A Contrarian View: Spotify & Streaming Music Will Not Replace Purchase Or Piracy
Among those who have lived with Spotify longest, Sweden's music industry, the belief is that Spotify has virtually put an end to piracy. And music industry pundits point to a new era of renting music over owning. But will the average consumer really stop downloading music – legally or illegally – in favor of music streaming services like Rhapsody, MOG, Napster and Rdio?
The Electronic Frotier Foundation isn't so sure and explains why:
"More robust network connections, the popularity of tablets and smartphones, and the hype surrounding Spotify lead us to believe that streaming music's time may have come. But if users lose access to the work they’ve invested in searching through music catalogues, setting up playlists and favorites, and otherwise managing their music-listening habits, downloading music (legally or not) will still be a better alternative for many." – EFF
What do you think? Could Spotify and music streaming replace purchase and piracy?
i think there is a possibility for spotify to take over the music industry…just look at netflix, they did it with the movie industry. I just think that they will need to expand with the devices that they are able to do things on…i understand that for iphones you need the APP but why are we not allowed to use the songs on ipods…if it’s truly “rentable” material, then we should be able to use it on our ipods as well which I think would be a great idea…especially those of us that use our ipods in an ipod ready head unit for our cars.
I think the piggy-back on Facebook will be a major factor in its integration into the mainstream. The hardest thing for Spotify will be convincing the average person over the age of 25 to “rent” music. What is that? By nature, we want to invest and own. Spotify will not replace piracy, especially in the under 25 market who have grown up with a media buffet on every corner on the net. However, I do believe with the Feds mounting effort in shutting down torrents and illegal activity, the coming RIAA/ISP throttle, and the many options of “Free” internet music, Spotify has the best chance of spearheading a new era for the in extemis industry. My advice would be to get every testamonial in the Biz to shout “Just found this NEW music on Spotify” from the rooftops of late night tele and youtube. It worked for Twitter.
I think the piggy-back on Facebook will be a major factor in its integration into the mainstream. The hardest thing for Spotify will be convincing the average person over the age of 25 to “rent” music. What is that? By nature, we want to invest and own. Spotify will not replace piracy, especially in the under 25 market who have grown up with a media buffet on every corner on the net. However, I do believe with the Feds mounting effort in shutting down torrents and illegal activity, the coming RIAA/ISP throttle, and the many options of “Free” internet music, Spotify has the best chance of spearheading a new era for the in extemis industry. My advice would be to get every testamonial in the Biz to shout “Just found this NEW music on Spotify” from the rooftops of late night tele and youtube. It worked for Twitter.
The artist makes nothing off of streaming, so I doubt streaming will replace purchases.
Is streaming the major label’s attempt to screw artists?
Let’s face it, majors are making almost all the streaming money.
Then again, majors own a chunk of Spotify. It kind of sickens me the more I think about it.
The pot has been divided up and there are continually more new revenue streams for artists. Spotify is a GREAT promotional tool for artists. We have been distributing artists to Spotify for two years in Europe. Where as several years ago the first place fans would search for your band might be myspace, it is now Spotify.
With such a wide reach and userbase, Spotify will not have to worry about recouping. Artists may never get rich off Spotify but it is a great weapon to have in their arsenal.
Sites like Mog, Spotify, we7 are create small revenue streams for artists that can total a healthy amount. Artists that use Spotify along with selling music on iTunes, selling physical copies, selling limited edition copies of their music, selling ANYTHING to do with the band, are the artists that will survive.
Spotify will not take over the music industry, but it is a welcome new addition to a changing landscape.
Lee
http://www.dittomusic.com
lee@dittomusic.com
There’s a saying : “The more things change, the more they stay the same”
Majors buy Spotify , artists keep getting nothing. All is well.
“It’s a promotional tool.” Jesus “fucking” Christ! How many times has that been used.
You must work for a major, cause they are laughing all the way to the bank. Majors get millions up front, plus they own a chunk of Spotify.
I am CEO of Ditto Music. We distribute around 30,000 unsigned artists to stores including Spotify.
Do major labels earn more money for content? Yes. And if they had more sense they would have made these deals years ago. They didn’t. That is why the shrinking amount of Majors left are still in trouble.
To make deals for such extensive back catalogues and get Spotify off the ground, Daniel and the team had to make deals. I am sure we can agree that there is no problem there. They are hardly in bed with the majors, believe me.
Independent artists should look at Spotify, not with the view that “I get paid less, so it is a bad idea.” But “how can i use this tool for the benefit of my music career.”
Spotify is now becoming one of the biggest revenue streams for artists and from our experience, the artists who stream best on Spotify also sell more physical and digital sales. The artists who give away free music also stream best on Spotify AND sell more music on iTunes.
Musicians who can utilise all of these new tools will do well. Artists who fear change and complain about payouts, won’t.
Lee
http://www.dittomusic.com
lee@dittomusic.com
It’s interesting all these new companies popping up claiming to help out the unsigned artists with distribution, and then distributing them thru companies that have “deals” with major lables. The result being the unsigned artist gets a few cents and is told they should consider themselves lucky to be part of it. The streaming companies then get the attention of the unsigned bands fans for free, thus exposing them to their advertising, and creating profits for everyone except the unsigned artists.
In the old days labels would beg and even pay radio stations to play their music. And they were happy to do this while the radio station would make money for advertising.
Revenues for artists are down, but marketing costs have plummeted. Sites like Spotify ARE the new radio.
After years of the major labels being scared of streaming, its worries me that unsigned artists could now have the same mindset.
I guarantee you that we will be seeing more social media success stories from artists playing the game right. These are artist that study stats, streams, use Facebook ads correctly.
The artists who fail to adapt to sites like Spotify will be left behind.
lee@dittomusic.com
http://www.dittomusic.com
@dittomusic
Arrogant and insultingly malicious comments like this just make my blood boil, sorry.
Pretending that Spotify is just like radio and that artists should beg to be on it is so ridiculous i don’t even know where to begin. Radio ( have you ever listened to it ?) is one stream , chosen and decided by a dj ( or a commitee) that unfolds to a passive listener. You don’t get to choose what’s playing, or how many times it’s playing, wich ironically has the advantage of making you discover artists you would never heard of otherwise.
Spotify Is NOT just like a radio. There’s no real discovery mechanism that would expose you to music you never heard before. You choose the album or track you want to listen to, and that’s it. It’s like iTunes except the artists who serve as fodder get nothing. You can even keep as many albums as you want on your hardisk or mobile phone and listen to them offline if you pay the meager 5-10 euros monthly. It’s not even REMOTELY close to a radio comparison.
I live in Europe and we had Spotify for years, and over here , every one i know or heard of that got Spotify completely stopped buying music. Let me rephrase that for you: Spotify replaces the act of buying. Pretending otherwise is malicious at minimum.
Your arrogant aguments are in line with the actual trend of stripping every source of income from artists and replacing them with : “hey , we shouldn’t pay you anymore, YOU should beg us instead to let you in because , hey , consider it now as promo” . Even the touring income is lining up with this , more and more places are now asking musicians to Pay to Play live , because hey, you should be grateful for the promo you get, and instead you could make money on , uuh, tshirts.
Let me put this clearly to you , and to others : There is no “music industry” without musicians. You can’t build an industry on hot air. What are you going to sell ? Silent mp3’s ? Streams of 3 minutes of silent broadcasting ?
YOU (and countless others) should be grateful , because WE are the ones putting food in your mouth, and allowing Mr Daniel Ek’s Spotify to get a 1 billion dollar valuation. If he chooses to sell it today , he will exit with a couple hundreds millions in his pocket while the fodder that nourishes his machine is told to “be just grateful that we let you in, adapt or be left behind”
The new gatekeepers are just as worse as the old ones, only more openly arrogant .
Ghostwriter is right.
The problem is most people don’t really work in the music world, so take comments with a grain of salt.
The fact is, majors invented streaming and now control streaming via massive advances, etc.
How much are artists getting from streaming? Nada
Where is all the money going? To majors.
The FACTS are that artists who stream more sell more.
Artists that give away music for free sell more. The answer is not in Spotify revenue.
In 2000 major labels had the opportunity to adapt to piracy or perpetuate their current business model. They failed. Do not make the same mistake.
Calling me names is pointless. Yes, I am from a new generation of music industry professionals. We are here to embrace change and create new models.
While you sit here arguing about the dangers of Spotify , a kid in his bedroom somewhere is already inventing the next step of the process.
lee@dittomusic.com
http://www.dittomusic.com
I am a indie artist, being used Dittomusic, RouteNote and Record Union and have seen, though i am a small artist that its small money i can get from Spotify. But i don’t care, because i do music for fun and it is just awesome if i can bring my music to my fans easy as Spotify is.
Spotify is like iTunes yes, but stop discuss Spotify as a big fail with dangers. Spotify is a great channel to get contact with your fans. You will probably get more money in other channel if you have your music on Spotify. People will discover your music if you have your music on Spotify.
Or do you want people to download them illegal instead?
The big problem now, as we swedish as been seen a while now is the problem with ads and the, now, downgrade of the free account. People like ads, but not when it’s too much. We have so much ads as after 2 songs, in 60 seconds. And that is much more than tv ads in Sweden, where we have ads after 30 minutes in 2 minutes. Less ads, maybe more banners instead.
Spotify is much better and easy channel to discover music, a great place for indie artists.
and you’re saying this as the “ex-vice municipal leader for the swedish pirate party” ? … Uh..ok… I wouldn’t have expected otherwise from the Pirate Party. At least you’re consistent with your ideology.
I just find it extremely funny that while the Pirate Party would talk trash about the Majors, they would play the game of the UberMajor Spotify. Quite interesting…
“Something is rotten in the state of Sweden” ( Apologies to Shakespeare for the substitution.)
Your reality distortion field attempt is bewildering. Please leave that technique to Steve Jobs.
“in 2000 major labels had the opportunity to adapt to piracy or perpetuate their current business model. They failed. Do not make the same mistake.”
And they ( major labels) now control Spotify, the “future” of the music industry. We keep getting peanuts and on top of that we should be grateful.
“Do not make the same mistake”
You mean we ( artists ) should have bought and controlled Spotify instead ? That’s actually an excellent idea, seriously. We are a bit short in cash right now, thanks to you , but we are looking into it.
“Yes, I am from a new generation of music industry professionals. We are here to embrace change and create new models.”
Really ? All i see is a new generation of sharks thinking they’re ready to replace the old tired sharks. We, the new generation of musicians are still getting screwed like the old generation of musicians, except now we are told to say “Thank you Sir”
How are your models new ? They are fundamentaly the perfect replica of the old models, only dressed in more fashionable clothes. No amount of hype and marketing talk will hide that.
“While you sit here arguing about the dangers of Spotify , a kid in his bedroom somewhere is already inventing the next step of the process OF RIPPING OF MUSICIANS”. Here, i finished your phrase. And you don’t have to say Thanks.
Almost every word , every phrase , argument and intonation in your discourse just shows a profound disdain and condescendance towards musicians. That is almost the characteristic of the so called “new generation of music industry professionals” , whose dream is to superseed their old masters, to become emperors in place of kings.
To Ghostwriter;
Spotify can´t pay money it doesnt have. Simple as that. Last year they paid 60 millon dollars in royalties, and it will probably be a lot more this year. Building a streaming service and making a profit or a sustainable business is extremely hard (lala, imeem, Spiralfrog, Project Playlist, Myspace Music and lots more have failed and gone under) Rdio,Mog, Rhapsody are still around but have too few users to make a difference. If you want to get rich as an entrepreneur you don´t build a streaming service, thats for sure.
And if we are talking about money,Spotify at least makes more money for the artists than itunes in the countries where they have launched. Not a bad start.
“Spotify at least makes more money for the artists than itunes in the countries where they have launched. Not a bad start.”
You are absolutely the first person i’ve ever heard say that Spotify is making more money for the artists ( we’re talking about the artists right ? not the Majors that own Spotify) than iTunes. I think even Spotify themselves don’t pretend that. Do you have any links or documents to confirm that, because it’s a truly unique assertion.
Just because Spotify has a billion dollar evaluation, does not mean they have this money in the bank. Even to double pay outs would most likely bankrupt them at this stage. They are not getting rich off unsigned artists. It costs them money to hold and stream your music.
Comparing things like Spotify to the old model is ultimately pointless. The new model is here. If you don’t embrace it you will get left behind. I urge all artists reading this to do their research on Spotify and if anyone has any questions please feel free to email me.
I wish everyone the best in their music careers. Lets keep the debates healthy and the information flowing
lee@dittomusic.com
http://www.dittomusic.com
So who exactly is making the rules for this new “game” the artists must play? The streaming sites are not the new radio, they are designed to make gullable unsigned artists give their music away for almost nothing while the streamers and the ones who have deals with them profit.
On one hand , you have one of top Spotify music executive say :” Spotify is currently the biggest single revenue source for the music industry and is estimated to be over 3 times bigger than iTunes in Scandinavia.”
And on the other hand artists on Spotify are getting the lowest revenue ever from any source ( even Lady Gaga getting 160$ over 5 months and millions of plays ), and basically told by you and others ,” just shut up and be happy we let you work for us.”
So the industry is supposedly making more money than ever from Spotify, and musicians making less money than ever from Spotify.
Then we have you saying : “The new model is here. If you don’t embrace it you will get left behind.”
Well it’s pretty clear now what you mean by the “new model” .
I don’t think i have anything to add. I’m over.
Well done Ghostwriter well done 🙂
To Ghostwriter:
Those Lady Gaga numbers are from the first months of spotifys existence, when there was no mobile app driving premium subscriptions and Spotify wasn´t really established. But I think you already knew that…
If you follow swedish music press closely you know that if you, as an artist(not major label), make 150 000 dollars from recorded music, about thirty percent of that will be from Spotify (and its growing steadily). Considering that Spotify has only been in existence for about three years that is an amazing achievment.
If you are a skilled and talented musiscian making good music you will be heard because word spreads so fast these days. For a good musician its not difficult to get a million views on youtube, a couple of million streams on Spotify, create a dedicated following with thousands of fans that will do anything for you. If you are a bad musician, however, times are tough because theres no major label there to save you.
If you are a good musician, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.
Thanks for your great comments on both sides. I just added this post to add more voices to the debate: https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/07/two-views-of-spotify-opportunity-for-indie-artists-vs-major-labels-win-again-.html
My opinion? Consumers want streaming if its presented properly. Look at the success of You Tube. Time will tell if Spotify is “the answer”. But for now, this is the landscape; and we all need to figure out how to make it work for us.
Come on don’t come up with that Gaga Urban legend again. Spotify pays more than that.
Why doesn’t anyone comes up with some real data!
Lee Parsons for one knows that they pay about 0,22 Eurocent per stream to indie artists. Need proof? Check http://www.spotidj.com/blog/?p=198
Spotify does have a discovery mechanism! It is called playlists: one stream chosen and decided by a user. Looks a lot like radio to me, and it’s even better.
Lee, just checked my account at Dittomusic. Why do you now only show the revenue and not the number of streams. Any artist would like to know how many times a track has been streamed. Holding back this information makes Ditto look bad. We need the truth and real data!
Majors are now in control, more than ever.
Streaming revenue for a major in the form of upfront advance:
Spotify = $25 million
iTunes Cloud = $30 million
Etc.
You can add dozens, if not hundreds, of digital companies that majors are getting advances from.
I estimated hundreds of millions of dollars, in the form of advances, that has gone straight to the majors pockets.
Even Turntable.fm. uses Medianet’s catalog, which had to pay majors and advance.
“If you are a bad musician, however, times are tough because theres no major label there to save you.
If you are a good musician, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.”
Great remark!!
“If you are a good musician, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.”
Ha! That was a good one. Thanks, Jack, for the comic relief in a sea of straight-faced discussion.
There is so much competition amongst musical acts, so much oversaturation in the market, and such slim chances of earning a living making music, that artists, even the very good ones, have PLENTY to worry about.
Johan Lagerlöf, the CEO, Co-Founder of X5 Music Group on Hypebot a few days ago:
“Spotify is currently the biggest single revenue source for the music industry and is estimated to be over 3 times bigger than iTunes in Scandinavia.”
This is (obviously) nonsense. Spotify is currently the biggest single DIGITAL revenue source for the (swedish) RECORD industry.
But what about the music publishers? Is Spotify the biggest single digital revenue source for the swedish music publishers? Or do they make more money from other sources, for example CDs,radio, TV or even iTunes?
Swedish record labels made around $60 million last year from digital sources. This was about 30% of total sales.
How many of these millions did reach the artists?
Did Spotify kill piracy? Or did it kill legitimate sales (digital sales were only up 15%, CD (album) sales were down 22,1% in 2010)? The whole market (including Spotify) was down 4,2%.
So I have it, and it’s exactly like Grooveshark. Slightly better interface with all the related artists and a look sort of like the iTunes music store, and it’s a little faster. We’ve had Grooveshark for years, don’t see any big difference here, so I don’t really see how this is significant in any way. This service fights a decent amount of piracy, but people are still going to download their favorite music because they don’t want to have to pay to transport it around and put it on iPods.
Spotify – NOT worth the hype.
Nobody sold anything in Scandinavia.
Sweden? Completely socialist country. Record companies never sold much there, that’s why Spotify is # 2 for revenue.
Sweden is almost Russia at this point in terms of people buying things.
So, Swedish sales are not a good measure of anything.
Swedish fish and Abba. Holy God!
Spotify also has a shafting mechanism!
“They are not getting rich off unsigned artists.” No, they are getting rich off artists in general. Artists provide the content, content which attracts consumers, and get nothing in return.
But it doesn’t matter, for the truth is, Spotify needs artists but artists don’t need Spotify.
Just wanted to show my appreciation here for you being the voice of reason in this discussion.
Many thanks Ghostwriter!
Of course ads aren’t problem when paying for the service. The free account is like a demo of the service anyway.
I’d be curious to know the ratio of free/paying subscribers now but that’s probably a business secret.
How will you ever know that you have REAL data?
Interesting and important discussion here. I think what needs to be remembered is that we’re in the early phase with all this, so while artists might currently be finding that being on Spotify increases music sales, the long-term results will be very different if, as many pundits claim, streaming replaces downloads entirely.
I wrote about this several weeks ago on Musicthinktank in a post called ‘Winner Takes All – If We Let Them’, if anyone wants to check that out.
You do need Spotify.
Unless you have an easier way of distributing and streaming your music to what will be most of the US and Europe pretty soon, then this is a great tool for doing so.
Would anyone use Spotify if there was no recognised label content on there? No
Will artists discover unsigned artists while they are looking for their favorite bands, possibly.
The fact is, Spotify needs major label content to be successful, it does not need unsigned content. So you aren’t “providing the content which attracts consumers” , major labels are.
This gives you the opportunity to sandwich your music between music people have already heard of. To get recommendations, to get onto playlists.
It is a great tool for unsigned musicians, do not disregard it.
lee@dittomusic.com
http://www.dittomusic.com
“Would anyone use Spotify if there was no recognised label content on there? No
Will artists discover unsigned artists while they are looking for their favorite bands, possibly.”
Great comment! Agree completely.
“The fact is, Spotify needs major label content to be successful, it does not need unsigned content. So you aren’t “providing the content which attracts consumers” , major labels are.
This gives you the opportunity to sandwich your music between music people have already heard of. To get recommendations, to get onto playlists.”
Agree with this also. Its all about creating platforms where everybody is willing to spend their precious time like Youtube, and (perhaps to a lesser degree though) Itunes. How many artists are considering leaving Youtube because of initially low payouts? None. Did people start to visit Youtube to watch unsigned or independ artists? Absolutely not. It was (illegaly uploaded?) mainstream content that drew the audience. But now there are tons of independent material on Youtube that people watch and engage with.
Creating a platform is the most important thing. Look how Itunes revolutionized independent media by allowing podcasts on their (also mainstream-driven) platform. Five years ago few people knew what a podcast was. Today independently produced podcast-shows gets hundreds of thousands of downloads each week from Itunes, giving the creators an audience that was impossible before.
Spotify (unlike Mog, Rdio, Rhapsody,Napster and Grooveshark)has the potential to become a new big platform where millions of people spend their time. Thats great news for everybody that wants to reach out and be heard.
There are plenty of places on the internet to give you music away for free 🙂
the sad fact?
Spotify pays EVEN LESS than a YouTube partnership…
It has potential.. but at this point the revenue to the artist/songwriter isn’t Nearly enough to justify signing up. Pandora is a streaming service. Spotify is an “On Demand” streaming service… you should have to pay a premium for that privledge. (btw Pandora pays more… that should tell you something about the accounting at Spotify…)
http://www.swedishwire.com/business/687-spotify-overtakes-apples-itunes
true for sweden (but not anywhere else yet)
Why do we NEED Spotify or NEED iTunes or NEED Facebook or any of this other crap?!?! We don’t… at all. “They”- and I mean the Sean Parkers and Ditto Lee’s of the world, want us all to buy in to these services which are nothing more than an UNEVEN transaction in which the public and the artists are exploited.
Akin to “Heyyy use this for totally free.. it’s freee maaaaaan” There’s always another side to a ‘bargain’ like that. Would you take something ‘free’ from a random dude on the street without second guessing it or wondering what the catch might be?
And then there’s other scare tactics like “You’ve got to get on our bandwagon, or you’ll be LEFT BEHIND.” oooooooooooh scaaaaaary. Only works because people are scared into it. What a bunch of conniving bastards who happen to be very adept at sales and social conditioning.
Lucky for them, THE WORLD is becoming socially conditioned, and therefore, easily manipulated.
I think that´s the problem. Two or three (at the most) technically perfect , socially driven and user-friendly platforms would have the largest chance of catching a huge audience.
And those evil and nerdy techguys built Myspace too!! Thats pretty evil. Conditioning bands into thinking that they need an audience. That they should have a prescence on the Internet. The Internet! Give me a break! It´s just for manboys living with their parents.¨
Im a musician and therefore a genius. Isn´t that supposed to be enough? I will only be impressed by a smelly internet geed dude when he creates a service where I can teleport my insanely great melodies and arrangements into the heads of the hoi polloi. Making them crawl into my livingroom and paying me money (it costs money to create great music if you didnt know). Then I´ll be impressed. Maybe.
No way, Myspace was NOT evil. It was probably the best thing to happen to society since fire. Look at how useful it is today. People are using it everyday to go to work, enrich society, and save the world.
So why don’t you go and name some revolutionary bands who have changed the face of music and who will be put on a pedestal as musical legends forever, all via the Internet?
Oh that’s right, you can’t! Because there aren’t any. Music is increasingly worthless background noise.
Great job!
The crowning achievements of culture were all made pre-Internet. We’re now past the era of music and art mattering. Once digital, they’re infinitely abundant. For commodities, infinite abundance equals worthlessness. Is air worth anything? Next down on the list is water- less than a penny per glass but still MORE than the playing/streaming of a song!
Yes:
Music is the TAP WATER of the 21st century.
Oh and it doesn’t cost money to make great music. Costs talent. You got it aaaaaall wrong buddy.. another brain dead victim of our globalized made-in-china gadget-based society.
What the world needs is MORE social networking, and MORE things made in China to facilitate the social networking. That’ll save us.
Market forces will decide which platforms will succeed and they will have to be “technically perfect, socially driven and user-friendly” as you mention but most importantly they will have to be platforms that justly compensate the copyright owners of the music that they use. This is the sticking point and why we don’t have a platform that works so far. Also the advertising side and or subscriptions of these models have to be worked out so that they can help cover the cost of the just royalties. Everyone has to win the advertisers, the platform owners, the music consumers, and most importantly the copyright owners because with out them there is nothing but silence………..
The enforcing of copyright law in Sweden has shifted the music “acquirers” from the illegal sites to the legal option streaming.
There is an old trick where you destroy something so that when there is any small improvement it looks good. The problem is it is nowhere near as good as what it was before it was deliberately destroyed to achieve this deceptive outcome.
The law should of been enforced from day one globaly, so people who would of normaly paid for music were not conditioned into stealing it. This goes for all copyrighted material music, movies, photos ect.
Nice observation 🙂
Here’s a link to Catherine’s story http://www.musicthinktank.com/mtt-open/winner-takes-all-if-we-let-them.html
Jumping into the conversation here – I could name a host of artists who are now making more money through Spotify (and indeed streaming services as a whole) than a la carte stores, especially in the Nordics.
If we didn’t see value in the service for our artists and labels, we wouldn’t have licensed them. Otherwise we’re turkeys voting for Christmas.
Lee from Ditto is spot-on.
Chris Duncan
The Orchard
Have you actually read the article you are linking to ?
““In five months from the launch Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes”, Per Sundin, head of Universal in Sweden, told the newswire.”
So apparently this confirms that Spotify and the Majors that own it are making loads of money. Ok.
The artists ( especially if you are an indie) are not seeing any of it and are just told by everybody here that artists should not expect any monies from it and just treat it as promo and “embrace it or be left behind”, as someone here been repeating like a mantra.
I have seen Spotify premium streams worth more than 1 cent (US) from Finland and Norway. And I don’t work for a major.
Last night I fell asleep in pile of old issues of Mojo, Uncut and Rolling Stone. Had a dream. Woke up, grabbed my guitar. Laying on my back I wrote “Vinyl is the way”.
When Bob Dylan farts he creates meaning. But only on vinyl. Not like today when Nashville outsources banjoplayers to China where they sit in big hangars staring at the wall, strumming the strings for a pittance. Streaming their songs to a world that won´t listen. Their tears eroding the musical foundation created by The Stones,The Beatles, The Who and Robert Zimmerman. The last true artists. All gone now. Thanks to nerds.
I need a whiskey.
I agree with what you are saying.
But I think for the advertisers to become seriously interested the platform must be huge. Like Facebook or Youtube. Spotify is still relatively small with their 10 million users but have still managed to produce significat revenues for indpedent artists in the markets where they have been available the longest, as Chris Duncan from The Orchard pointed out earlier in the comments. I think thats impressive (especially since the company is in its growing face) and thats why I think Spotify has the best potential for becoming the premier music platform in the future.
In two years, when they´ve launched in Asia and more European countries, maybe they will have a hundred million users (which with the curren conversion rates means 16 million paying customers a month). Then they will truly win the advertisers and be able to pay larger streaming rates (or perhaps better, percentage of their total revenue). But then clock is ticking. I think Spotify needs to be given room to grow now. New torrenting technologies are on the way and things may change completely once again. Heres an interesting clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnHn29WCaJw
its all about the advances and delivery fees – the artists dont see any of it
Hi
I have some questions for both Lee and Chris, hope they’re still around.
I totally understand why Spotify had to sign special deals with majors, in order to have access to their huge back catalog. It was a necessary compromise, ok.
However, it seems there is huge disparities in the deals done inside the “indie worlds” too. And that is much more difficult to understand/accept.
SpotiDJ (huge spotify fan) points on his website that he’s getting 0,22 cents per stream, no matter if these streams are fee users streams or subscribers streams. It is already quite surprising, as we all know subscribers are bringing much more money to Spotify, and Spotify PR guys said many times subscribers streams would bring more money to labels/bands too. SpotiDJ is using Zimbaland to represent him. The cut Zimbaland takes isn’t specified.
He then mention another band, using Cd Baby to represent him, and it is now totally different : around 0,1 cent per stream for free users streams, and 1,06 cents for subscribers streams. The cut Cd Baby takes is 10%.
So my questions are :
1) What deal do you have ? How much do the labels/artists you represent earn per stream ?
2) What deal does Merlin (biggest indie aggregator) has ?
3) Do you even have the right to tell us, or does Spotify made you sign NDA’s too ? Sorry for asking, but the fact that you never use precise numbers to consolidate your arguments is quite peculiar.
4) If spotify truly cares about indie labels and indie artists, why do they have different deals amidst the independent companies ? Why are they creating a system where big indies and small indies are not earning the same ? Who forced them ? Not the majors, i think.
The lasts questions are for everyone, including myself. We all read the Guardian’s article pointing out that spotify was ripping off small indie labels/artists. And then we all read the answer of Spotify PR guy, telling us “oh no, we love indie labels, they are crucial to us, i promise”, WITHOUT GIVING NOR ANY PRECISE FIGURES, NOR ANY REAL ARGUMENTED DECONSTRUCTION of what the guardian was saying.
So
5) Even if the service is great, can we blindly trust a company which, while saying us “indies are crucial”, never gave any precise and complete info on how much EVERYONE is gonna be retributed ? Do they think we are too stupid to understand ? Can we trust a company which choosed to be so obscure and secretive and non-egalitarian, even in its early age ? How are they going to act when they will be huge ?
Hi
I have some questions for both Lee and Chris, hope they’re still around.
I totally understand why Spotify had to sign special deals with majors, in order to have access to their huge back catalog. It was a necessary compromise, ok.
However, it seems there is huge disparities in the deals done inside the “indie worlds” too. And that is much more difficult to understand/accept.
SpotiDJ (huge spotify fan) points on his website that he’s getting 0,22 cents per stream, no matter if these streams are fee users streams or subscribers streams. It is already quite surprising, as we all know subscribers are bringing much more money to Spotify, and Spotify PR guys said many times subscribers streams would bring more money to labels/bands too. SpotiDJ is using Zimbaland to represent him. The cut Zimbaland takes isn’t specified.
He then mention another band, using Cd Baby to represent him, and it is now totally different : around 0,1 cent per stream for free users streams, and 1,06 cents for subscribers streams. The cut Cd Baby takes is 10%.
So my questions are :
1) What deal do you have ? How much do the labels/artists you represent earn per stream ?
2) What deal does Merlin (biggest indie aggregator) has ?
3) Do you even have the right to tell us, or does Spotify made you sign NDA’s too ? Sorry for asking, but the fact that you never use precise numbers to consolidate your arguments is quite peculiar.
4) If spotify truly cares about indie labels and indie artists, why do they have different deals amidst the independent companies ? Why are they creating a system where big indies and small indies are not earning the same ? Who forced them ? Not the majors, i think.
The lasts questions are for everyone, including myself. We all read the Guardian’s article pointing out that spotify was ripping off small indie labels/artists. And then we all read the answer of Spotify PR guy, telling us “oh no, we love indie labels, they are crucial to us, i promise”, WITHOUT GIVING NOR ANY PRECISE FIGURES, NOR ANY REAL ARGUMENTED DECONSTRUCTION of what the guardian was saying.
So
5) Even if the service is great, can we blindly trust a company which, while saying us “indies are crucial”, never gave any precise and complete info on how much EVERYONE is gonna be retributed ? Do they think we are too stupid to understand ? Can we trust a company which choosed to be so obscure and secretive and non-egalitarian, even in its early age ? How are they going to act when they will be huge ?
Yes, we do have NDAs – as with all our retailers.
Hey Chris.
I really think these NDAs doesn’t help anyone. More and more indie artists and labels are saying what they earn through spotify anyway, so it is just ridiculous…
The Orchard has a deal comparable to CD baby, except you take a bigger cut, hehe (but i suppose you do more than cd baby in order to defend and push forward the labels/artists you represent). I suppose Merlin has a slightly better deal, and then all the Spotidj of the world are getting a ridiculous “no difference for free user or subscribers users” deal.
The “1 cent per subscriber streaming your song deal” is decent, or will be, if % of subscribers grow as in Nordic countries. Average consumer on spotify listen to 600 songs a month, so 6 euros on a 10 euros subscription go to the labels (for the band, then, that depends : 50 % of these 6 euros will go to the band if you’re on a cool indie such as Drag City, around 10-15% if you have a bad deal with a major). So Spotify takes a 40% cut, which is big but understandable for now.
The deal for smaller indies is a joke, and show how much indies are “crucial” to spotify.