Stop Thinking of Yourself as a Good Person: The Ethics and Economics of Music Streaming

Sometimes being an ethical consumer means paying more than the barest minimum that you are legally obligated to by the existing consumer system, this is not a radical idea, no?

Remember the ‘80s and early ‘90s, when the story was how artists were getting screwed on CD sales b/c their contracts still treated them as an “experimental” medium? There was no movement to shame listeners into getting back into LPs; it was treated as an industry issue for artists’ management to solve with the labels (which they did).

This is a different beast imho bc under the current status quo the biggest & most powerful artists are also profiting inordinately from the new model - the artists who are being screwed the most are the ones with the least negotiating power. Saying "I'm sure it will all work itself out behind the scenes without anyone having to change their consuming habits" is some magical thinking.

i didn’t say it was ethical

i just said it’s misguided and ultimately ineffective to situate a critique at that particular node in the system

xp

More misguided and unrealistic than expecting all that lost sales revenue to get magically replaced with an wholesale systemic change in the way arts are funded? Ok.

the artists who are being screwed the most are the ones with the least negotiating power.

And how many of those artists have sufficient control over their music to bring it (exclusively) to Bandcamp or SoundCloud, with their superior “pay to stream after x plays” model? No one has answered this, other than to tautologically reply that those services are “niche.”

Or you could just... buy the album?

some very tortured arguments itt for solving the problem of musicians not being paid fairly by somehow spending less money on music

duh why didn’t i think of that

xp

xxp That IS buying the album. It costs the same. You’re just not burdened with a physical CD, which (as b.j. adeptly pointed out above) is an outdated medium for numerous reasons.

solving the problem of musicians not being paid fairly by somehow spending less money on music

who is saying this ?

xp Yeah morrisp I agree but this is what you wrote

And how many of those artists have sufficient control over their music to bring it (exclusively) to Bandcamp or SoundCloud, with their superior “pay to stream after x plays” model? No one has answered this

What other platforms the artists work is available on is irrelevant, if you can buy the album, buy the album, problem solved.

So much effort is expended to make this issue seem like some responsibility of the artists to make their music more available, or more available in exactly the right ways, or less available in some ways but more available in other ways, etc etc. But the option to pay a price for music that fairly compensates the artist hasn't changed, whether its buying cds or lps, paying on bandcamp or whatever. Saying "if only the artists did this" or "if only the indie labels did that" doesn't change the fact that you almost always have the option to buy the music at a rate that fairly compensates the artist.

Saying "since they've been forced by industry changes to offer their music on the most popular platform for consuming music, it is therefore fair for me to consume it that way" is a nonstarter.

More misguided and unrealistic than expecting all that lost sales revenue to get magically replaced with an wholesale systemic change in the way arts are funded? Ok.

― “Hakuna Matata,” a nihilist philosophy (One Eye Open), Monday, July 29, 2019 11:33 AM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i never uttered the words “an expansion of public funding for the arts would be easy and uncontroversial”

i do think it’s something worth fighting for, though, and implying that it could only happen via “magic” is both shitty and kind of weird coming from the person who insists that this very simple problem could easily be solved if we just get the generation raised on smart phones to start buying CD’s en masse and also this money will go straight to the artist of course

buy the album, problem solved.

you’ve got to be joking

What other platforms the artists work is available on is irrelevant, if you can buy the album, buy the album, problem solved.

I do "buy the album" (if I like it and want to keep listening). Who is the "you/me" you keep addressing? The vast majority of listeners (especially young ones) are going to listen via the path of least resistance -- streaming -- and my p.o.v. is that: (a) artists should indeed be justly compensated, and (b) if there are business models which accomplish that (which the article posted above says is the case), then those are the models which artists, labels, and their management should be pushing/adopting/using whatever. It's not a chin-stroking philosophical argument, and nor is it about bullying teenagers into buying DiscMans (cuz that's not gonna work).

budo I half agree with you in the sense that, while each thing would be good (massively structural economic shift to public funding of arts, kids buying music instead of streaming), neither is likely to ever happen imho, I guess we disagree on which thing is less likely to never happen, but w/e, splitting hairs at that point

Budo the catalyst for me posting itt was just morrisp’s statement that “but clearly it’s not all on the users either — the industry has chosen to embrace the streaming services, and fans are going to use them”

Which like, whatever the solution is, considering how previous methods for buying music still exist, then clearly the blame is on the consumers who shifted their spending habits? Doesn’t seem like a controversial conclusion to me. Not arguing for government-issued DiscMans for every teen or w/e, but it seems obvious on its face that the drop in compensation for music is the result of ppl finding ways to justify not paying as much for music as they used to.

buy the album, problem solved.

you’ve got to be joking

― budo jeru, Monday, July 29, 2019 1:02 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

2019

my whole point was that public arts funding would only be one aspect to address a structural problem

changing consumer habits could potentially change things for the better, my problem is that you haven’t considered the disparities between artists re: retail price vs. paycheck. the music industry is really complicated !

morrisp already made the point that, at a time when p much one’s only option was “just buy the album,” this did not necessarily mean better material conditions for the artist. in a utopian world where everybody shuns streaming and buys CD’s, what guarantees the welfare of the artists ?

xp

Which like, whatever the solution is, considering how previous methods for buying music still exist, then clearly the blame is on the consumers who shifted their spending habits? Doesn’t seem like a controversial conclusion to me.

anyway if this is your starting point we’re never going to get anywhere constructive so, i disagree

what i mean is, i now see what you’re saying, i disagree but don’t want to elaborate beyond that, and sorry for derailing

I concur w/b.j. -- it seems like if there's a "blame game" to be played here, we're not going to convince each other that the "blame" should fall on listeners.

(or vice-versa, whatever)

Never accept the "just make money from live shows" argument from anyone who hasn't carried a drumset and Ampeg bass cab up a narrow flight of stairs

or lived in a place which used to get cool up+coming bands coming through in the 90s when 15 of the 20 people who turned up might have bought a record and/or told their friends, and now gets 0 cool bands coming through because bands save the live shows for established fan bases in big cities now they can no longer break even by treating them as loss leaders for the album

^^^ this

Of course, festivals are also at least partly to blame for this

Yes, the gradual transformation of the tour from "promotional effort for new album" to "only realistic source of income for the year" for many bands has not exactly been a boon to music fans outside of major cities.

lol at whoever was making fun of Mat Dryhurst, he's a lovely guy and a sound and visuals designer, not a fucking orator. get over it.

also, while i actively use Youtube, i still don't have a Spotify account. i don't even know what it looks like, tbh, and hope i never do.

Not to discount any of the problems with streaming and recompense, but I frequently Spotify-stream albums that I have paid for and own when I could just rip them and play the MP3s, so the artists in this case are getting extra money from me. Obviously this isn't much on its own, but I can't be the only person doing this.

If you're using YouTube but you think Spotify is evil, you...are not making decisions on principle.

How many streams of an album are roughly equivalent to a sale (in terms of royalties paid), does that metric exist?

top royalty rate is like 1 cent right? So roughly 100 plays per dollar. and then that gets split up between the artist and label etc I think

So per album, I guess around 10 plays? just rough estimate

whatever, head math while typing on a phone

If that’s true, and everything above 10 plays is gravy, that’s not so bad(?) Based on how many times a fan plays their favorite albums.

If you can’t be bothered to buy an album you probably shouldn’t call yourself a fan

Tell that to the kids who stream nonstop.

I have a more pithy version for them

Some of you seem to have a bizarre fetish around the idea of “buying the album,” almost as if it’s not actually about earning royalties for the artist at all.

I mean I know this is the labels’ fault more than anyone’s, they got so terrified of being demolished by piracy that they let tech firms dictate the playing field and they left out artists in the bargain. But to my dying day I’ll reserve the right to be angry at every asshole who decided music was something they deserve for free unless they decide to put some spare change in the donation cup, and turned everyone into a busker, because that just doesn’t seem right. Even if it is what the market supports.

Right, you’re mad at Limewire (and with good reason). I work with a guy in his 30s who’s never bought an album in his life. But people who embrace streaming today aren’t the assholes.

music is free now go chase your dreams

top royalty rate is like 1 cent right? So roughly 100 plays per dollar. and then that gets split up between the artist and label etc I think

― brimstead, Tuesday, 30 July 2019 01:23 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

So per album, I guess around 10 plays? just rough estimate

― brimstead, Tuesday, 30 July 2019 01:24 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

whatever, head math while typing on a phone

― brimstead, Tuesday, 30 July 2019 01:25 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

If that’s true, and everything above 10 plays is gravy, that’s not so bad(?) Based on how many times a fan plays their favorite albums.

― the last Berry La Croix in the work fridge (morrisp), Tuesday, 30 July 2019 01:29 (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

one cent per play is an overestimate, but even allowing for that it would take 100 album plays, not 10 (assuming 10 tracks per album), to approach the average album retail cost.

but how much of the retail cost of a cd do the artists see?

> the kids who stream nonstop.

the kids who stream nonstop probably don't have the disposable income to spend on cds and are just using spotify the way i used to listen to the radio. </old>

but how much of the retail cost of a cd do the artists see?

the store will take a cut that is probably roughly the same % as spotify takes from this mythical cent per play, the label still gets their fat chunk regardless of the source.

From that Damon Krukowski article in pfork last year: Spotify had sent songwriting royalties of $1.05 for the 5,960 times our single “Tugboat” was played that quarter—split between the group’s three members, each of us had made 35 cents.

Breaks down to $0.00017 per stream. Obviously every deal is different, but still.

this site (which I found in a Google search, have no clue about its legitimacy) says “One Spotify stream is worth about $0.006 to $0.0084 to an artist”

the store will take a cut that is probably roughly the same % as spotify takes from this mythical cent per play, the label still gets their fat chunk regardless of the source.

Lol, at "paying" for an album by streaming it 100 times. Where are you getting this shit? Try like 10,000 times or more.

This also ignores that the largest investors in Spotify are the major labels who basically gave away streaming royalty rates as cheaply as possible in exchange for ownership interests in Spotify and/or non-royalty payments, which solely benefit the labels and not the artists. Therefore, the artists' cut of the streaming equivalent of a "sale" of an album will be far less than their cut of a physical sale (which was jack shit to begin with).

Basically, the way streams are paid is the Albini article on bad faith label accounting on steroids.