D.I.Y.

Spotify Wants To Enable Fans To Tip Artists

image from cdn.pixabay.comMany sites empower users to make micropayments to creators. China's Tencent Music already has a massive tip-like program returning revenue to artists. Based on a recent earnings call, Spotify wants to get into this business, as well. Exactly how they'll do it, however, remains a question, writes music attorney and artist advocate Chris Castle.

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Guest post by Chris Castle of Music Tech Solutions

MTS readers will recall my post on what I called “Ethical Props” (OK, OK, not the best moniker I’ve ever come up with, but you’ll get the idea if you read the “Ethical Pool” post).  The concept is an expansion of the micropayments that TenCent (and lots of other sites in other businesses) permits on its music platform.  The question presented was whether Spotify would adopt a similar structure and how they would treat artists. That’s a serious question, by the way.

It turns out that the issue came up on Spotify’s latest earnings call, and was foreshadowed by Daniel Ek’s interest in Facebook’s Libra currency.  Stuart Dredge at Music Ally reports that the subject did come up:

Spotify IS interested in ways for fans to tip artists

Earlier this month, Spotify’s chief premium business officer Alex Norström hintedthat the company was exploring the idea of new ways for artists to make money on its service: “You can add stuff on top like micro-payments, a la carte, prepaid plans for different contexts…”

Ek was asked about direct monetisation such as tipping during the earnings call today. “It’s something that we’re overall interested in. We definitely look at it as part of the scope of the types of marketplace tools that you can expect,” he said. “You should expect us to try a lot of things… it certainly could be very interesting specifically for a lot of artists…”

First…does anyone know what a “chief premium business officer” is?  I’m not familiar with that one, although my best is that they probably office next to the “chief exposure business officer.”

Quick review–Mr. Ek’s buddies at TenCent have made quite a business of “tipping” which explains why Ek is interested:

2Simply put, Tencent allows users (all users, subscription or ad-supported service) to make virtual gifts in the form of micropayments directly to artists they love.  (The feature is actually broader than cash and applies to all content creators, but let’s stay with these socially-driven micropayments to artists or songwriters.)

 
Tencent, of course, makes serious bank on these system-wide micropayments.  As Jim Cramer noted in “Mad Money” last week:
 
“Tencent Music is a major part of the micropayment ecosystem because they let you give virtual gifts,” Cramer said. “If you want to tip your favorite blogger with a song, you do it through Tencent Music. In the latest quarter we have numbers for, 9.5 million users spent money on virtual gifts, and these purchases accounted for more than 70 percent of Tencent Music’s revenue.”

 

And that’s real money.  Tencent actually made this into a selling point in their IPO prospectus:  “We are pioneering the way people enjoy online music and music-centric social entertainment services. We have demonstrated that users will pay for personalized, engaging and interactive music experiences. Just as we value our users, we also respect those who create music. This is why we champion copyright protection-because unless content creators are rewarded for their creative work, there won’t be a sustainable music entertainment industry in the long run. Our scale, technology and commitment to copyright protection make us a partner of choice for artists and content owners.”
How Spotify will approach the subject has a lot to do with how they perceive their artist relations problems.  The chances are good that Spotify don’t think they have an artist relations problem.
 
But they do.  As I often say, if screw ups were Easter eggs, Daniel Ek would be the Easter Bunny, hopping from one to another until he had picked them all up in his basket.  (A nondenominational Easter bunny, of course.)
 
He could either pass through 100% of the “tip” which would make it “Ethical” as we define it, or he could take a cut like TenCent which wouldn’t.
 
The dreaded Apple is already in the act to a degree:
[TenCent’s] micropayments reportedly influenced Apple to change its in-app purchase policies, which make a good guideline for putting the “ethical” into an Ethical Prop:
 
“Apps may enable individual users to give a monetary gift to another individual without using in-app purchase, provided that (a) the gift is a completely optional choice by the giver, and (b) 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. However, a gift that is connected to or associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services must use in-app purchase.”

(That’s section 3.2.1(vii) in Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines for those reading along at home.)

So watch this space – let’s see what choices they make.

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