, but some good analysis as well: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/less-money-mo-music-lots-problems-look-biz-jason-hirschhorn
― schwantz, Monday, 27 July 2015 21:20 (nine years ago) link
There's a very basic error early in that piece, in that Aloe Blacc's vaunted (anti-vaunted) $4000 was from Pandora, not Spotify. The Spotify royalties from that volume of streams would have been somewhere around $1,200,000. At this point "Wake Me Up" has generated 370m streams on Spotify, for over $2.5m in royalties. From just one streaming service. That's a pretty qualitative difference.
But the longer the piece goes on, the more balanced it becomes. Worth reading to the end.
― glenn mcdonald, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 00:45 (nine years ago) link
you're right that the 4k number comes from pandora, but it was also aloe blacc's share of the songwriting royalties (split by three people) for "Wake Me Up." Your $2.5m number is based on the estimated mechanical royalty rate to performers. according to this: http://thetrichordist.com/2014/11/12/the-streaming-price-bible-spotify-youtube-and-what-1-million-plays-means-to-you/ the songwriting royalty rate is closer to 0.000521, but just as you're using .006 for the mechanical, we'll bump it up to .0006 for the songwriting.
370m streams = $222,000 in songwriting royalties222,000/3 = $74,000
still a qualitative difference from the 4k but not nearly as extreme as 4k to 2.5m
― da croupier, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 01:12 (nine years ago) link
xposts p sure ol' neil pulling streams had approx zero impact on gross plays per user (why because #whodafuqisneilyoung?)
― resulting post (rogermexico.), Tuesday, 28 July 2015 01:16 (nine years ago) link
Whoops, "mechanical" royalty is meant to describe the songwriting royalty not the performer. Not that it changes the issue (songwriters still get the smaller rate) but I didn't mean to confuse things further
― da croupier, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 01:24 (nine years ago) link
Spotify's published .006-.0084 range (which I usually simplify to .007 for estimation purposes) is for total royalties, of which 21% goes to the songwriters (publishing) and 79% to the performers (mechanical), by US regulation. So that's $544,000 songwriting royalties and about $2m performer royalties for 370m streams. Blacc sang on "Wake Me Up", as well as co-writing it, so I would assume he gets some share of both parts, but that depends on his deal.
― glenn mcdonald, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 02:26 (nine years ago) link
do you have a link to somewhere re the 21/79 split? i can't seem to find that number anywhere
― da croupier, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 02:38 (nine years ago) link
ha, missed this - 19 Entertainment is suing spotify re: its alleged equity stake in spotify
http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6605841/sonys-spotify-equity-artist-royalties-lawsuit-breakage
part of why i find it so frustrating when the streaming side describes that lump perofmer royalty as going to the "rights holders" and then acting like it's up the label what happens next, is that they're ignoring the large advances (and alleged equity stakes) given to the major labels. while it's true spotify/apple/etc didn't invent the byzantine accounting that leads to major label artists seeing so little of that amount, they're not being transparent about how they've aided the major labels in making money artists can never hope to see a dime of.
― da croupier, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 02:44 (nine years ago) link
gah typos. 19 Entertainment is suing SONY re equity. and spotify is acting like its up to the label what happens next
― da croupier, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 02:45 (nine years ago) link
from the suit by 19 ent
"Each of the major record labels also own an interest in Spotify," states the amended complaint. "On information and belief, those other record labels have engaged in the same self-dealing as Sony with respect to the diversion of payments to them, and the below market streaming royalty rates to artists. Together, and individually, Sony and the other major record labels therefore have significant power to exert control over Spotify in order to not only dictate how revenue will be paid, but wrongfully and in bad faith divert money from royalties that must be shared to other forms of revenue that they can keep for themselves."
i definitely understand why spotify execs have gotten defensive about "middlemen" fucking up the relationship between them and artists - companies like sony extracted favored nation deals and just shrug innocently when its biggest artists complain or even back out - but it's still facetious to act like spotify is looking out FOR the artists when they give those deals
― da croupier, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 02:56 (nine years ago) link
21% comes from http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/#royalties-in-detail
But I said it wrong. Correct is "In the United States, for example, statutes dictate that publishers receive ~21% the amount that master recording owners receive." Not 21% of the whole.
So 5:1, not 4:1, and $.007 would break down into about .0058 for performers and .0012 for writers. 370m streams produces about $2.1m for performers and $450k for writers. Still, that publishing rate is approximately 20x the rate Blacc attributes to Pandora.
― glenn mcdonald, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 02:58 (nine years ago) link
so i've apparently "maxed out" the number of albums i can save to "my music". well it still allows me to save them but it doesn't retain them when i exit the program. *siiigghhhh*
― brimstead, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 20:36 (nine years ago) link
i can make playlists of albums and put them in separate folders, i guess. should have done it that way all along. folders!
― brimstead, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 20:38 (nine years ago) link
Folders are key. And in case it isn't obvious, you can put folders inside folders, too.
― glenn mcdonald, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 01:03 (nine years ago) link
will you ever be able to "play" folders in the roku app? currently it only let's you play individual playlists
― too young for seapunk (Moodles), Wednesday, 29 July 2015 20:34 (nine years ago) link
okay now there's Prince's newest single but nothing else!
― let's not get too excited w/ the ouches (forksclovetofu), Friday, 31 July 2015 14:26 (nine years ago) link
v funky move he warned you he is funky
― oh, i am a lonlely poster. i live in a box of posts. (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, 31 July 2015 17:03 (nine years ago) link
"treat streaming like a radio, and give them what you'd like to have on the radio," which could mean classic tracks as well new ones, does seem like the smartest play to me
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:10 (nine years ago) link
seems like the most awful play to me. no disrespect to my beloved prince, but the thing that sucks most about commercial radio is its unwillingness to play anything except the individual tracks handed to them (and maybe paid for) by labels and promoters. they have the albums, presumably, but it's as if they literally can't see the other 10 or 12 tracks. why on earth would a streaming company, or an artist, want to emulate that?
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:18 (nine years ago) link
because the idea is to promote something you're selling, not to let people rent everything you're selling it for pennies
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:19 (nine years ago) link
that would maybe possibly make sense if people were ever going to buy cds, or mp3s, or whatever, again. but they aren't. (and why wouldn't an artist want radio to play lots of songs from an album instead of just one?)
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:23 (nine years ago) link
that would maybe possibly make sense if people were ever going to buy cds, or mp3s, or whatever, again. but they aren't.
if you were correct that no one buys music, i'd agree with you
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:24 (nine years ago) link
of course people buy music. but they're buying less and less of it and streaming more and more of it. and there's no reason to believe that trend is going to reverse.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:26 (nine years ago) link
― fact checking cuz, Friday, July 31, 2015 1:18 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
this is only part of the story. radio stations also rely on audience research, and audiences notoriously hate unfamiliar material
― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Friday, 31 July 2015 17:26 (nine years ago) link
there's also no reason to deny yourself income just to be ahead of the times. look at the relative difference between the spins a single gets on spotify and a deep cut. it makes sense to put "when doves cry" on streaming because those fractions of pennies actually add up. but if someone wants a deep cut, it makes more sense to give them some impetus to actually purchase the album, rather than dramatically diminish it.
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:26 (nine years ago) link
also prince fans may actually be more likely to check out his new song when it's placed next to "the best of prince" (if that) rather than 30+ full-lengths
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:27 (nine years ago) link
radio stations also rely on audience research, and audiences notoriously hate unfamiliar material
yes, absolutely, of course. but radio stations have the power to make any track they want familiar to their audience, and that's a power that most stations rarely if ever exercise or experiment with.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:29 (nine years ago) link
i do think it's a mistake to ignore streaming entirely. but i think it makes far more sense financially for an artist to treat it as a promotional device - the latest and greatest evolution of radio/jukebox - then as a replacement for sales. which is what it becomes when you put everything you have to sell on it.
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:30 (nine years ago) link
― fact checking cuz, Friday, July 31, 2015 1:29 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
true; similarly, publications have the power to ignore pageviews and shares and make any artist they want the locus point of their coverage. but, uh, well, yeah
― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Friday, 31 July 2015 17:31 (nine years ago) link
it's possible some day it will be impossible to even make your biggest fans buy music but there's no reason for musicians to pretend we've reached that commercial post-apocalypse
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:31 (nine years ago) link
there's also no reason to deny yourself income just to be ahead of the times
i agree! i really do mean no disrespect to prince or any other artist that wants to pull some or all of his material off these services. an artist should figure out what makes the most sense for him and do it. power to the artists who do that.
i don't always love the results, and i'm not sure the model that artists would like to see in the long run is the model that's best for consumers in the long run. that's all.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:34 (nine years ago) link
well yeah obv itd be great for me if i could rent every song ever recorded for 10 bucks a month. but it's solipsistic-to-sociopathic to pretend that's a system that's going to allow artists to thrive.
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:35 (nine years ago) link
i'm just suggesting there may be a balance to be struck somewhere in there between audience research, label payola, pageviews, shares, etc., and thinking about what music is worth playing and what stories are worth covering. of course you have to look at page views and shares. and if that's all you look at, well, then, buzzfeed, yay.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:37 (nine years ago) link
xpost No it's not.
― schwantz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:37 (nine years ago) link
oh of course, I'm not disagreeing with you that ideally that'd be the case
― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Friday, 31 July 2015 17:38 (nine years ago) link
No it's not.
good point
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:39 (nine years ago) link
There have been tons of models showing (many detailed in this thread) that if streaming services can get a decent number of paying customers (at $10/month),l there will be plenty of money to go around. And, it's in perpetuity, not just at the time of sale.
― schwantz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:41 (nine years ago) link
prince likes to be on the charts and is happy to do whatever backflips necessary to get theresee also enclosing his new album in a newspaper or bundling it with concert ticket sales
― let's not get too excited w/ the ouches (forksclovetofu), Friday, 31 July 2015 17:41 (nine years ago) link
rather than debate the plausibility of those models, i'll concede that if and when those numbers are reached, it could create a more viable ecosystem of artists. but i don't think artists should give up the one they have until that happens. which is why i think artists should engage with streaming sites, but in the sense of providing the same songs they'd happily let radio blast out - which could be a few dozen depending on the artist!
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:45 (nine years ago) link
if every artist put three-to-four songs from every album that would be a TON of music, totally worth 10 bucks a month to play with. But would still provide some motivation for consumers to spend MORE on the artists they truly love for more music.
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:47 (nine years ago) link
every artist put on streaming three-to-four songs, i mean
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:48 (nine years ago) link
I would argue that making money off the back catalog rather than having people just play MP3s/CDs they bought long ago makes more financial sense to the artists, right?
― schwantz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:48 (nine years ago) link
If all the albums Spotify became little samplers, I'd stop using it. I like albums.
― schwantz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:49 (nine years ago) link
again, people who wanna hear the hits would still be able to. you would just have two ways of making money off the back catalog - streaming for the hits, sales for the deep cuts, rather than one
― da croupier, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:49 (nine years ago) link
I guess. Pretty customer-unfriendly, though.
― schwantz, Friday, 31 July 2015 17:53 (nine years ago) link