Aloe Blac on Streaming Services

[Brian]

DJ_Enki said:JonnyPaycheck said: the unfortunate reality is





- the technology exists


- the RIAA and the Government have no interest in changing or regulating it


- people believe music should be free.







There it is. And on that third point, there's really no going back, especially as younger generations didn't even experience this changeover from "you pay for music" to "music should be free" and are coming up in a world that entirely believes the latter and can't wrap its head around the former.





And let's say more big names follow Taylor Swift's lead and pull their stuff off streaming services. Know what the reaction will be? "Oh, these rich assholes are whining that they aren't becoming somehow richer. Fuck them." Remember what everybody said to/about Lars Ulrich when he piped up about Napster? Yeah.




lars didn't have a united front, was a complete asshole about it and basically accused fans of being thieves. big difference. also the new ambassador to new york could take a dump on stage and still have fans so idk





there really is no real way to make the economics of streaming services work for artists as a record sales replacement (which they're essentially serving as right now). they would have to 100s of multiples of what they earn now AND owners would have to take a much smaller cut AND on top of that it would cost a hell of a lot more then.

 

[Brian]

HarveyCanal said:Within recent years, it seems more and more often that I'm doing an artist a favor by listening to their music. Rather than me seeking out a product that I already desire, the product is constantly cold-calling me and begging me to somehow consume it, typically at no charge. And I don't think that just pertains to me personally. It seems that the whole environment has changed into that, with far too many artists basically treating their entire careers as an extended Glamour Shots session. It's all too clearly become fame over substance and thus, I cans see how people perceive music nowadays to have little to no monetary value.


it's part fame and partially nature of online distribution that really didn't work until youtube/soundcloud took off. if your music cost near 0 to produce (bootleg software, shitty mic) and it costs near 0 to distribute, why wouldn't you blast it all over?

 

[Jonny_Paycheck]

to Brian's point above, Spotify is allegedly paying out 70% of their budget on royalties - so the issue isn't totally that Spotify is making money hand over fist at artists' expense. the only way to increase artist revenue in that case would be to make the service itself substantially more expensive on the consumer end. Maybe that should happen, but absent some entity forcing that issue - musicians, the RIAA, the federal government, rights orgs such as BMI/ASCAP - it will never happen.





Is Spotify even profitable as a company?

 

[Brian]

dont think anyone is really concerned that they're profitable as long as they can cash out with an IPO





spotify is lucky to be even able to charge subscription fees mostly because of offline play and sort of because of ad-free (although im sure we've all been to spots that play shit with ads blaring). barring any tangible improvement beyond that, there is 0 chance they will increase rates in a manner that actually makes a dent.

 

[yuichi]

Don't use Spotify. I sample clips on Youtube yes, and listen at work.





As JP touched on briefly, for every conscious effort you can make to do the right thing, there are a 100 other things you can become aware of and act upon. Music is probably one of the last things the general public would expend energy or money on to, "do the right thing".





Playing Devil's advocate, as Cosmo states "if no one can produce music anymore because it would just be too costly, what would happen?", then you only have the last 50+ years of recorded music to purchase, second-hand or otherwise. Is it "realistic" for someone now to purchase every single MP3 they want and a few CDs/records a month? Probably not. I think it also has to do with the times, as other journalists in various other sectors of music and entertainment have mentioned. Music competes with TV, movies, food, and all that other mess; and vice versa.





One can also argue that because of the internet, you have overnight indie label successes all over the place now...Just turn on KCRW (Cali station). Albeit, the shit I listen to especially on KCRW in the morning is rather mellow and soft, and sounds all the same, I'm sure these bands and producers can make a decent living with the glossy gatefold LPs and touring and merchandise, and licensing and the plethora of local or regional Coachella-spurned music festivals out there.





A portion of the blame can be perhaps put on EDM artists too for "devaluing" music? You think Steve Aoki or Skrillex or Avici or our main man Diplo gives a fuck about the loss of revenue due to illegal downloading or streaming? They're making $100K+ a show or something right. Everyone's getting it, while the the getting's good. Shit will crumble eventually, or not! Maybe Vegas and the rest of the country will stay Ibiza and we will forever be exposed to "Up for whatever".





As a consumer, completely speaking out of my ass, i think it's just on the artists to get creative with the changed landscape, whether it's fucked up or not...





Great topic and love reading what the heavyweights who are more invested in the music biz have to say though.

 

[Grafwritah]

DJ_Enki said:And let's say more big names follow Taylor Swift's lead and pull their stuff off streaming services.




I really wonder how much that will even matter. In the end is Taylor Swift's music really much better than anyone else's? It's not bad, but is it so standout that she should be selling millions of records over the thousands of other talented artists out there? I don't think so. A large part of her success is the promotional machine behind her. Yanking her music from venues only decreases the effectiveness of the promotional machine, and people aren't going to stop listening to music. Some other person with equal talent will fill in the gap.





In fact, some popular music is downright awful. Young Thug? Who seriously thinks he is better than the many, many other rappers out there? It's all promotion. And from that perspective I don't have much sympathy for them.





All that is happening now is the playing field is leveling. Too bad for them.

 

[DocMcCoy]

This is worth a read for anyone seeking a handy and not-too-opinionated digest of the squillions of words written on this subject as it relates to Taylor Swift;





http://imgntn.tumblr.com/post/101994052897/tswizzle





It appears T-Swizzy wanted to ring-fence her new album so it was only available to paid subscribers, and when Spotify told her this wasn't possible, she yanked the lot. One musician friend of mine has pointed out that the writer of the above piece (and, indeed, most people) seems to be unaware that, for publishing income, there are different royalty rates on Spotify between paid-for and free streams (£1 per 600 plays on paid-for vs. 3000 on the free service). It's quite possible this applies to recording royalties as well. Assuming for a moment that it does, it'll be interesting if a major label (as opposed to an artist) ever decides they'd like to ring-fence their entire catalogue.





As for the “traditional radio play vs. streaming” side of the debate, by my understanding, streaming rates for publishing were modelled upon broadcast rates for radio, despite many publishers thinking they weren't truly comparable. In the UK, broadcast rates have plummeted as audience figures have fallen. A guy I know who no longer depends on music for his living but was in a band that were hugely successful in the early 80s recently observed on FB that payments for a single play on BBC daytime radio are now about half what they were when his old band were at their peak. But the comparison between income for radio play and Spotify/Pandora isn't really like-for-like. Nicki Minaj's Anaconda got 252m plays via her official YouTube/Vevo channel, which generated 126k in publishing income. While this doesn't look like a lot, it may not necessarily be unfair, especially if you treat each streaming play as a “per ear reached” thing, rather than one play on a radio station with a catchment area of, say, 5m. An artist like Nicki will likely get regular payments directly from YouTube on top of that, which will sweeten the pill and perhaps make her less likely to ask awkward questions about how her royalties are calculated.





Which brings me to what's probably the least-asked question surrounding this entire debate; how come everyone always singles out Spotify for opprobrium, yet happily waves YouTube through every time? Some of you will be aware that a great deal of the content on YouTube, particularly the stuff controlled by majors, is blocked here in Germany. This is usually portrayed as GEMA, the German mechanical/performing rights society, simply being another cog in the worldwide conspiracy by The Man to prevent Tha Kidz from Rockin'. But whilst GEMA are in many respects almost a clichéd example of German bureaucracy and certainly not without flaws, the solution to this particular problem lies elsewhere. Under the terms of GEMA's membership agreement, they are obliged to produce, upon demand, a detailed breakdown of precisely how their members' royalties are calculated and what they're for. YouTube refuses to supply the information which would enable GEMA to do this, on the grounds that this is “commercially sensitive” data, and so GEMA refuses to license its membership's works for use on YouTube's platform. Now, far be it from me to suggest that there might be another reason why YouTube are being so cagey, and to be fair I hear that YouTube payments are generally higher than Spotify. But after a few years working in royalty processing, I do know they're not that much higher, and that if a few artists as prominent as, say, Taylor Swift were to hold them up to proper scrutiny, it might not only be Spotify copping all the flak.





Essentially, though, this debate suffers heavily from two things; not enough people who really know what they're talking about, and too many sweeping, reductionist, click-bait headlines that distort the picture and ignore how nuanced and complex an issue it actually is. There's a Salon piece I can't find the link to right now which glibly suggests that the biz is simply reflecting society at large - the 1% (Minaj, Taylor Swift, Adele etc) make all the money and the 99% are on course for medieval peonage. This overlooks the fact that new models and options are emerging, of which stories like this represent the teething problems, and which mean it won't necessarily be just the big players who win out. Chief Keef is an artist for whom the old business doesn't really exist, and who owes a significant chunk of his success to the effectiveness of established independent digital platforms like Livemixtapes or Dat Piff, the modern equivalent of mom-and-pop distribution. He's just made four – FOUR – new mixtapes available via his official YouTube channel, although I'm not sure if he's done this exclusively. I have an idea of what his motivation is here, but I'd like to hear it from him or his management.

 

[prof_rockwell]

I was always under the impression that musicians made the bulk of their income from touring, outside of those big names whose catalogs always sell well?





I have a friend who is a professional keyboardist, and we had lunch recently, and he basically echoed this. He didn't deny that musicians made more money back in the day from album sales, but the 'real money' was always in shows/touring.

 

[Controller_7]

On the Working podcast, there's one with the dude from They Might Be Giants and he sheds some some light on touring income. It's pretty interesting. They've got a big, sustained following and he says it's hard to make money on tour.

 

[Grafwritah]

DocMcCoy said:As for the “traditional radio play vs. streaming” side of the debate, by my understanding, streaming rates for publishing were modelled upon broadcast rates for radio, despite many publishers thinking they weren't truly comparable. In the UK, broadcast rates have plummeted as audience figures have fallen.




AFAIK radio plays in the US result in a whopping $0.00 royalty for artists.

 

[DocMcCoy]

Grafwritah saidocMcCoy said:As for the “traditional radio play vs. streaming” side of the debate, by my understanding, streaming rates for publishing were modelled upon broadcast rates for radio, despite many publishers thinking they weren't truly comparable. In the UK, broadcast rates have plummeted as audience figures have fallen.




AFAIK radio plays in the US result in a whopping $0.00 royalty for artists.




What, no ASCAP or BMI money?

 

[Jonny_Paycheck]

In theory those things pay you - in practice the rights orgs are mostly attuned to the biggest acts/earners and at this point there are very few terrestrial radio options that play obscure independent music, those that do have to manually report. It's definitely easier for your average small-time artist to get paid via Internet spins or sync licenses than traditional radio in this day and age.





Case in point, I got a totally unexpected check in the mail from BMI a while back and it turns out it was for royalties from some random indie flick that licensed an instrumental from the Soul Purpose record. It eclipsed the sum of all checks we got from college radio back when the record was actually out...

 

[DOR]

Spotifys response.





http://www.spotifyartists.com/2-billion-and-counting/?utm_content=bufferbf221&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer








Paid out $2 billion to labels? Swift $6 million a year? I wonder how much of that is actually going to artist.








I don't actually see it as benificial for artist to put blame on these services if numbers like these are correct. Shouldn't the focus be more on the deals they sign with labels?

 

[Grafwritah]

DocMcCoy said:Grafwritah saidocMcCoy said:As for the “traditional radio play vs. streaming” side of the debate, by my understanding, streaming rates for publishing were modelled upon broadcast rates for radio, despite many publishers thinking they weren't truly comparable. In the UK, broadcast rates have plummeted as audience figures have fallen.




AFAIK radio plays in the US result in a whopping $0.00 royalty for artists.




What, no ASCAP or BMI money?




http://www.americansongwriter.com/2013/10/songwriter-u-time-pay-artists-labels-fm-radio/





Apparently performers receive no royalties, just songwriters. I didn't even think it was that.

 

[drbrownscelray]

My crew is joining this: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/business/media/new-venture-seeks-higher-royalties-for-songwriters.html?_r=0





It's by far the most well thought out and elegant/likely to succeed solution to streaming on the performance side. It is also admittedly very much only for the "1%". However SESAC also isn't covered by the consent decree and so I predict a massive exodus from BMI and ASCAP to SESAC and also a concomitant creation of a dozen other new P.R.O.'s that are likewise not hampered by the idiocy of the Federal government.





PS, the equivalent radio audience to a #1-10 song on Spotify or Pandora would be about 10 times the largest audience on Top 40/CHR what-have-you and yet on the performance royalty side that song would be worth literally 1/1000 of a song with equivalent radio chart position.





PPS, the labels don't fight streaming because it has increased their bottom line substantially due to the much larger royalty they receive on the master side than artists, and also the so-called "black box" settlement payouts. The artists get fucked in the piehole majorly.





PPPS- Hi.

 

[Duderonomy]

Is Dr Brown's Cel-Ray a celery-based soft drink?

 

[prof_rockwell]

Tangential but relevant:





http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/12/the-shazam-effect/382237/?single_page=true

Because the most-popular songs now stay on the charts for months, the relative value of a hit has exploded. The top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn 77 percent of all revenue from recorded music, media researchers report. And even though the amount of digital music sold has surged, the 10 best-selling tracks command 82 percent more of the market than they did a decade ago. The advent of do-it-yourself artists in the digital age may have grown music’s long tail, but its fat head keeps getting fatter.

 

[Duderonomy]

prof_rockwell said:Tangential but relevant:





http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/12/the-shazam-effect/382237/?single_page=true

Because the most-popular songs now stay on the charts for months, the relative value of a hit has exploded. The top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn 77 percent of all revenue from recorded music, media researchers report. And even though the amount of digital music sold has surged, the 10 best-selling tracks command 82 percent more of the market than they did a decade ago. The advent of do-it-yourself artists in the digital age may have grown music’s long tail, but its fat head keeps getting fatter.

Depressing. But I'm so glad I don't listen to the radio!