http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/10/spotify-subscriber-only-content/
― schwantz, Tuesday, 11 August 2015 00:29 (eight years ago) link
good
― Autumn Almanac, Tuesday, 11 August 2015 00:54 (eight years ago) link
That's a sensible idea. Spotify's got to have some kind of premium content other than "we'll stop annoying you".
I guess this was influenced by Apple Music showing its hand and making itself subscriber-only. Sounds like Apple's free trial has done pretty well.
Since more music is likely to come under exclusive deals (e.g. Prince putting his discography only on Tinder Tidal), I guess we can expect more music to be removed from Youtube? It's the elephant in the room when it comes to full albums, etc, being uploaded.
I hope the situation gets better for the musicians, and we can look back on this as a "wild west" period for streaming. As rushomancy said, streaming is pretty much legalized piracy at the moment (with labels pirating their own music almost for free!).
― flyingtrain (sbahnhof), Tuesday, 11 August 2015 02:25 (eight years ago) link
Labels get the advertising cash from people uploading full albums to YouTube. The issue is whether this free, ad-"supported" tier should exist at all. Labels have given YT a free pass for a long time but that may be coming to an end this fall.
― transparent play for gifs (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 11 August 2015 03:29 (eight years ago) link
Related (old thread): the Spotify war between Kendrick Lamar and Michael Buble.
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly (2015)
The original figures on earnings were mistaken. I don't know whether To Pimp a Butterfly actually broke the record in the end. Buble had set some kind of record with his Christmas album, which I know we all bought.
― flyingtrain (sbahnhof), Wednesday, 19 August 2015 02:33 (eight years ago) link
this is kinda of a cool idea, leaving indie artists on repeat on your computer w/the sound turned down to help generate royalties
https://medium.com/@sharkyl/silent-september-faq-1227c5ca90ee
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:02 (eight years ago) link
heh, i think the portion of the electricity bill that covering the time that the laptop was left open, playing music silently, would be at least an order of magnitude higher than what the indie artist would receive in terms of the extra streaming royalties during the same period of time.
― 1994 ball boy (Karl Malone), Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:07 (eight years ago) link
what a weird world
― tylerw, Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:09 (eight years ago) link
i'm doing it at work but maybe I JUST SUPPORT INDIE ARTISTS MORE THAN CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE UTAH JAZZ :)
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:16 (eight years ago) link
pretty sure john stockton has a deep ties to the SLC DIY scene
― tylerw, Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:18 (eight years ago) link
*REVERSE SLAM DUNK*
i had a very silly idea a moment ago. imagine, "in a world"...
a streaming service combining aspects of spotify and kickstarter where each user freely allocates their monthly subscription fee among the artists they listen to. for simplicity's sake, assume it's $10 a month and that all of that goes to the artists. plenty of people would just allocate all $10 to whatever pop star they listen to the most. but a lot of people would split it up differently. i mean i'd probably shoot dead moon $5 because they rule and deserve my $ and split the other $5 among local bands that have stuff available to stream. then there would be "rewards" for contributing to different artists, like if you total up $30 for a single artist you get a free LP, or whatever. or kickstarter-style tiered rewards depending on the cumulative contribution.
too bad this scheme would result in zero money for the labels, so it wouldn't fly. but it's too bad because i think a setup like that could fairly compensate musicians of all levels - the coldplays of the world would still make a ton, but locally/regionally known groups would probably get a fair amount of support as well.
ok, now someone else do all the stuff with talking to the labels and making the app and stuff, and then come back to me when it's time to make the logo
― 1994 ball boy (Karl Malone), Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:22 (eight years ago) link
that's a good idea mailman
tyler photoshop stockton's face onto this pls:
http://www.gstatic.com/tv/thumb/dvdboxart/22955/p22955_d_v7_aa.jpg
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:26 (eight years ago) link
this is a fundamental issue with capitalism: at a certain point it becomes impossible to make meaningfully ethical decisions. i find myself saying this a lot this year, but sometimes, doing the right thing is simply not an option
I think this is an interesting post -- but not sure I get you here. Capitalism doesn't force me to download stuff for free -- my budget (money AND time) does. Your situation in the 90s mirrors mine, though I think I was buying more than 20 CDs/tapes a year (I'd say 3/4 used). How I was able to manage even that amount was that I'd sell a lot back too -- I was losing all kinds of money, but I didn't care, because I loved music so much. Still do. still, despite the fact I listen to A LOT more music than was possible for me in the 90s, I don't think I actually like a greater percentage of it. Or, I like it a little bit, and forget about it.
I feel guiltier for downloading music than I used to. In 2001, I had no qualms using Napster. I thought it was a godsend, letting my desktop stay up all night downloading a 128-kbps version of a Cluster record. It's not like I was ever going to come across that CD in my local CD stores anyway. I could special-order it for $40, and I did do that on many occasions. But not as many as I would have wanted to, and was also burned many times doing it on records I didn't end up liking.
However, just like in college, I *could* have chosen simply to keep buying CDs, and selling back the ones I didn't REALLY REALLY need. I could do that today. But I don't. It's not capitalism's fault. It's my choice, and at the end, no one gets to have everything they want.
It sucks, because as I listen to this Eazy-E solo EP, I know that I probably would never have heard it were it not for streaming sites (and I'm talking Youtube here) or illegal downloading. I might have been offhandedly curious, but would have chosen to spend my money on more of a "sure thing". I benefit from hearing this, and I will certainly tell other people how much I'm digging NWA-related records right now -- but it's tricky justifying it to myself. I can't. I took this music, and no one other than me benefitted.
― Dominique, Thursday, 20 August 2015 16:31 (eight years ago) link
Would sign up for Karl's service. As it is streaming only pays if you are Taylor Swift (ie millions and millions of streams) which doesn't happen wo MASSIVE publicity.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 20 August 2015 18:02 (eight years ago) link
As it is streaming only pays if you are Taylor Swift (ie millions and millions of streams) which doesn't happen wo MASSIVE publicity.
See also: pretty much every other format ever. The system overwhelmingly favors and rewards superstars. Like, peak indie, or even "indie," what were bands selling? 20K? I recall reading that "Zen Arcade" initially sold 20K, and that was considered an indie hit, so I can't imagine it's much more than that. (Barring the occasional more recent Merge explosion like Mag Fields or Arcade Fire). I mean, it took the Sex Pistols decades to go platinum in the US, and they only had one record, and one of the most talked about records of all time, at that! And that's when you can get the label to even concede the numbers.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:20 (eight years ago) link
I dunno local bands used to routinely repress after going through a run of 1000....Fugazi could sell over 200k independently, stuff like Pretty Hate Machine by NIN sold millions
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:26 (eight years ago) link
but you could kinda live off of an indie hit, or so i hear.
― lil urbane (Jordan), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:31 (eight years ago) link
xpost Yeah, but those are outliers and also pretty big acts in their own right. (And of course, how much Pretty Hate Machine money did Trent see? He and TVT were sue-buddies for years.) I imagine most lil' acts probably top off pretty low on the sales scale, and always have. Even big indie sellers probably don't sell enough to live on minus a steady diet of touring and merch sales, which is still how bands largely support themselves.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:37 (eight years ago) link
i think ppl used to be able to get by on record sales though, like i read stuff about vic chestnutt that was heartbreaking in terms of getting dropped and then watching things disappear.
i never once heard the "musicians only make money off touring they don't make anything off records" until people could download shit for free
it's not so much wow someone used to sell 500,000 records and make a shit load, it was the people like, i dunno...god....Joe Henry or someone like that in the 90s, who could probably make a liveable middle class income from sales (or better)
like people who used to sell 60,000 albums on an indie who now sell like 800
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:45 (eight years ago) link
― 1994 ball boy (Karl Malone), Thursday, August 20, 2015 12:22 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
so... patreon, basically?
― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:47 (eight years ago) link
I'm not against the model, but what you are describing is patreon
― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:48 (eight years ago) link
(and that's not even getting into the issue of paying songwriters and lyricists and instrumentalists and band members so on and so forth, which is a (lesser) reason why most of the people on patreon are DIY types)
― for sale: baby shoes, never worn your ass (katherine), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:49 (eight years ago) link
i should have posted it in your terrible ideas, it was just kind of a silly daydream
― 1994 ball boy (Karl Malone), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:54 (eight years ago) link
your terrible ideas that already exist for the most part
― 1994 ball boy (Karl Malone), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:55 (eight years ago) link
isn't Drip FM kinda like this?
― lil urbane (Jordan), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:56 (eight years ago) link
i guess it's not, but it could be. i don't think Patreon is really equivalent to what Karl is talking about, i.e. a streaming service where you pay one subscription free to have access to a huge base of music, but could transparently funnel a portion of that fee to specific artists.
― lil urbane (Jordan), Thursday, 20 August 2015 21:00 (eight years ago) link
i mean, i think there's potential there. lots of people will stream music repeatedly on Bandcamp and not take the extra laborious step to buy it. but if you were already paying for your one big streaming service and could conveniently and magnanimously dole out even a small chunk to indie artists you like a lot (and presumably that would go through the normal label channels, but that's still better than the current situation, especially w/indies), well, everybody would do that.
― lil urbane (Jordan), Thursday, 20 August 2015 21:08 (eight years ago) link
Artists would still be getting more than they are now in Karl's example so it is still a good idea
― The Once-ler, Thursday, 20 August 2015 23:15 (eight years ago) link
y'all realize it's not gonna be $10 forever, right?
― Heroic melancholy continues to have a forceful grip on (bernard snowy), Friday, 21 August 2015 03:26 (eight years ago) link
I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere down the road, you're paying $10/month for access to a genre-limited subset of the Total Library, with the option to pay more in order to listen outside your home genre, or for add-ons like a monthly curated "emerging artists" playlist
― Heroic melancholy continues to have a forceful grip on (bernard snowy), Friday, 21 August 2015 03:31 (eight years ago) link
That would be a terrible product tho, they shd just nationalize the music industry and pay musicians through taxes on non musicians
― not a garbageman, i am garbage, man (m bison), Friday, 21 August 2015 03:57 (eight years ago) link
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, August 20, 2015 3:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― lil urbane (Jordan), Thursday, August 20, 2015 3:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, August 20, 2015 3:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, August 20, 2015 3:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Bolded part is a massive t-bomb.
Also my band (circa '03-'05) sold like 800 CDs mostly through shows and CDBaby, and the CD actually paid for its (studio) recording costs plus helped pay for a tour (from which we did NOT make money). People forget how profitable CDs used to be for bands that actually did have 50/50 type deals with labels or self-released when they say "bands didn't make money from CDs anyway".
― five six and (man alive), Friday, 21 August 2015 04:08 (eight years ago) link
around 04-05 my band sold over 100 CDS AT A CD RELEASE SHOW, now it's hard to do 100 period
but yeah we were able to stash show money for recording/space rent, and generally break even
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 21 August 2015 13:33 (eight years ago) link
I get that, and I've done it myself. CDs/record sales def. help(ed). But unless you were selling a ton they're still mostly subsidizing a hand to mouth existence, aka break even. Which is not a bad place to be, doing something that you love, but doesn't exactly allow for much idle time, especially after you divide your gross 4 ways, pay off recording, fix the van, pay rent, eat, etc.
When I was in a touring band, the worst would be when you'd play with a shit act on the bill, and they'd want to swap one of their CDs for yours, and you'd be thinking, that's our money I am giving you!
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 21 August 2015 19:17 (eight years ago) link
I guess basically what I'm saying is just because it was always bad doesn't mean it's not worse now
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 21 August 2015 20:45 (eight years ago) link
And I don't even think we've hit bottom yet! At least clubs still seem to be hanging around.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 21 August 2015 20:54 (eight years ago) link
I suppose land values and leases will kill off all the NYC & SF small venues soon enough
― Ma$e-en-scène (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 21 August 2015 22:00 (eight years ago) link
the casual cruelty of the new elite:
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/636107643191365632
― goole, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 23:06 (eight years ago) link
are there good articles out there about the contemporary live music industry or w/e? feel like there's something going on there but i only ever hear about "the death of the music industry".
― brimstead, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 23:26 (eight years ago) link
i mean "death of the record industry"
Most live music is paid through beer.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 25 August 2015 23:27 (eight years ago) link
xps i think that should be 'substitute' not complement
― flopson, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 23:29 (eight years ago) link
i am cautiously hopeful that this streaming shit will put $$$ back in musician's pockets because as more streaming services pop up they'll compete for material by offering labels more. no one seems to argue that netflix/hulu is bad for tv or movies? the only weird thing is that you don't pay per piece of music so there's weird zero marginal cost stuff. like previously you could buy one album and you can listen to it a million times, now you listen to as many albums as many times as you can
the big black box for me is how music gets distributed b/w labels and musicians and whether or how that's changed. i've tried to research this but seems opaque if anyone's got links please share
also i don't understand how freemium can work as a business model for anything but especially music
― flopson, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 23:52 (eight years ago) link
also i don't know what the morality has to do with it... if music is on spotify or applemusic, the person who owns the music agreed to put it there and is getting compensated for it. how is it immoral to listen to it?
― flopson, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 23:56 (eight years ago) link
devil's advocate would be it's not so clear cut -- the music industry is changing and artists are left with only shitty choices: stream and get a little bit of money or don't stream and get nothing. is it ok to buy sweatshop-made clothes if the workers there "agreed" to their conditions? the
― usic ally (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 26 August 2015 00:03 (eight years ago) link
the big black box for me is how music gets distributed b/w labels and musicians and whether or how that's changed.
you mean digital or physical?
― lil urbane (Jordan), Wednesday, 26 August 2015 02:26 (eight years ago) link
I think "Freemium" is simply a loss leader, a strategy to get people to start using it. They will likely gradually reduce the content available to free users, and add more perks for the subscriptions, and gradually up the price of the monthly subscription. Remember when cable TV only cost $12 to $15 a month in the 90s (at least in the U.S.) and people complained bitterly? Well, they kept watching, and kept paying. Now most people pay well over $100 a month, and of course still complain. But admittedly the quality (HD), features (ability to record up to 4-5 shows simultaneously on latest DVRs) and amount of content is better than ever.
I finally laid down my thoughts on it here. Apologies if the writing is not quite up to snuff, I was distracted by a health scare (I'm okay):
No Whining in Rock ‘n’ Roll: Don’t Feel Guilty About Not Spending More Money on Musichttp://fastnbulbous.com/no-whining-in-rock-n-roll-dont-feel-guilty-about-not-spending-more-money-on-music/
― Fastnbulbous, Thursday, 27 August 2015 15:49 (eight years ago) link
the big black box for me is how music gets distributed b/w labels and musicians and whether or how that's changed.you mean digital or physical?― lil urbane (Jordan), Tuesday, August 25, 2015 10:26 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― lil urbane (Jordan), Tuesday, August 25, 2015 10:26 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
oh sorry that should say how revenue gets distributed. i'm wondering if the collapse of the market resulted in artists taking a smaller share of a reduced pie
i just read this https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150204/07310329906/yes-major-record-labels-are-keeping-nearly-all-money-they-get-spotify-rather-than-giving-it-to-artists.shtml which argues that it's not that streaming services don't give enough of the revenue back (they keep 20% (also spotify is not currently profitable)) but that labels only give 10% of that 80% to artists. it argues that while this may have once made sense when labels had to actually press records, that no longer applies and they're just ripping off artists.
also did some googling and found these stats from ifpi.org
- number of paying subscribers doubled from 20 to 41 million between 2012 and 2014, and increased fivefold if you go back to 2010
- digital (includes both streaming and downloads) sales overtook physical world-wide this year
- overall industry value in 2014 is about 15 billion $, still down about 25 billion $ from 40 billion $ peak 1999. couldn't find what the nadir was
― flopson, Friday, 28 August 2015 00:16 (eight years ago) link
devil's advocate would be it's not so clear cut -- the music industry is changing and artists are left with only shitty choices: stream and get a little bit of money or don't stream and get nothing. is it ok to buy sweatshop-made clothes if the workers there "agreed" to their conditions?― usic ally (k3vin k.), Tuesday, August 25, 2015 8:03 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― usic ally (k3vin k.), Tuesday, August 25, 2015 8:03 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
if what i wrote above is true they're not getting shitty deal because of streaming but because of how label distributes revenue from streams and "NO ONE IS STOPPING YOU FROM PURCHASING A NON-STREAMING VERSION OF THE MUSIC YOU LIKE IF THAT'S ACTUALLY IMPORTANT TO YOU" is not a good way to think about it.
like, if your only metric is "how much money am i spending on music" and you think you're robbing artists because you're not spending enough on music, well... it could be that if you spent more money on iTunes or buying compact discs, the same absolute amount of money would go to the artist than if you streamed. you can't think about the ethics until you know how revenue is shared for each medium
it's not exactly comparable to sweatshop shoes, like if you really care about musicians having money you could write them a cheque, they're generally identifiable people.. also depending on the contract artists get paid per record sold, so you could just stream, go to best buy and buy 20 compact discs then throw them all in the trash
― flopson, Friday, 28 August 2015 00:26 (eight years ago) link
another article with the blame-the-labels line
https://pando.com/2015/06/07/can-apple-save-the-music-industry-from-the-destructive-greed-of-record-labels/
― flopson, Friday, 28 August 2015 01:31 (eight years ago) link