Spotify - anyone heard of it?

dude do you really want to be the guy who tells everyone that the company your work for is superawesome and fair to small artists, and then when people point out how it isn't the advantageous system you claim, you just say it's not their fault that's the way it is go back to soviet russia?

to become a big guy, spotify set up an accounting and equity structure that primarily benefits the big guys (and by that we're talking LABELS, not ARTISTS - with the possible exception of a few powerful enough to negotiate with their label and/or spotify directly). you're right - it is what it is, how it's always been. but to then suggest everyone should ignore those aspects and focus on a purely theoretical construct so they can blindly backflip over the privilege of engaging with that system is some "shut up be happy" corporate lackey pr bullshit i don't understand bothering to push in your free time.

in cases like movie theaters, retail stores, tv, there are limitations in space. there's the desire to focus your attention. currently, as spotify is trying to become the be-all-end-all of streaming, they are being super-inclusive. you shouldn't be any more flattered spotify will put your album up than you should be honored that your name comes up on google. and thanks to the nature of the accounting and equity of spotify, the presence of random indie acts still BENEFITS the majors. if spotify succeeds in becoming be-all-end-all of streaming, the major labels (not artists, LABELS) will see an economic windfall completely separate from the royalty system, which is already staggered (and muddled with advances) to help them anyway. this is not a "victory" for independent artists. in this system, they're just fodder.

Doesn't seem likely that you and I are going to change each other's minds, whomever you are.

i'm not trying to change your mind. i'm pointing out how either blinkered or disingenuous your defense of your employer is.

i use spotify. i want you to continue to improve it and keep it running smooth. but i don't want you pushing pr in a critically-minded thread about any more than i'd want a mcdonalds employee telling us how if you ignore x y and z hamburgers are actually good for you and the world at large in a meat thread, despite the fact that i eat meat.

jack manfred says "no more bets"

sure hope they don't pull an uber and threaten to tell everyone how often i've listened to "boom clap" on private session

Ah, well, good to be clear that you're just insulting me instead of having a discussion.

croup insulting you is just part of having a discussion w/ croup <3

glenn mcdonald's

lol I wondered if that was on purpose

Wasn't actually! Pun unintended

Glenn do you honestly need to tell yourself this was all just "personal insults"?

Or that my indifference to "changing your mind" nullifies this as a "discussion"? I gotta wanna sway a middle manager to correct one?

by the nature of the deals made, spotify and the major labels cannot be treated as independent agents

― da croupier, Sunday, November 23, 2014 11:00 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the only thing I really disagree with

The founders are still majority owners, and I'd imagine that spotify will fight for more sustainable deals for the artists as it becomes more powerful.

I'd imagine that while dressed in a little sailor's outfit and licking a giant lollipop btw

in terms of money, there is basically no reason for spotify to fight for artists as it becomes more powerful. can you give me an example of where a corporation has fought for the rights of workers of a 25% shareholder? hard enough to find one that fights for the rights of workers! the only possibility i could fathom is if it became a serious pr issue. and i don't see that happening, especially if more and more people accept spotify as the new normal.

should also note another reason it's not a "victory" for indies that they get to be on spotify - spotify could easily be sued if they didn't. back in the day, movie studios owned movie theaters, and that was broken up by the supreme court in an antitrust case. even with the labels as minority owners, if spotify made any effort to exclude competitors, that could be seen as a potential monopoly, especially considering the audience projection numbers spotify uses to argue that someday everyone will get mad loot.

on a practical level, this is why spotify hasn't blasted to hell "re-recordings" and karaoke versions of hit songs. the avoidance of the former would especially rankle, as while they suck ass, they're clearly artist-approved.

all they can do is promote the most "popular" versions of songs, with the occasional re-recordings still ranking higher. but if they could, it'd be so easy to send us straight to the Geffen/MCA greatest hits comp and past the k-tel one.

if anything, as implied by youtube's negotiation with indies, spotify could hold them to even shittier deals as they get more powerful. usually that's what powerful companies do.

I guess 'a serious pr issue' coupled with better competition is what I'm hoping for

ok then your issue is how on earth "as they become more powerful" and "better competition" co-exist

well I could see spotify growing along with another competitor, and that competitor switching to a 'we are the ethical music streaming service' strategy.

perhaps I am warped by california in seeing that as a winner, though

again please give an example of this utopian situation where pepsi appears next to coke and then says "we're the ethical one" and the other responds by trying to beat it at its own game at the expense of a minority shareholder

honestly vinyl making a mega-comeback seems more likely

a big reason i don't actually think glenn's being a pr shill (though he could try harder to avoid looking like one) is that clearly you don't have to get a check from spotify to find spotify worth crafting hilariously optimistic fantasies over. for the music nerd the current situation is fucking sweeeeeeet and now that we've tasted paradise why would we want to go without it.

xp that would be great. I could pay $10/month for spotify and then go to my local record store and actually pay $15 or less for any new record. yes, please.

and my new mac demarco record wouldn't be horribly decentered bc people would remember how to cut records correctly

said it before but my dream of avalon is that mp3s and cds go the way of the dodo, spotify (or some relatively unsoiled simulacrum) is given 2-3 songs from every artist who finds the promotion worthwhile, with the rest of the songs from an "album" behind a paywall and/or available on vinyl. for those only interested in the hits, they'd still have access to thousands and thousands of songs in a jukebox of the gods. and everyone who gets heavily invested in an artist would actually have cause beyond a patrician's guilt to give them more money for more music.

wouldn't swear it's gonna happen, though

2-3 songs per album, i mean. if we're still making "albums"

spotify has a hard enough time getting people to pay $5-10 a month for industry-wide access, so they've got no desire to install further paywalls if they aren't made to

I'd be cool with that as long as I could stream the whole album after buying a physical copy.

yeah there could easily be a paywall access code for the jukebox when you buy the vinyl, just as they do for mp3s now

I think I'd prefer that they offer the paywall songs for free for up to 3 plays or something as well. I tend to fall in love with the entire albums on spotify before I buy a physical copy.

maybe that could be an option in the monthly fee tier

and maybe there's a monthly fee tier where Billy Corgan reads me my horoscope each month

or maybe it's like ads and you have to pay more to not hear Billy's horoscopes

that's all just negotiable details. i think the important factors are

a) digital media is no longer sold. access is leased.

b) the leasing is tiered to reward the acts who inspire album-length engagement.

this is of course if you have an investment in the "album" as a creative effort of economic value. it could be argued we're past that.

as proven by billboard now pretending if you play one song enough times you've bought an album

If we're not going to convince each other of anything, then this is just a game of clever non-sequiturs, and despite earnestly trying for about 10 minutes, I can't think of anything funnier than you calling me a middle manager. So I think you win.

glenn, first of all, it's rather rich of you to act offended by my tone now when your first words of acknowledgment of what i've been saying were I'm not obliged to respond to every comment in a thread in order to justify responding to one. This was a "discussion" you initially were set on talking around, so don't act like i'm the one not engaging earnestly with you. second, i can engage earnestly with someone without having the desire to "convince" them of something when there are more than two people in the conversation. for whatever reason, you are determined ignore serious issues in order to paint your employer as fair. i am bringing up those issues. this is not "a game of clever non-sequiturs" and the fact that you need to pretend that's what happening is pretty damn sad.

Anyone know why Spotify removed the buy-with-one-click button a year or so back? I used that feature a lot and it must have been a long-term money spinner for them.

FYI I would use the shit out a feature that allowed me to buy + download an entire playlist in one bundle.

finally hearing Beyonce

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/one-band-who-loves-spotify
DO read the comments

word "bandcamp" not found in article

not to go into conspiracy mode, but considering he's copping to only making $900 off his band's music, and the comments noted the lack of presence his group has in the media otherwise, i tried to google how the dude previously made his bread in the industry (his bio mentions only the band). nothing obvious came up - lot of "ben berry"s out there - but his band's web presence is honestly kinda odd for a group allegedly trying to hustle through new channels

https://twitter.com/mokehillband (about five tweets over the last two years)

https://www.facebook.com/mokehillmusic (148 likes, a post ever few months with 1 to 3 likes)

http://mokehillmusic.tumblr.com/ (no posts but the original post taken by wired, which has 28 likes)

https://www.tumblr.com/search/moke+hill (only like 3 tags beyond their own post)

three days after the original tumblr post went up, it got referenced in a kansas city star article: http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/back-to-rockville/article3790231.html

then it gets reprinted in wired ten days later.

again, don't wanna start talking about reverse vampires or anything, but it's certainly ODD this group managed to get a couple hundred thousand streams of their song, and their detailed opinion on spotify blasted to ever larger channels within a month

like, at the very least, it'd be neat to know what exactly his unnamed music industry role was and if he still has anything going on with that front beyond this chill, low-key band and pro-spotify pie-charts