This is the second time you posted this and this is the second time I will give you praise for it
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Taylor Swift is not the only artist leaving Spotify
- Thread starter Kaladin
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This is the second time you posted this and this is the second time I will give you praise for it
I've never understood how someone can say all pop music is shit since it is so fucking broad ans tends to just as easily fit into other genres. That is very different from saying Taylor Swift is shit, which I won't argue with. Perhaps you should provide a defense of country music?
In terms of the discussion at hand I am unsurprised that artists are leaving Spotify given the minimal amount it pays out and given that many of these artists don't need to service to get attention since they get radio play.
I look forward to this.
arts&crafts
Member
These artists know all of their music is on Youtube right?
Not possible
That's the silliest thing about this. It's already on the internet for free - the artists make money off the videos too. All they've done is make people use a browser instead of program (or even worse, going to a torrent), and they call it "taking a stand" or some shit.
YouTube is a lot better, that's why people don't mind it.
The people clowning artists for making this movie have no idea of the economics.
Here are some actual stats from my distributor* on the payouts for my band Mars Accelerator. And keep in mind, we self-released this album and don't have to split this with a label.
Spotify stream: $0.00081943
YouTube stream: ~$0.0025 (average, depends on ad bid rate) (3x better than Spotify, plus you can add ads/call-to-actions that pop-up, and link to iTunes downloads, etc; also if you're partnering with Vevo for your YouTube presence they do a lot of other awesome shit for you)
Rdio: $0.00956683 (11.7x better than Spotify)
Google Play stream: $0.01002008 (12.2x better than Spotify)
Beats music: $0.01155917 (14.1x better than Spotify)
Omnifone: $0.02777940 (33.9x better than Spotify)
iTunes download: $0.63 (769x better than Spotify) (The other download services are similiar)
At 10 million streams, which is wild success for any band - a massive single that in the past would've made you a millionaire, you will have $8,194.30 on Spotify. On YouTube, you'll get 3x that amount on streams alone, things that go viral on it are publicly viewable (no account needed) and who knows what other sell-throughs you were able to drum up through overlays, pop-ins, Vevo running your video in many other places, iTunes links, etc.
*In the case of YouTube, the data is from my monetization dashboard.
The people clowning artists for making this movie have no idea of the economics.
Here are some actual stats from my distributor* on the payouts for my band Mars Accelerator. And keep in mind, we self-released this album and don't have to split this with a label.
Spotify stream: $0.00081943
YouTube stream: ~$0.0025 (average, depends on ad bid rate) (3x better than Spotify, plus you can add ads/call-to-actions that pop-up, and link to iTunes downloads, etc; also if you're partnering with Vevo for your YouTube presence they do a lot of other awesome shit for you)
Rdio: $0.00956683 (11.7x better than Spotify)
Google Play stream: $0.01002008 (12.2x better than Spotify)
Beats music: $0.01155917 (14.1x better than Spotify)
Omnifone: $0.02777940 (33.9x better than Spotify)
iTunes download: $0.63 (769x better than Spotify) (The other download services are similiar)
At 10 million streams, which is wild success for any band - a massive single that in the past would've made you a millionaire, you will have $8,194.30 on Spotify. On YouTube, you'll get 3x that amount on streams alone, things that go viral on it are publicly viewable (no account needed) and who knows what other sell-throughs you were able to drum up through overlays, pop-ins, Vevo running your video in many other places, iTunes links, etc.
*In the case of YouTube, the data is from my monetization dashboard.
The Shogun
Banned
Not gonna lie 1989 not being on Spotify sucks.
Its a shockingly good album. I could not stand Swifts music before but that album is pretty fantastic
Its a shockingly good album. I could not stand Swifts music before but that album is pretty fantastic
None of your numbers take into account volumes though, and that's the huge problem with trying to determine value and monetary payouts this way.
Heck, in the UK, despite iTunes being 769x better than Spotify, Spotify shelled out 13% more in royalties to the music industry.
Someone said this in one of the many other threads we've had on this subject, and I agree: the big mistake people are making when determining the value of streaming services like Spotify is they're treating 1 stream as the same as 1 download, and thinking the payout should somehow be the same, and it doesn't work that way. It makes more sense to think of streaming as a sort of offspring of the benefits of radio promotion and downloads.
Hey man, it's been a while.
That is pretty hilarious. I don't mean this in disrespectful terms, but that is so unbelievably low that if I were in your position I'd feel more dignified knowing people just got my shit from a newsgroup or something.
I can see why the other services are more enticing.
I do think of it that way, but:
- Spotify has the worst payout rate of all the streaming services, sometimes by a factor of over 30x
- You have no ability to upsell customers on Spotify to a download/link to your site/anything the way you can on YouTube
- Even YouTube is paying 3x more than Spotify
- Spotify is designing their product to replace "music ownership" by enabling people to add songs to libraries, so viewing it as simply "promo" is silly. Only the best samaritans truly go out and buy something they found on Spotify. It's a destination, oftentimes peoples' only music source.
- However, unlike Google, Amazon, and Apple, Spotify is actively incompatible with separately purchased music, resulting in actually discouraging people from having personal music collections that they paid for, at all. You can't upload anything to it that you bought anywhere else, ever.
- Spotify ain't that great a promo tool when you need an account to even share anything. Name one big Spotify success story compared to the many, many YouTube sensations there have been.
- Spotify does nothing to combat intentional dilution by abusers. If a guy is contributing $7 to the "stream payout pool" per month and only streams 7 songs, those artists should get a buck apiece, not a fraction of a fraction of a cent after the ridiculously overusing accounts and intentional campaigns to auto-loop songs are paid out.
Again, to think of it this way is to ignore volumes. How else do you explain Spotify paying more in royalities than iTunes overall in the UK?
You also have no way to upsell customers with radio plays, and unlike radio with Spotify you have access to a global audience while getting paid every time someone listens to your song. The effectiveness of this model is evidenced in the fact that, despite having a lower pay-per-stream rate, Spotify ends up paying more in royalties than most other streaming alternatives.
Again, the mistake you're making is looking at streaming as a direct competitor to downloads. It's not. It's more a hybrid of traditional downloads and radio play. And 1 stream is not the same as 1 download.
The alternative is piracy. Spotify makes it easier to build collections so it is easier for people to stream your music if they like it, which makes you more money. That people are going online, streaming you music, and adding it to playlists so they can listen to it again and again. That's promo. Promo you're getting paid for. I have dozens of playlists on my Spotify account at this point, a few of them I still listen to religiously, but I can tell you one thing: If I didn't have access to those songs and the ability to add them to playlists, I most likely would not have gone out to buy them. I can compare the music I listen to now via Spotify to my iTunes purchase history to know how true that is.
Not true. The Spotify desktop app will incorporate your existing music collection. Even from iTunes.
How many YouTube sensations have their been lately? How many have their been since YouTube began actively monetizing all of their videos?
Spotify's terms can't be that bad for the industry, otherwise they'd have been told to fuck off years ago, and there would be a ton more protest than three artists that all happen to be on the same label.
Spotify ain't perfect, but there's simply no way it's the bloodsucking parasite it's being characterized as. At the end of the day, this is about just one label playing hardball with one streaming company in order to get higher payouts from Spotify than every other label out there. If Spotify's rates really are lower than everyone else then they do have a point, but Big Machine being the only ones complaining makes the claim relatively dubious.
Everything else on either side is just noise, tactics used to try and paint the other one as the bad guy.
What good is it for the worst-paying service there is to be the most popular/high-volume? You don't realize that's actually the worst possible case scenario?
Being the most popular only makes things worse, doesn't excuse shitty payouts, and is basically irrelevant to the issue. If anything, Spotify being massive only compounds the problem by pressuring artists into being on Spotify because everyone's there and they don't want to be "invisible," even though it's otherwise to artists great harm to be there. If everyone had coalesced on Google Play instead, artists would be 12x better off. That matters to me.
Believe me, I am not making that mistake. I know more about this than you, most likely. Drop this.
Or better services that pay 3-30x as much.
You know that other streaming services have playlists, right? And also they support music that you paid for elsewhere?
Try uploading that file to Spotify so you can listen to it jogging, at work, on your tablet, on your phone, on any other machine or place. Being able to play local files and calling that feature parity with iTunes, Google Play Music, or Amazon Cloud Drive, where you can upload whatever you want and it's universally accessible, is ridiculous. How many songs in your oh-so-frequented Spotify playlists reference local files that you take time to transfer to every device you use?
So fucking many, dude. YouTube is shareable, embeddable, customizable, and monetizable in ways Spotify can't even touch, and that's before even accounting for paying out 3x as much and having a more engaging visual element, plus being fully artist-controllable (no distributor required).
Hey man!
Well, musicians just keep their day jobs nowadays, so alms it is. I do it because I love it, so that is what it is, but there *is* a problem here and I feel compelled to share.
completely different model though - consumer doesn't have control over what's playing, and it's more of a promotional tool vs. having an entire library or album readily available
one doesn't equal the other, but you're leaving out the potential value the consumer puts on convenience
for some people, searching through torrents/blogs/youtube is a hassle, and they would rather have it more accessible at a price... this is where Spotify comes in and helps justify not supporting the artist beyond streaming because why pay for something you feel you're already paying for? (time during ads or money for a subscription to the service)
recent numbers are more around .0065 cents a stream, so here's some volume for you: an artist receiving 100% royalty would need about 300 streams for you to buy them a cup of coffee
when the platform becomes so large that it's an audience's only source of music, what choice do you have but become part of it?
accept scraps or get no exposure
It wouldn't have become large if labels didn't offer their content on it in the first place.
Even if we assume that Spotify lowered the terms later in renegotiating initial contacts (which we have no indication of), last I checked they were still successfully negotiating new contracts and launching in new countries where they do not have an existing audience to bargain with. And the labels do agree for some reason.
Even if they do offer higher terms in new countries, wouldn't labels be wary of signing if it had a history of screwing them once the installed base is high enough?
So it seems they're somehow still in good terms with everyone but Big Machine despite being the apparent scum of the music industry according to these three artists. I'm flabbergasted.
Again, only one label has complained. This is just public negotiation tactics on both sides.
It's good because it's getting people to use a service that pays artists versus one that doesn't and is just as easy: piracy.
If Spotify didn't exist, those millions of free and paying customers wouldn't then go flocking to YouTube/Vevo or whatever other service would pay you more money, or that would have happened in the years that YouTube/Vevo existed before Spotify. Don't look at the handful of artists who made it via being discovered on YouTube as a sign that that model works for everyone. No, if Spotify didn't exist, most of those users would go back to doing exactly what they did previously: pirating the music they don't care enough about to purchase.
Point me to the service that matches the ease-of-use, accessibility, freedom, and range of quality content of Spotify while paying artists 3-30x times as much.
That's kind of the whole problem right there. Why Spotify has been able to grow as quickly as it has; nobody has really matched the ease of their service.
That's nothing on a service where even mid-tier songs can average streams in the millions.
First thing I thought.
this might be the first time you've read about it, but this isn't a new issue
Taylor Swift and these other recent names aside (which I don't doubt for a second is just a label move), you're overlooking the bigger problem
You might want to point me to other dissatisfied labels then.
Again, if the terms are so bad, why are labels agreeing to them in the first place, even in countries where they don't have the leverage provided by their size?
It's fine to argue your way, I don't doubt you have valid points, but don't just avoid the question and expect me to just believe your assertions blindly. Answer this one question, then I'll consider the possibility that there's an actual problem.
Otherwise if the industry keeps signing, it's a good sign that the problem might not be as big as you're making it out to be.
GameGuru59
Banned
I'll tell you one thing, if its not on Spotify, I`m not listening to it. And if you remove your shit from spotify, I'll just rip the mp3 out of youtube and handle it that way. Embrace the future.
Robot Pants
Member
lem0n
Member
Nostremitus
Member
Good riddance, now I don't have to worry about having to thumb-down their songs.
I wonder if Apple (Tim Cook), the now new employees of Apple, Dr. Dre & Jimmy Iovine (who has a strong connection with the music industry) have anything to do with this recent departure of these country artists dropping Spotify but leaving their albums available on Beats Music? I know I'm thinking out of my ass probably but I know Apple is in the works of revamping Beats Music and Jimmy Iovine is one of the reasons they bought Beats anyway. Is because of Iovine strong partnership with these music record labels.
Hmm.
Hmm.
we're looking it it from two completely different perspectives then if you think a song streaming by the millions is the norm - I'm looking at it from the viewpoint of a smaller artist that has no choice but to become part of the service because it's such a large audience's only source of music (and a dead end between creator and listener)
and you can't say piracy is the only alternative when you just said yourself that you put a premium on convenience
because the labels have no other choice if they aren't at the top and want exposure? because money is money and it costs them little to be on the service at the expense of the artist? we're talking about the same people that inflate playcounts on sites like youtube, so I can't speak for them
I'm just looking at it from the perspective of the creator, and the numbers are already there for you to determine if it's an actual problem
I'm personally of the belief that services like Spotify offer smaller artists benefits outside of "exactly how much money am I making per stream?" Benefits that indie artists not even a decade would have killed to have access to, but we'll just agree to disagree.
Dude, do you know how easy it is to pirate music even today? Here's a clue: go to Tumblr and type in an artist's name on the day they release an album/single.
Not that I'm advocating piracy, but pirating music is still crazy convenient -- especially if you know where to go.
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And_Gignac
Member
Album sales are in the pits and digital sales are going that road too. The future is streaming, and not even Beyoncé could fight it. It is a battle celebrities, thankfully, can't and won't win.
This is so naive. Spotify isn't just about cold, hard cash. It cut piracy MASSIVELY but on top of that it's an amazing way to find new artists. I've used it for about 8 months and I've found at least 20 new artists I love and would definitely go to a gig of theirs.
If artists don't want spotify and services like that then they can go back to the days of rampant piracy. No one is going back to cd's.
If artists don't want spotify and services like that then they can go back to the days of rampant piracy. No one is going back to cd's.
Or maybe they're trying to negotiate something a bit more fair (in their eyes) while they still think they can have an impact.
Whitechocolatekrispies
Banned
Spotify may offer the consumers the best service, but they are a middle man here, not a supplier. They need to appease the other side as well, the artists. Or they risk the artists starving the services that don't offer them the best service and supporting the ones that do.
Also has it been mentioned, loads of other artists aren't technically leaving Spotify but they are no longer releasing their music to it.
Wind's Howling
Member
Exactly what I was thinking when I read the OP.
Are they popular among the country lovers?
If not. I would recommend they stay on Spotify if they want more people to know about their music and perhaps even buy their album.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
spotify is purging country music? excellent news!
Spotify should obviously make the move to becoming a music label themselves, they're big enough. Sign some artists directly and get richer.
Spotify should obviously make the move to becoming a music label themselves, they're big enough. Sign some artists directly and get richer.
Greed is an incredibly powerful emotion.
maybe if they offered some connectivity to the artist, but the current platform generates a lot of empty exposure because they want their service to be the only destination
I always see the "oh, well I'll support them on tour/I'll buy merch/etc." - it's just disappointing to me that the music isn't the product in those scenarios
I'm aware of how easy it is to pirate music, and the fact that Spotify is still the more convenient option feeds right into my point
in the eyes of so many people, whatever they charge is now the value of the music
Syphon Filter
Member
how come everyone always hates country music?
Stare-Bear
Banned
Actually, it's not. Spotify is country specific. And artists still get paid for the free tier users.
And what's the alternative? Itunes?! Spotify has stopped me completely from pirating music. I'm a premium member and the ease of use and massive selection are great.
Forgive me if "we pay shit, even when compared to all our competitors, but we're better than being ripped off!" is not really grabbing me.
With respect, you have no idea what users would do if Spotify went belly up. There are many competing services, many with better features than Spotify has. YouTube just launched a music service. Huge companies are in this game. You really think it would just go back to piracy in a climate where Beats By Dre just got purchased for $3 billion? I'm sorry, I call bullshit on this up and down.
Your false choice of Spotify or piracy holds zero water with me dude.
Uh have you even used Beats By Dre, Google Play Music, Rdio, Amazon Prime Music or YouTube/YouTube Music Key? Rdio in particular absolutely smokes Spotify in terms of ease of use. Google Play has way fewer restrictions, all of those services work great on your phone, and all their libraries are pretty much the same. If anything, Apple lands way more exclusives.
All of them pay many times more money than Spotify.
If a different streaming service had Spotify's volume the artist would get around 12x more for those same millions of plays. For a song with 10 million streams, Spotify would pay $8k, and Google Play would pay $100k. If you don't see why that matters to a "mid-tier" musician then I can't help you.
The Shogun
Banned
Not sure and there's obviously alot of people here that haven't listed to Taylor's new album. There's nothing country about it.
In fact it may be the best pop album of 2014 in my opinion.
There are tons of alternative services that are as good if not better, especially when it comes to selection. Beats, Rhapsody, Rdio, Google Play.
Back when I was trying out all the services, Spotify actually had the worst selection of all of them.
I just met a guy named Romulus Kimbo Zazzel so I don't question names anymore.
I don't understand why there can't be different tiers to Spotify? The free option shouldn't have all the latest albums but the paid subscription should.
Best snark post in this thread, by far.
I would find this news more interesting if they all weren't from the same label.
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