How To Make Streaming Royalties Fair(er)
November 21, 2014 4:30 PM Subscribe
Does this involve giving more money to artists? Because in the real world, that will never fly.
posted by eriko at 4:45 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by eriko at 4:45 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
It involves distributing the same money to artists (or labels, I guess) according to a different, more complicated scheme.
posted by Artw at 4:48 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 4:48 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm not quite getting the outrage: Artists are paid when their songs are paid. Since some people don't subscribe, subscriber money has to pay for that.
The model this article is arguing for would mean that when a non-subscriber plays a song the artist gets no money for it, which also seems unfair. Unless I'm misreading.
It's not even especially clear that smaller artists would make more money under this model like the author is arguing, since that would require assuming that subscribers listen to smaller artists more than non-subscribers?
Am I missing something? I'm rereading the numbers which seem to have some arbitrary percentages assumed about how many people listen to different artists but I don't see how else this would add up.
The author also seems to have a problem with popular music? Which is a shame since electronic music is popular now and electronic music is lovely. :)
posted by savagerose at 4:48 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
The model this article is arguing for would mean that when a non-subscriber plays a song the artist gets no money for it, which also seems unfair. Unless I'm misreading.
It's not even especially clear that smaller artists would make more money under this model like the author is arguing, since that would require assuming that subscribers listen to smaller artists more than non-subscribers?
Am I missing something? I'm rereading the numbers which seem to have some arbitrary percentages assumed about how many people listen to different artists but I don't see how else this would add up.
The author also seems to have a problem with popular music? Which is a shame since electronic music is popular now and electronic music is lovely. :)
posted by savagerose at 4:48 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
The situation described in the article seems so obvious that there must be some important detail missing. Is there some dramatically increased overhead as a result of the new system of apportioning revenue? Do major-label artists drop out of the conversation because they aren't making as much money as before? What's the disincentive? There has to be one.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 4:49 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 4:49 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
Savagerose: subscription fees are apportioned evenly to the total number of plays by all subscribers- so if I pay $10 and am a devoted follower and only listen to X band who NOBODY ELSE listens to, they get $0, even though I am paying $10 to listen to them. Instead my money gets split between a zillion artists I don't listen to. It's like If I went to the supermarket, bought some radishes, and Coca Cola got the money.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 4:51 PM on November 21, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 4:51 PM on November 21, 2014 [10 favorites]
I suspect if you scale up it's more work and overhead to get more or less the same result.
posted by Artw at 4:52 PM on November 21, 2014
posted by Artw at 4:52 PM on November 21, 2014
The author also seems to have a problem with popular music?
Does expressing awareness or interest in unpopular music constitute having a "problem" with popular music?
posted by anazgnos at 4:54 PM on November 21, 2014
Does expressing awareness or interest in unpopular music constitute having a "problem" with popular music?
posted by anazgnos at 4:54 PM on November 21, 2014
I'm quite into this idea so I'm keen to see people poke holes in it.
I love that it really encourages the "true fan" model of patronage. Your 1000 true fans who listen to your jams all the time are now really contributing something meaningful to your bottom line.
The biggest issue I see is that this model would be more prone to gaming — the potential reward for artists is a lot higher. A band could get all their fans to listen to their music on repeat overnight; the percentage of their subscriber fee that goes to the artist goes through the roof while they can still spend their days listening to whatever they want.
posted by wemayfreeze at 4:56 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
I love that it really encourages the "true fan" model of patronage. Your 1000 true fans who listen to your jams all the time are now really contributing something meaningful to your bottom line.
The biggest issue I see is that this model would be more prone to gaming — the potential reward for artists is a lot higher. A band could get all their fans to listen to their music on repeat overnight; the percentage of their subscriber fee that goes to the artist goes through the roof while they can still spend their days listening to whatever they want.
posted by wemayfreeze at 4:56 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
The flip side is My Favorite Death Metal Band now makes less money from other subscribers besides me. Does that make My Favorite Death Metal Band happy?
I dunno, it seems to me like you'd really have to look at the data in order to see who it harms and who it hurts, but it's not at all clear to me that this system is somehow "better". For example, in the proposed scheme, a subscriber who listens to a whole lot of My Favorite Death Metal Band and no other music is no better for My Favorite Death Metal Band's bottom line than a subscriber who listens to one single play of one single song of My Favorite Death Metal Band and no other music.
It seems like the author came up with a pathological edge case (I listen to exactly one song exactly one time, and nobody else cares about that song) and decided that the way the current system handles that pathological edge case implies that the system needs fixing.
posted by Flunkie at 4:58 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
I dunno, it seems to me like you'd really have to look at the data in order to see who it harms and who it hurts, but it's not at all clear to me that this system is somehow "better". For example, in the proposed scheme, a subscriber who listens to a whole lot of My Favorite Death Metal Band and no other music is no better for My Favorite Death Metal Band's bottom line than a subscriber who listens to one single play of one single song of My Favorite Death Metal Band and no other music.
It seems like the author came up with a pathological edge case (I listen to exactly one song exactly one time, and nobody else cares about that song) and decided that the way the current system handles that pathological edge case implies that the system needs fixing.
posted by Flunkie at 4:58 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
Wow, there's a lot I have to say about this.
Anyone who really gives a shit about non-major-label music artists finds ways to pay for the music which is most directly linked to the artist as possible and actually purchases it.
Purchase an actual CD through a non-label artist website, the artist gets the most money.
Streaming music services are the absolute bottom of the barrel, money-wise, when it comes to artists getting money.
If you really care about artists getting money for your listening to their music, find a way to actually purchase their music that relates directly to the artists.
Artists who are on a label have an entirely different revenue model from non-label artists. Make your purchases according to what matters to you and what you want to fertilize and feed and see more from, not on what is somehow most convenient to you.
Modern "slicing tomatoes" look pretty and hold up to shipment well, but anyone who really likes tomatoes buys local and fresh and probably from the grower directly. It tastes better, but takes more effort.
Do the artists you like do PledgeMusic or Kickstarter or other crowd funding campaigns? Work with those so they get money directly.
Do the artists you like tour? Go see them play live. Buy some schwag. Buy some schwag from them via their own website store even if you don't go see them live.
Make calculated, intelligent choices about how the artists you enjoy get compensation from you for the enjoyment they bring you. Don't look at a streaming service as the sole "well, this is how I pay for my music" strategy. Because if that's all you are doing, unless you're listening to the top 1% of music, you're basically giving the artists you love a giant middle finger.
You might as well just torrent.
posted by hippybear at 4:59 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
Anyone who really gives a shit about non-major-label music artists finds ways to pay for the music which is most directly linked to the artist as possible and actually purchases it.
Purchase an actual CD through a non-label artist website, the artist gets the most money.
Streaming music services are the absolute bottom of the barrel, money-wise, when it comes to artists getting money.
If you really care about artists getting money for your listening to their music, find a way to actually purchase their music that relates directly to the artists.
Artists who are on a label have an entirely different revenue model from non-label artists. Make your purchases according to what matters to you and what you want to fertilize and feed and see more from, not on what is somehow most convenient to you.
Modern "slicing tomatoes" look pretty and hold up to shipment well, but anyone who really likes tomatoes buys local and fresh and probably from the grower directly. It tastes better, but takes more effort.
Do the artists you like do PledgeMusic or Kickstarter or other crowd funding campaigns? Work with those so they get money directly.
Do the artists you like tour? Go see them play live. Buy some schwag. Buy some schwag from them via their own website store even if you don't go see them live.
Make calculated, intelligent choices about how the artists you enjoy get compensation from you for the enjoyment they bring you. Don't look at a streaming service as the sole "well, this is how I pay for my music" strategy. Because if that's all you are doing, unless you're listening to the top 1% of music, you're basically giving the artists you love a giant middle finger.
You might as well just torrent.
posted by hippybear at 4:59 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
hippybear, your perspective seems to be "streaming is shit and will always be shit. Real fans support their favorite artists in other ways."
Are you against improving streaming to better benefit the artists?
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:02 PM on November 21, 2014
Are you against improving streaming to better benefit the artists?
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:02 PM on November 21, 2014
wemayfreeze: My perspective is "this is the system we currently have, I care passionately about a lot of artists that are not top-tier, I work consciously to support those artists as best I can with the limited dollars I have to divide between the artists I like".
Do you really think Spotify is going to change their payment model based on an online op-ed? They're far too tied into the major labels to give a shit.
The only real solution for this would be for someone to start a new streaming service that actually pays the way it should (paid based on listener subscription divided between actual listened artists and tracks), and have artists pull their tracks from the services offering the current payment model and flock to the new model.
Do you see this happening? I'd love to see it happen, but have zero confidence that it ever will.
I'm not against improving streaming. Have the change happen and I will announce loudly and widely that I was wrong to say it won't get better. But based on what I've seen in my life thus far, I don't have any reason to believe it actually will improve and so I work hard to get my money to work the way I want it to.
posted by hippybear at 5:08 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
Do you really think Spotify is going to change their payment model based on an online op-ed? They're far too tied into the major labels to give a shit.
The only real solution for this would be for someone to start a new streaming service that actually pays the way it should (paid based on listener subscription divided between actual listened artists and tracks), and have artists pull their tracks from the services offering the current payment model and flock to the new model.
Do you see this happening? I'd love to see it happen, but have zero confidence that it ever will.
I'm not against improving streaming. Have the change happen and I will announce loudly and widely that I was wrong to say it won't get better. But based on what I've seen in my life thus far, I don't have any reason to believe it actually will improve and so I work hard to get my money to work the way I want it to.
posted by hippybear at 5:08 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
If my favourite bands actually still had ways for me to throw them my money (they're not currently touring and don't have anything new) I totally would.
posted by divabat at 5:09 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by divabat at 5:09 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
Weird test case, silliest idea ever, obviously orders of magnitude more difficult to calculate, probably would have no noticeable impact, if it did change anything, it is unclear who would actually benefit.
posted by snofoam at 5:10 PM on November 21, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 5:10 PM on November 21, 2014 [5 favorites]
For example, in the proposed scheme, a subscriber who listens to a whole lot of My Favorite Death Metal Band and no other music is no better for My Favorite Death Metal Band's bottom line than a subscriber who listens to one single play of one single song of My Favorite Death Metal Band and no other music.And beyond that, in the proposed system, a listener who listens to 1000 plays of MFDMB and 1 play of Taylor Swift is worse for MFDMB than a listener who listens to one play of MFDMB and no other music.
posted by Flunkie at 5:12 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
Also, there's really no reason to believe that the algorithm that calculates payments is what makes artists dissatisfied with Spotify. It almost surely isn't.
posted by snofoam at 5:13 PM on November 21, 2014
posted by snofoam at 5:13 PM on November 21, 2014
obviously orders of magnitude more difficult to calculate
If you think Spotify isn't keeping track of exactly what tracks you listen to each month, and isn't able to do a basic "tracks-listened-to divided into monthly-subscription-payment" calculation based on that for you and for each of their subscribers (and even for free subscribers, based on ad revenue), then you aren't aware of how exactly Big Data works.
posted by hippybear at 5:13 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
If you think Spotify isn't keeping track of exactly what tracks you listen to each month, and isn't able to do a basic "tracks-listened-to divided into monthly-subscription-payment" calculation based on that for you and for each of their subscribers (and even for free subscribers, based on ad revenue), then you aren't aware of how exactly Big Data works.
posted by hippybear at 5:13 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
you aren't aware of how exactly Big Data works
They obviously have the data and they obviously could do it. It is also obviously orders of magnitude more difficult to calculate, which costs money, complicates their accounting and probably has many other effects, like making it impossible to generate a simple statement showing an artist how their payments were calculated for the period.
posted by snofoam at 5:19 PM on November 21, 2014
They obviously have the data and they obviously could do it. It is also obviously orders of magnitude more difficult to calculate, which costs money, complicates their accounting and probably has many other effects, like making it impossible to generate a simple statement showing an artist how their payments were calculated for the period.
posted by snofoam at 5:19 PM on November 21, 2014
We're probably going to use the new bit torrent app Radiohead used to release our next album. But it's all such a mess. The only half decent shot we had at doing the whole sustainable economic growth while transitioning from fossil fuels and coping with global warming thing was to shift our economic activity toward a cultural product base. The internet makes the raw energy and resource costs of producing and distributing books, music, film, etc., next to nothing. Now if only any of those things were still economically valuable enough for people broadly to make decent livelihoods off of them. But one of the implicit assumptions in prevailing economic thought is if a good costs less in raw resources to produce, it's less economically valuable--so it's virtually impossible to economically incentivize resource conservation.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:19 PM on November 21, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 5:19 PM on November 21, 2014 [4 favorites]
Is any of this really up to Spotify?
Spotify doesn't pay artists directly. They pay master recording and publishing rights holders.
The article kinda waves it's hand at this in the last paragraph or two, but the power here doesn't seem to rest with Spotify. It's rests the major labels.
posted by Frayed Knot at 5:20 PM on November 21, 2014 [5 favorites]
Spotify doesn't pay artists directly. They pay master recording and publishing rights holders.
The article kinda waves it's hand at this in the last paragraph or two, but the power here doesn't seem to rest with Spotify. It's rests the major labels.
posted by Frayed Knot at 5:20 PM on November 21, 2014 [5 favorites]
hippybear: I think that's great that you put your money to good use, and great to encourage others to do the same.
This article is an entry in the popular works and thought around what streaming is and could be. It uses Spotify as its case because it's the biggest dog in the field, but it's impact (if it has any) won't be limited to Spotify. If it helps continue the discussion around how this streaming future we're in could be improved then it surely is a good thing.
Do you see this happening? I'd love to see it happen, but have zero confidence that it ever will.
Spotify is 4 years old. This shit is brand new and can still change and will change. There is growing public dissatisfaction from artists around how streaming royalties are paid and there is absolutely an opportunity here for a competitor to try something new and better.
This frontier is far from closed.
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:21 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
This article is an entry in the popular works and thought around what streaming is and could be. It uses Spotify as its case because it's the biggest dog in the field, but it's impact (if it has any) won't be limited to Spotify. If it helps continue the discussion around how this streaming future we're in could be improved then it surely is a good thing.
Do you see this happening? I'd love to see it happen, but have zero confidence that it ever will.
Spotify is 4 years old. This shit is brand new and can still change and will change. There is growing public dissatisfaction from artists around how streaming royalties are paid and there is absolutely an opportunity here for a competitor to try something new and better.
This frontier is far from closed.
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:21 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
"Also, there's really no reason to believe that the algorithm that calculates payments is what makes artists dissatisfied with Spotify. It almost surely isn't."
…they're dissatisfied with how much they get paid through Spotify's algorithm. Are you not able to connect that with how the algorithm calculates payments?
"The article kinda waves it's hand at this in the last paragraph or two, but the power here doesn't seem to rest with Spotify. It's rests the major labels."
Well, no, since indie bands still get fucked too. While streaming royalty rates likely fuck artists, that's a separate question.
posted by klangklangston at 5:26 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
…they're dissatisfied with how much they get paid through Spotify's algorithm. Are you not able to connect that with how the algorithm calculates payments?
"The article kinda waves it's hand at this in the last paragraph or two, but the power here doesn't seem to rest with Spotify. It's rests the major labels."
Well, no, since indie bands still get fucked too. While streaming royalty rates likely fuck artists, that's a separate question.
posted by klangklangston at 5:26 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
Spotify pays a pool of money and it's the labels that divide it out amongst their artists. And those divisions aren't going to change unless the contracts are renegotiated. And the major artists have a lot more power to negotiate and are much more likely to be fully recouped (meaning they've paid back the label for the cost of making the albums) versus a band no one has ever heard of.
On the publishing side it's a bit better. Songwriters get paid directly through ASCAP/BMI/SESAC/etc. for the performance rights and through their publisher or Harry Fox for mechanical rights. But master royalties all go through the label and there's no incentive for them to change how they do that.
posted by downtohisturtles at 5:27 PM on November 21, 2014
On the publishing side it's a bit better. Songwriters get paid directly through ASCAP/BMI/SESAC/etc. for the performance rights and through their publisher or Harry Fox for mechanical rights. But master royalties all go through the label and there's no incentive for them to change how they do that.
posted by downtohisturtles at 5:27 PM on November 21, 2014
Savagerose: subscription fees are apportioned evenly to the total number of plays by all subscribers- so if I pay $10 and am a devoted follower and only listen to X band who NOBODY ELSE listens to, they get $0, even though I am paying $10 to listen to them. Instead my money gets split between a zillion artists I don't listen to. It's like If I went to the supermarket, bought some radishes, and Coca Cola got the money.
It does make more sense if it's purely within subscribers. That still means that artists whose music is played more by non-subscribers would make less money than an artist whose music is played more by subscribers. Which I guess is one of the author's goals and makes business sense but I'm not sure if it's intrinsically more fair.
Does expressing awareness or interest in unpopular music constitute having a "problem" with popular music?
Oops, I guess that wasn't a very charitable interpretation on my part. It was more coming from the fact that one of the author's goals is implied to be that an artist with a single popular song will make less money than an artist with a popular album given that both receive the same number of song plays:
But yeah, like Flunkie and snofoam say, I don't think we have enough data to understand what these changes would mean exactly.
Here is Spotify's explanation of their royalties if anyone's curious.
posted by savagerose at 5:29 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
It does make more sense if it's purely within subscribers. That still means that artists whose music is played more by non-subscribers would make less money than an artist whose music is played more by subscribers. Which I guess is one of the author's goals and makes business sense but I'm not sure if it's intrinsically more fair.
Does expressing awareness or interest in unpopular music constitute having a "problem" with popular music?
Oops, I guess that wasn't a very charitable interpretation on my part. It was more coming from the fact that one of the author's goals is implied to be that an artist with a single popular song will make less money than an artist with a popular album given that both receive the same number of song plays:
"This system would move revenue away from one-hit-wonders and towards artists that build and sustain lasting relationships with their fans."
But yeah, like Flunkie and snofoam say, I don't think we have enough data to understand what these changes would mean exactly.
Here is Spotify's explanation of their royalties if anyone's curious.
posted by savagerose at 5:29 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
Are you not able to connect that with how the algorithm calculates payments?
I guess I'm not an expert, but most of the complaints I've heard are that payments are too small. Changing the algorithm without changing the total payout I guess could make some artists happier, but it won't "fix" the problem. Other complaints I've heard have to do with lack of control over how the music is made available, which also isn't related to the pricing algorithm.
I'm quite surprised that anyone takes this article seriously in any way. It obviously has zero chance of fixing anything. Maybe some people aren't reading the article?
posted by snofoam at 5:31 PM on November 21, 2014
I guess I'm not an expert, but most of the complaints I've heard are that payments are too small. Changing the algorithm without changing the total payout I guess could make some artists happier, but it won't "fix" the problem. Other complaints I've heard have to do with lack of control over how the music is made available, which also isn't related to the pricing algorithm.
I'm quite surprised that anyone takes this article seriously in any way. It obviously has zero chance of fixing anything. Maybe some people aren't reading the article?
posted by snofoam at 5:31 PM on November 21, 2014
Spotify is 4 years old
Spotify is not 4 years old. It was started in 2006 as a concept and was launched in 2008 in Sweden, and has expanded to different countries gradually. It's only been available in the US since July 2011 a launch which required years of negotiation with major record labels before it could happen.
So, Spotify expands into new territories. Who do you think determines where that $.007 per play goes? It's not Spotify. They pay that to the label. The label then decides who gets the resulting revenue, how much, and all that.
Artist-specific streaming has only been a part of Spotify for ONE YEAR. Dec 11 2013 is when Spotify went from "radio station" to "artist" streaming.
So, one year.
Who can listen to what, when? That's determined by record labels. Country X, go for it. Country Y? No dice.
If you're a non-label artist? You have to join a consortium or negotiate on your own. And non-label compensation is based on label-negotiated rates, at best. So the labels control exactly who gets how much money. (And that's just from the Spotify end... How the labels distribute the money they get from track-plays to the artists.. that's another barrel of monkeys entirely.)
If you're Spotify, you're the gorilla in the room, and you get to make the rules. And if your rules aren't beneficial to the artists that customers are enjoying, well, at least you're getting your money, and the labels are getting theirs, and if the artists get a fraction at the end, well, they are lucky.
I've been watching this develop for years. It's not a new story. It's the same annoyingly frustrating story over and over.
Taylor Swift was right. Artists need to pull out of Spotify and push listeners toward purchases or other compensation models that favor the content creator over the content distributor. I am unapologetic in having this opinion.
posted by hippybear at 5:38 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
Spotify is not 4 years old. It was started in 2006 as a concept and was launched in 2008 in Sweden, and has expanded to different countries gradually. It's only been available in the US since July 2011 a launch which required years of negotiation with major record labels before it could happen.
So, Spotify expands into new territories. Who do you think determines where that $.007 per play goes? It's not Spotify. They pay that to the label. The label then decides who gets the resulting revenue, how much, and all that.
Artist-specific streaming has only been a part of Spotify for ONE YEAR. Dec 11 2013 is when Spotify went from "radio station" to "artist" streaming.
So, one year.
Who can listen to what, when? That's determined by record labels. Country X, go for it. Country Y? No dice.
If you're a non-label artist? You have to join a consortium or negotiate on your own. And non-label compensation is based on label-negotiated rates, at best. So the labels control exactly who gets how much money. (And that's just from the Spotify end... How the labels distribute the money they get from track-plays to the artists.. that's another barrel of monkeys entirely.)
If you're Spotify, you're the gorilla in the room, and you get to make the rules. And if your rules aren't beneficial to the artists that customers are enjoying, well, at least you're getting your money, and the labels are getting theirs, and if the artists get a fraction at the end, well, they are lucky.
I've been watching this develop for years. It's not a new story. It's the same annoyingly frustrating story over and over.
Taylor Swift was right. Artists need to pull out of Spotify and push listeners toward purchases or other compensation models that favor the content creator over the content distributor. I am unapologetic in having this opinion.
posted by hippybear at 5:38 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
You're right on the years — my mistake.
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:41 PM on November 21, 2014
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:41 PM on November 21, 2014
Taylor Swift was right. Artists need to pull out of Spotify and push listeners toward purchases or other compensation models that favor the content creator over the content distributor.
Yes, this. And seriously, we need to start economically valuing content again. It's about more than just music and art. It's about establishing a more sustainable industrial base.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:49 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yes, this. And seriously, we need to start economically valuing content again. It's about more than just music and art. It's about establishing a more sustainable industrial base.
posted by saulgoodman at 5:49 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
The crux of the problem that I don't think is articulated very well in the article is that royalties are paid on a per-play basis from a pool of revenue paid on a per-subscriber basis. So the system rewards artists with more plays, even though in theory those artists cost more for Spotify to stream in terms of raw bandwidth costs. The article suggests a system that puts royalty payouts on a per-subscriber basis as well, such that the raw number of plays is no longer a factor; instead, subscriber share becomes the metric used to figure out who gets what.
In other words, five listeners that only ever listen to The Knife or Taylor Swift or Merzbow (which we'll call group A) represent just as much revenue as fifty listeners that include any of those artists in their playlists roughly a tenth of the time (group B). It doesn't matter if Group A listeners only listen to The Knife seventeen times in total compared to Group B's combined total of four thousand plays; in the new system they represent the same amount of revenue. This makes a certain amount of sense in that Spotify doesn't charge people based on how much music they play, so why should they pay royalties on that basis.
I don't know if this is ultimately a good idea or not, though. On the one hand, as someone who pretty much only listens to lesser-known bands and artists, this new system would put more money in their pockets. (I'd be really curious to see where the crossover point lies: how popular do you have to be before you start making less money under this new system?) On the other hand, this might swing the pendulum very far in the other direction: instead of rewarding mass-market success, this new system tends to reward artists with cult followings. Indeed, the easiest way to generate revenue would be to somehow cultivate streaming subscribers that listened to your stuff and nobody else's. Taylor Swift isn't likely to starve in this new model. Jimmy Sturr, winner of 18 Grammies in the now-defunct polka category, would probably do a lot better percentage-wise, even if that only amounts to a few extra bucks a month in royalties. (I am assuming people who listen to nothing but polka would listen most often to Sturr for illustration purposes. Maybe it's also true, who knows?)
At its logical extreme, I could totally see a disturbing AKB48-esque mutation forming, where a band creates a highly dedicated and exclusive fanbase specifically to exploit this new streaming royalty model. More likely, labels would just start surreptitiously or unintentionally cultivating artists with relatively niche but deep appeal. What that would look like, exactly, I'm not sure.
posted by chrominance at 6:20 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
In other words, five listeners that only ever listen to The Knife or Taylor Swift or Merzbow (which we'll call group A) represent just as much revenue as fifty listeners that include any of those artists in their playlists roughly a tenth of the time (group B). It doesn't matter if Group A listeners only listen to The Knife seventeen times in total compared to Group B's combined total of four thousand plays; in the new system they represent the same amount of revenue. This makes a certain amount of sense in that Spotify doesn't charge people based on how much music they play, so why should they pay royalties on that basis.
I don't know if this is ultimately a good idea or not, though. On the one hand, as someone who pretty much only listens to lesser-known bands and artists, this new system would put more money in their pockets. (I'd be really curious to see where the crossover point lies: how popular do you have to be before you start making less money under this new system?) On the other hand, this might swing the pendulum very far in the other direction: instead of rewarding mass-market success, this new system tends to reward artists with cult followings. Indeed, the easiest way to generate revenue would be to somehow cultivate streaming subscribers that listened to your stuff and nobody else's. Taylor Swift isn't likely to starve in this new model. Jimmy Sturr, winner of 18 Grammies in the now-defunct polka category, would probably do a lot better percentage-wise, even if that only amounts to a few extra bucks a month in royalties. (I am assuming people who listen to nothing but polka would listen most often to Sturr for illustration purposes. Maybe it's also true, who knows?)
At its logical extreme, I could totally see a disturbing AKB48-esque mutation forming, where a band creates a highly dedicated and exclusive fanbase specifically to exploit this new streaming royalty model. More likely, labels would just start surreptitiously or unintentionally cultivating artists with relatively niche but deep appeal. What that would look like, exactly, I'm not sure.
posted by chrominance at 6:20 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
It's an interesting system, although it falls down on a couple of fronts. One is that these services have free streaming as well as pay, and this would mean that free streams went uncompensated by the artists. The other is that the $0.007 per play or whatever is a negotiated/dictated royalty rate, and even though the same pot of money is being divvied up to the same artists, no one is going to sign up for an unknown and variable payment rate. Maybe it's $0.08 per play, or maybe it's $0.000818.
Who would benefit? Artists played by people who don't listen to a lot of stuff. If you listen to streaming only while working out 3 hours a week, say, then artists are being paid around 6 cents a spin (assuming $10 goes to artist payouts). If you listen to music constantly while you work, then artists are getting paid closer to 0.4 cents a spin. If you are a Taylor Swift obsessive and play "Shake It Off" 24/7 for a 31 day month, she gets the aforementioned 0.0818 cents per spin.
I suspect that indie music types who listen to a lot of obscure stuff also listen obsessively, so they would have a low per track rate. I suspect that the genre obsessives would also wind up with a low per track rate, although it would tend to be more concentrated, so it might be a wash. (I looked at a random death metal fan from last.fm; they played death metal roughly 24/7, at a rate where artists would get $0.013 per track. They listened to 20 different artists, but At The Gates was 13% of their plays.)
My guess at the real winners are the artists who are played by people who don't listen to much music; if they are paying for a streaming service they rarely use, they probably tend to be well-off. They don't listen to much music, so they probably aren't very deep into any musical fields; they might listen to a novelty song or hit-of-the-moment a fair bit (relative to their total plays). So wealthy, older people with shallow tasts. Basically, the kinds of people who vote for the Grammys.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 6:48 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
Who would benefit? Artists played by people who don't listen to a lot of stuff. If you listen to streaming only while working out 3 hours a week, say, then artists are being paid around 6 cents a spin (assuming $10 goes to artist payouts). If you listen to music constantly while you work, then artists are getting paid closer to 0.4 cents a spin. If you are a Taylor Swift obsessive and play "Shake It Off" 24/7 for a 31 day month, she gets the aforementioned 0.0818 cents per spin.
I suspect that indie music types who listen to a lot of obscure stuff also listen obsessively, so they would have a low per track rate. I suspect that the genre obsessives would also wind up with a low per track rate, although it would tend to be more concentrated, so it might be a wash. (I looked at a random death metal fan from last.fm; they played death metal roughly 24/7, at a rate where artists would get $0.013 per track. They listened to 20 different artists, but At The Gates was 13% of their plays.)
My guess at the real winners are the artists who are played by people who don't listen to much music; if they are paying for a streaming service they rarely use, they probably tend to be well-off. They don't listen to much music, so they probably aren't very deep into any musical fields; they might listen to a novelty song or hit-of-the-moment a fair bit (relative to their total plays). So wealthy, older people with shallow tasts. Basically, the kinds of people who vote for the Grammys.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 6:48 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
From my brief dealings with labels and licensing the idea that they would ever agree to an a arrangement where they didn't get paid for the free plays is pretty much unthinkable.
posted by Artw at 6:59 PM on November 21, 2014
posted by Artw at 6:59 PM on November 21, 2014
My guess at the real winners are the artists who are played by people who don't listen to much music
Only if you look at the payout per individual listener vs aggregate payout across the entire listening population.
If A listens to a "top 40" playlist non-stop for a week, and B listens to 3 tracks in a week, and variants in-between, combining radio station listening and selected artist listening... and then you aggregate those listening habits across all 40 million Spotify subscribers....
I bet it's still going to be the most popular artists in any given week who come out the winners, monetarily. But linking payout to listens-divided-into-listener-subscriptions, then at least the long tail won't lose out quite as bad. The top end might come down a bit with payouts, but the bottom end will rise up, a move toward the middle.
I'd much rather a streaming service pay the artists I am actually listening to out of the monthly fee I personally pay, rather than some opaque, supposed "share the wealth' payout scheme which actually rewards artists who are popular that I have no interest in and ends up monetarily degrading my own music interests.
posted by hippybear at 7:12 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
Only if you look at the payout per individual listener vs aggregate payout across the entire listening population.
If A listens to a "top 40" playlist non-stop for a week, and B listens to 3 tracks in a week, and variants in-between, combining radio station listening and selected artist listening... and then you aggregate those listening habits across all 40 million Spotify subscribers....
I bet it's still going to be the most popular artists in any given week who come out the winners, monetarily. But linking payout to listens-divided-into-listener-subscriptions, then at least the long tail won't lose out quite as bad. The top end might come down a bit with payouts, but the bottom end will rise up, a move toward the middle.
I'd much rather a streaming service pay the artists I am actually listening to out of the monthly fee I personally pay, rather than some opaque, supposed "share the wealth' payout scheme which actually rewards artists who are popular that I have no interest in and ends up monetarily degrading my own music interests.
posted by hippybear at 7:12 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't see how it follows that ad-supported plays are uncompensated...you could have the same metric except that the revenue is coming from per-user ad impressions rather than subscription revenue. The proportion of ads is presumably more or less constant.
posted by anazgnos at 7:14 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by anazgnos at 7:14 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
The free plays aren't free. They are advertising supported, and it should be easy to work out payouts per advertisement exposure as a compensation scheme. Listener A has 5 advertisements played per hour, those each pay $X, the 15 tracks that play during the hour each get 1/15 of 5 times $X...
How difficult is that math, really?
posted by hippybear at 7:14 PM on November 21, 2014
How difficult is that math, really?
posted by hippybear at 7:14 PM on November 21, 2014
Modern "slicing tomatoes" look pretty and hold up to shipment well, but anyone who really likes tomatoes buys local and fresh and probably from the grower directly. It tastes better, but takes more effort.
Yes, but they do it because they get different tomatoes. A lot fewer people would bother if you ended up getting the exact same tomatoes for an extra $4 and half an hour of effort and the knowledge of having benefitted the local tomato grower, and that's a lot more analogous to the music scenario.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 7:28 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
Yes, but they do it because they get different tomatoes. A lot fewer people would bother if you ended up getting the exact same tomatoes for an extra $4 and half an hour of effort and the knowledge of having benefitted the local tomato grower, and that's a lot more analogous to the music scenario.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 7:28 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]
I use Spotify all the time (and pay for the subscription). What I would love to see is something that comes up after, say, twenty plays from an album where I would then get a message that to listen to it again I have to pay $10, which would then go directly to the artist. I try to be conscientious about going off and buying albums when I've decided I like them and have been enjoying them, but it would be convenient to have that streamlined into the Spotify process. There's also a lot of music I try once or twice and then discard, I would never have bought the album back in the days of cds in those cases. I also listen to plenty of music on Spotify that I owned prior to streaming service ever being a glint in someone's eye, but I never got around to digitizing it (also my iPods are dead, I bought a lot of music on iTunes pre-iPhones, and I use android phones, so there's a lot of music I've paid for, but stream now for simple logistics). I probably look like I'm stealing from those artists, but I paid them back in like 1998. I like the idea presented in the link because it seems like the simplest solution to the current problem, it doesn't change how Spotify gets money in, but it changes how the money goes out.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 7:35 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 7:35 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
" It is also obviously orders of magnitude more difficult to calculate..."
This sentiment is echo'd a few times in this thread.
Look, it's not like there is a warehouse of accountants busily tabulating up on ten thousand adding machines. It's an algorithm. Change it to a new one.
Those that opined that labels will never put up with a system that gives them less money and gives the artists more money are probably right on the money.
posted by el io at 8:26 PM on November 21, 2014
This sentiment is echo'd a few times in this thread.
Look, it's not like there is a warehouse of accountants busily tabulating up on ten thousand adding machines. It's an algorithm. Change it to a new one.
Those that opined that labels will never put up with a system that gives them less money and gives the artists more money are probably right on the money.
posted by el io at 8:26 PM on November 21, 2014
if the artists get a fraction at the end, well, they are lucky
Same as in the book publishing world, then. It was an educational experience when I discovered that, as a budding author, I was the one getting the least money out of the sales of my book, firmly at the bottom of the food chain.
(And when the publisher went bust, who was last in the queue to get something from the liquidation? Right again... but that's another story)
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 8:41 PM on November 21, 2014
Same as in the book publishing world, then. It was an educational experience when I discovered that, as a budding author, I was the one getting the least money out of the sales of my book, firmly at the bottom of the food chain.
(And when the publisher went bust, who was last in the queue to get something from the liquidation? Right again... but that's another story)
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 8:41 PM on November 21, 2014
The models used to define the proposed fairer payout system in the article are built on hypothetical usage models which may not bear any resemblence to actual usage models by subscribers. I doubt that in a more realistic usage model for Spotify there would be any difference in royalty payouts. Who would pay for a Spotify subscription to just listen to one artist? It would be so much cheaper to buy the albums on iTunes like services. The real action on Spotify for musicians isn't in individual plays. It is in getting your music included on shared playlists created by fans of your kind of music. Get on the playlists and you get hundreds or thousands of streams, not one or two fans who alresdy knew you playing your song one time.
posted by humanfont at 8:45 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by humanfont at 8:45 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
The other is that the $0.007 per play or whatever is a negotiated/dictated royalty rate, and even though the same pot of money is being divvied up to the same artists, no one is going to sign up for an unknown and variable payment rate. Maybe it's $0.08 per play, or maybe it's $0.000818.
Yeah. I consider it a virtue of this guy's scheme, though, that it actually puts this particular economic aspect of buffet-streaming services like Spotify front and center. The listeners can have linearly increasing utility (up to complete time-saturation) but the artists can only approach a limit and are literally fighting for a piece of a limited pie.
I think you could solve the problem (and the problem of splitting revenues from free accounts) by simply making the operator liable to pay some floor for every play from their cut if subscription revenue isn't available.
Doing so would give them an incentive to find a subscription price that might start to represent the value of the content (probably well north of the current $10/mo).
posted by weston at 9:01 PM on November 21, 2014
Yeah. I consider it a virtue of this guy's scheme, though, that it actually puts this particular economic aspect of buffet-streaming services like Spotify front and center. The listeners can have linearly increasing utility (up to complete time-saturation) but the artists can only approach a limit and are literally fighting for a piece of a limited pie.
I think you could solve the problem (and the problem of splitting revenues from free accounts) by simply making the operator liable to pay some floor for every play from their cut if subscription revenue isn't available.
Doing so would give them an incentive to find a subscription price that might start to represent the value of the content (probably well north of the current $10/mo).
posted by weston at 9:01 PM on November 21, 2014
This, a thousand times this. The system is so rigged now.
I spend as much money on music now with streaming services as I did back when I was buying CDs. If there are a lot of people like me then the artists should be making as much money as they ever did. My music tastes are so eclectic, I doubt any of the bands I listen to get as much as a dime, despite me paying $10 a month.
I think it would be fairly easy to get Spotify to change. Some other service (Rdio? Google? Xbox music??) could just advertise "Unlike that other service, we pay artists fairly. We pay your subscription fees to the artists you listen too. Where do you want your money to go? Why are you staying with them?"
Free streaming with advertising is even worse. It seems so easy to rig. I've often thought of coming up with a fake band with some fake music, getting it into Spotify, then connecting to a million virtual Amazon servers to have them log into Spotify to listen to my track.
Computer nerd gets all the moniez!
posted by eye of newt at 9:47 PM on November 21, 2014
I spend as much money on music now with streaming services as I did back when I was buying CDs. If there are a lot of people like me then the artists should be making as much money as they ever did. My music tastes are so eclectic, I doubt any of the bands I listen to get as much as a dime, despite me paying $10 a month.
I think it would be fairly easy to get Spotify to change. Some other service (Rdio? Google? Xbox music??) could just advertise "Unlike that other service, we pay artists fairly. We pay your subscription fees to the artists you listen too. Where do you want your money to go? Why are you staying with them?"
Free streaming with advertising is even worse. It seems so easy to rig. I've often thought of coming up with a fake band with some fake music, getting it into Spotify, then connecting to a million virtual Amazon servers to have them log into Spotify to listen to my track.
Computer nerd gets all the moniez!
posted by eye of newt at 9:47 PM on November 21, 2014
Look, it's not like there is a warehouse of accountants busily tabulating up on ten thousand adding machines. It's an algorithm. Change it to a new one.
Mmmm hmm. And if it's x10 as much work it's not that much of a big deal for a few thousand transactions. If it's a few million you might need to buy a new box. A few billion? Then maybe you have a big problem.
posted by Artw at 10:05 PM on November 21, 2014
Mmmm hmm. And if it's x10 as much work it's not that much of a big deal for a few thousand transactions. If it's a few million you might need to buy a new box. A few billion? Then maybe you have a big problem.
posted by Artw at 10:05 PM on November 21, 2014
Imagine a monetization system based on actual plays!
You play a single once, you pay the price of a single.
You play the single 100x, you don't pay more beyond that one price.
You play an album once, you pay the price of the album.
You play the album 1000x, you don't pay more beyond that price.
That's what happens when you buy music.
The artist gets paid for what you buy.
If you hang a painting on your wall, you don't pay a monthly fee to look at it, and you can look at it as in-depth as you want for as long as you want, BECAUSE YOU BOUGHT IT.
But the hitch is.. when you paid for that painting (or album), did the artist who created the work get fair compensation for their effort? Are you okay with millions of others also owning that work? If you paid $X for the work, did the artist get a decent amount of $X, or did most of it go to the gatekeepers who "brought the work to you"?
If Christie's were charging as much per auction as record labels and streaming music services charged for their services, would artists ever sell their work? What about museums? You may not be able to get to the museum for the exhibit, but you can buy the catalog of the exhibit (with good reproductions of the art) whether you were there or not. Does the catalog cheapen the art, or extend it?
There are so many issues that can get confounded when thinking about this issue... I just try to find the most direct way to get money to the artists I like. Seems like the best way to life my life as an art consumer.
(Don't get me started on films. That whole thing is so fucked... I bet the Christopher Nolan "Dark Night" films still haven't "earned any money" due to Hollywood accounting.)
posted by hippybear at 10:17 PM on November 21, 2014
You play a single once, you pay the price of a single.
You play the single 100x, you don't pay more beyond that one price.
You play an album once, you pay the price of the album.
You play the album 1000x, you don't pay more beyond that price.
That's what happens when you buy music.
The artist gets paid for what you buy.
If you hang a painting on your wall, you don't pay a monthly fee to look at it, and you can look at it as in-depth as you want for as long as you want, BECAUSE YOU BOUGHT IT.
But the hitch is.. when you paid for that painting (or album), did the artist who created the work get fair compensation for their effort? Are you okay with millions of others also owning that work? If you paid $X for the work, did the artist get a decent amount of $X, or did most of it go to the gatekeepers who "brought the work to you"?
If Christie's were charging as much per auction as record labels and streaming music services charged for their services, would artists ever sell their work? What about museums? You may not be able to get to the museum for the exhibit, but you can buy the catalog of the exhibit (with good reproductions of the art) whether you were there or not. Does the catalog cheapen the art, or extend it?
There are so many issues that can get confounded when thinking about this issue... I just try to find the most direct way to get money to the artists I like. Seems like the best way to life my life as an art consumer.
(Don't get me started on films. That whole thing is so fucked... I bet the Christopher Nolan "Dark Night" films still haven't "earned any money" due to Hollywood accounting.)
posted by hippybear at 10:17 PM on November 21, 2014
hey guys, remember that time sony rootkitted a few tens of millions of customers to protect their revenue model?
posted by 7segment at 10:27 PM on November 21, 2014
posted by 7segment at 10:27 PM on November 21, 2014
Indeed, the easiest way to generate revenue would be to somehow cultivate streaming subscribers that listened to your stuff and nobody else's.
Oh man, Foxygen would have earned a fortune from me this year under this algorithm. I am an obsessive and single-minded repetitive listener, I would be everyone's ideal fan. I kept one song on repeat for a whole week recently - not an album, just a song. Yes, I can be strange about music.
It looks like I need to listen to at least 1000 songs ($7/.007) to ensure that my subscription fee goes entirely to the bands I listen to. I guess that's my new monthly spotify goal. I appreciate this article for pointing out that quirk of the algorithm - it had never occurred to me to wonder what happened to the rest of my subscription fee if I only listened to a few songs.
hey guys, remember that time sony rootkitted a few tens of millions of customers to protect their revenue model?
YES, they did it to me, goddamn that My Morning Jacket record. That actually might have been the last CD I bought (I do buy vinyl though).
posted by dialetheia at 10:56 PM on November 21, 2014
Oh man, Foxygen would have earned a fortune from me this year under this algorithm. I am an obsessive and single-minded repetitive listener, I would be everyone's ideal fan. I kept one song on repeat for a whole week recently - not an album, just a song. Yes, I can be strange about music.
It looks like I need to listen to at least 1000 songs ($7/.007) to ensure that my subscription fee goes entirely to the bands I listen to. I guess that's my new monthly spotify goal. I appreciate this article for pointing out that quirk of the algorithm - it had never occurred to me to wonder what happened to the rest of my subscription fee if I only listened to a few songs.
hey guys, remember that time sony rootkitted a few tens of millions of customers to protect their revenue model?
YES, they did it to me, goddamn that My Morning Jacket record. That actually might have been the last CD I bought (I do buy vinyl though).
posted by dialetheia at 10:56 PM on November 21, 2014
Artist-specific streaming has only been a part of Spotify for ONE YEAR. Dec 11 2013 is when Spotify went from "radio station" to "artist" streaming.
Unless I am completely misunderstanding what you are saying this is false, at least for the USA. I have never used Spotify radio (on purpose) and have been listening since July 2012. I have always been able to pick the specific tracks I wanted to hear.
posted by mountmccabe at 11:03 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
Unless I am completely misunderstanding what you are saying this is false, at least for the USA. I have never used Spotify radio (on purpose) and have been listening since July 2012. I have always been able to pick the specific tracks I wanted to hear.
posted by mountmccabe at 11:03 PM on November 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
The initial explanation of how payouts work is bonkers. There idea that this would mean more money for everyone is even more ridiculous. The idea that this would even mean more money for independent artists is also highly questionable.
The idea that bands could regularly organize "listen to us only months" is probably the last reasonable bit. Especially when just buying their album means you can listen to it plus all that is available via Spotify.
What this system would actually do, as others have pinned out, is make it so that heavy users don't have as much say in where the payouts go. Right now if I listen to 7000 tracks a month each of those listens is as important as the ones from another subscriber that only listens to 1000 tracks per month. Under the proposed system my listens would be worth 1/7th what the other subscriber's listens were worth.
(It is possible the author is trying to propose a system that does payout per artist rather than per song and if so my analysis isn't as applicable but, WHOAH, that would be even more ridiculous than all of the other ridiculous idea expressed).
posted by mountmccabe at 11:17 PM on November 21, 2014
The idea that bands could regularly organize "listen to us only months" is probably the last reasonable bit. Especially when just buying their album means you can listen to it plus all that is available via Spotify.
What this system would actually do, as others have pinned out, is make it so that heavy users don't have as much say in where the payouts go. Right now if I listen to 7000 tracks a month each of those listens is as important as the ones from another subscriber that only listens to 1000 tracks per month. Under the proposed system my listens would be worth 1/7th what the other subscriber's listens were worth.
(It is possible the author is trying to propose a system that does payout per artist rather than per song and if so my analysis isn't as applicable but, WHOAH, that would be even more ridiculous than all of the other ridiculous idea expressed).
posted by mountmccabe at 11:17 PM on November 21, 2014
That should be "least reasonable", not last.
posted by mountmccabe at 11:28 PM on November 21, 2014
posted by mountmccabe at 11:28 PM on November 21, 2014
hippybear: “Imagine a monetization system based on actual plays! You play a single once, you pay the price of a single. You play the single 100x, you don't pay more beyond that one price.”
You lost me. You told me to imagine a monetization system based on "actual plays," and then you described a monetization system that had nothing to do with actual plays.
In point of fact, it sounds like you're flatly against any kind of monetization system based on actual plays. You think streaming is bad and will always be bad, that there is no way whatsoever for it ever to be good.
Can you really not imagine a revenue system based on actual plays that makes sense? Not even something utterly different from Spotify?
“Purchase an actual CD through a non-label artist website, the artist gets the most money.”
I'm not sure I believe that. Walk me through the math. How does manufacturing and shipping a CD (which I estimate costs about $4 per – please correct me if I'm wrong) really stack up better than, say, giving Bandcamp 15% and keeping everything else? Unless you're charging $27 per CD, that math doesn't seem to work. And this is not to mention the dozens of other streaming options that exist now. Are they really all worse than shipping a CD?
Music as physical object is dying, and I'm glad. It was hard for a guy with hundreds of records to come to terms with this, but the manufacture of billions of plastic cases and paper slips and discs and all the rest is just massively wasteful when we have easier and less wasteful ways of distributing music.
We're going to have to figure out a way to make that future work.
posted by koeselitz at 1:02 AM on November 22, 2014
You lost me. You told me to imagine a monetization system based on "actual plays," and then you described a monetization system that had nothing to do with actual plays.
In point of fact, it sounds like you're flatly against any kind of monetization system based on actual plays. You think streaming is bad and will always be bad, that there is no way whatsoever for it ever to be good.
Can you really not imagine a revenue system based on actual plays that makes sense? Not even something utterly different from Spotify?
“Purchase an actual CD through a non-label artist website, the artist gets the most money.”
I'm not sure I believe that. Walk me through the math. How does manufacturing and shipping a CD (which I estimate costs about $4 per – please correct me if I'm wrong) really stack up better than, say, giving Bandcamp 15% and keeping everything else? Unless you're charging $27 per CD, that math doesn't seem to work. And this is not to mention the dozens of other streaming options that exist now. Are they really all worse than shipping a CD?
Music as physical object is dying, and I'm glad. It was hard for a guy with hundreds of records to come to terms with this, but the manufacture of billions of plastic cases and paper slips and discs and all the rest is just massively wasteful when we have easier and less wasteful ways of distributing music.
We're going to have to figure out a way to make that future work.
posted by koeselitz at 1:02 AM on November 22, 2014
So what the hell, I did the math.
A nice gentleman named Oscar Celma has made a dataset of last.fm users from 2008 publicly available at this link. It has, for almost 360,000 users, the number of times they have played each artist; 3.8 billion plays. I wrote a crummy Python script that analyzed this play data with the "traditional" fixed rate per song royalty and the "new" royalty structure proposed in the article; I assumed $25 million in payouts, about $70 per user or 0.66 cents per play. That seems consistent with the reported numbers, although a service like Spotify is much larger - they paid $500M in royalties last year, so multiply my numbers by 20 or so to see what they might be in the real world. In my simulation, the top artist, The Beatles, got $201K in revenue from the old scheme and $186K from the new. Here's what I found:
There were almost 300,000 artists listed, although this included many alternate names, weird sets of characters, etc. As you would expect, generally artists at the top made less money under the new scheme and artists further down the list made more. The crossover - in general terms - was around the 2000th or so artist (artists around here include Crass, Oingo Boingo, Panda Bear, No Age, The Pharcyde). By this point, artists are down to $1700 or so for payouts. Here's the overall structure of the payouts:
One reason the net effect is maybe smaller than you might expect is that the tiers don't rise and fall evenly; there are some redistributions going on, where different artists make more or less. One thing that surprised me was how badly metal and punk did; the single worst off artist (in absolute terms) was In Flames, who went from $75K to $46K. Looking at the biggest losers in percentage terms for the 500 most played artists, the worst 3 were Japanese bands, followed by the likes of NoFX, Soilwork, Fear Factory and KMFDM. I looked at 20 top death metal bands, and they lost 30% of their revenue on average.
On the other hand, I thought that the kind of artists that might do well were the ones preferred by people who didn't listen to much music and had broad tastes; sort of like the prototypical Grammys voter. The artist that was the absolute best off under the new scheme was Amy Winehouse, who also swept the 2008 Grammys, with 37% higher earnings - from $32k to $43K. The top 500 artists who did the best in percentage terms were mega-DJs Tiesto and Armin Van Buuren, along with mainstream pop artists like Michaels Buble and Jackson, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas, MGMT, and also Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone. Other artists seeing their earnings go up included Coldplay, Kings of Leon and Moby. 10 major Grammy award nominees had their royalties go up 11%, while the top 10 Billboard singles artists had their royalties go up 17%.
So if the goal is to redistribute money to obscure indie artists, it probably doesn't do enough. If the goal is to let death metal thrive and kill the top 40, the scheme couldn't be worse.
A text version of the top 5,000 artists, with the number of plays, number of unique users listening to them, revenue under the old and new schemes is available at this pastebin if you want more information.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 4:12 AM on November 22, 2014 [18 favorites]
A nice gentleman named Oscar Celma has made a dataset of last.fm users from 2008 publicly available at this link. It has, for almost 360,000 users, the number of times they have played each artist; 3.8 billion plays. I wrote a crummy Python script that analyzed this play data with the "traditional" fixed rate per song royalty and the "new" royalty structure proposed in the article; I assumed $25 million in payouts, about $70 per user or 0.66 cents per play. That seems consistent with the reported numbers, although a service like Spotify is much larger - they paid $500M in royalties last year, so multiply my numbers by 20 or so to see what they might be in the real world. In my simulation, the top artist, The Beatles, got $201K in revenue from the old scheme and $186K from the new. Here's what I found:
There were almost 300,000 artists listed, although this included many alternate names, weird sets of characters, etc. As you would expect, generally artists at the top made less money under the new scheme and artists further down the list made more. The crossover - in general terms - was around the 2000th or so artist (artists around here include Crass, Oingo Boingo, Panda Bear, No Age, The Pharcyde). By this point, artists are down to $1700 or so for payouts. Here's the overall structure of the payouts:
Tier Avg. pay old Avg. pay. new Change % change Share old Share new Top 200 $35,594.47 $31,509.80 -$4,084.67 -11% 28% 25% 200-2000 $5,341.87 $5,013.25 -$328.62 -6% 38% 36% 2K-20K $478.79 $522.88 $44.09 +9% 25% 27% 20K-100K $17.59 $23.79 $6.20 +35% 6% 8% 100K-300K $6.78 $15.95 $9.17 +135% 1% 2%There is some movement, but it doesn't add up to much. If you scale it up to Spotify size, an artist in that second last tier goes from around $350 to $475 or so a year. An artist getting a poverty wage of around $20K/year in royalties would get an extra thousand bucks. It's psychically nice I suppose, and definitely better than nothing, but it's not going to be enough to help most obscure indie artists keep up their career.
One reason the net effect is maybe smaller than you might expect is that the tiers don't rise and fall evenly; there are some redistributions going on, where different artists make more or less. One thing that surprised me was how badly metal and punk did; the single worst off artist (in absolute terms) was In Flames, who went from $75K to $46K. Looking at the biggest losers in percentage terms for the 500 most played artists, the worst 3 were Japanese bands, followed by the likes of NoFX, Soilwork, Fear Factory and KMFDM. I looked at 20 top death metal bands, and they lost 30% of their revenue on average.
On the other hand, I thought that the kind of artists that might do well were the ones preferred by people who didn't listen to much music and had broad tastes; sort of like the prototypical Grammys voter. The artist that was the absolute best off under the new scheme was Amy Winehouse, who also swept the 2008 Grammys, with 37% higher earnings - from $32k to $43K. The top 500 artists who did the best in percentage terms were mega-DJs Tiesto and Armin Van Buuren, along with mainstream pop artists like Michaels Buble and Jackson, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas, MGMT, and also Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone. Other artists seeing their earnings go up included Coldplay, Kings of Leon and Moby. 10 major Grammy award nominees had their royalties go up 11%, while the top 10 Billboard singles artists had their royalties go up 17%.
So if the goal is to redistribute money to obscure indie artists, it probably doesn't do enough. If the goal is to let death metal thrive and kill the top 40, the scheme couldn't be worse.
A text version of the top 5,000 artists, with the number of plays, number of unique users listening to them, revenue under the old and new schemes is available at this pastebin if you want more information.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 4:12 AM on November 22, 2014 [18 favorites]
To those saying this is too difficult, any DBA worth their salt should be able to put together the queries to do this in less than a day. And they would require zero effort after that to run the numbers every month.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:00 AM on November 22, 2014
posted by blue_beetle at 5:00 AM on November 22, 2014
Mmmm hmm. And if it's x10 as much work it's not that much of a big deal for a few thousand transactions. If it's a few million you might need to buy a new box. A few billion? Then maybe you have a big problem.
The hardware cost for computing horsepower able to give you a billion floating point operations every second is roughly one US dime. When it comes to financial accounting, even "complex" financial accounting on a global scale, performing the number crunching is damn near post-scarcity.
posted by radwolf76 at 5:05 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
The hardware cost for computing horsepower able to give you a billion floating point operations every second is roughly one US dime. When it comes to financial accounting, even "complex" financial accounting on a global scale, performing the number crunching is damn near post-scarcity.
posted by radwolf76 at 5:05 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
banjo_and_the_pork at 7:35 PM : What I would love to see is something that comes up after, say, twenty plays from an album where I would then get a message that to listen to it again I have to pay $10, which would then go directly to the artist. I try to be conscientious about going off and buying albums when I've decided I like them and have been enjoying them, but it would be convenient to have that streamlined into the Spotify process.
um ... what about the rest of us Who DON't want to have to pay $10. The rest of us who don't really care that artists aren't paid much.
What if I think artists are paid enough by Spotify? Musicians have been living the dream for 50 years, rockin' out and cashing in on royalties for years. Its about time they have to actually work for a living like everyone else.
Finally the facade of artistry supported by a false monopoly of physical data has been smashed and the real value of music has been revealed.. that its really just not worth much. And there is so much of it out there - that sounds much like the rest anyway. Life + 50 years for copyright? What a joke. It should be 7 years max then its in the public domain.
posted by mary8nne at 5:22 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
um ... what about the rest of us Who DON't want to have to pay $10. The rest of us who don't really care that artists aren't paid much.
What if I think artists are paid enough by Spotify? Musicians have been living the dream for 50 years, rockin' out and cashing in on royalties for years. Its about time they have to actually work for a living like everyone else.
Finally the facade of artistry supported by a false monopoly of physical data has been smashed and the real value of music has been revealed.. that its really just not worth much. And there is so much of it out there - that sounds much like the rest anyway. Life + 50 years for copyright? What a joke. It should be 7 years max then its in the public domain.
posted by mary8nne at 5:22 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Don't feed the trolls, folks.
posted by soundguy99 at 5:33 AM on November 22, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by soundguy99 at 5:33 AM on November 22, 2014 [4 favorites]
Leaving aside the bizarre rhetoric of self-justificiation, there's a real point that a significant number of people don't see creative work as *work*, but as something else entirely, something to which they are inherently entitled. They see it as a feature of daily experience more than as stuff someone worked on, and they don't quite think of or experience listening to a song or seeing a painting or movie or TV show as a form of consumption.
More generally, I think the idea that we can create a working, sustainable capitalism around services and immaterial goods is deeply flawed because it turns out that a shockingly large number of people don't think about the economic lie of the artist or the service provider, and don't want to. That gets in the way of the experience rather than improving it. If you want to understand music piracy and the move towards microtransaction purchases and streaming, look at how many people feel and think about waitstaff at the restaurant or the teacher at the local school.
For whatever reason, and it's worth investigating, people have a much easier time connecting physical goods and physical labor to prices and to laborers than they have connecting various forms of mental or performative services and labor to prices and laborers.
posted by kewb at 7:35 AM on November 22, 2014 [4 favorites]
More generally, I think the idea that we can create a working, sustainable capitalism around services and immaterial goods is deeply flawed because it turns out that a shockingly large number of people don't think about the economic lie of the artist or the service provider, and don't want to. That gets in the way of the experience rather than improving it. If you want to understand music piracy and the move towards microtransaction purchases and streaming, look at how many people feel and think about waitstaff at the restaurant or the teacher at the local school.
For whatever reason, and it's worth investigating, people have a much easier time connecting physical goods and physical labor to prices and to laborers than they have connecting various forms of mental or performative services and labor to prices and laborers.
posted by kewb at 7:35 AM on November 22, 2014 [4 favorites]
Or, heck, look at the persistent undervaluation of domestic labor. There are a whole lot of services and experiences that flow from someone's very hard work, but are not perceived as work by the people who benefit from them. Instead, they become "natural" features of one's environment: there was always caregiving, there was always music to be heard, there were always shows and movies just on a screen nearby, just as water falls from the sky and air is there waiting to be breathed.
posted by kewb at 7:39 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by kewb at 7:39 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
I work at Safari, a subscription ebook service, and the proposed payment system is exactly how ours already works and has worked for more than ten years.
posted by nev at 8:02 AM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by nev at 8:02 AM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Whats bizarre about thinking that Copyright terms are unfair and a total scam? Why do artists think their work is worth so much more than everyone else's?
How long does it take to write and record a hit song?... a couple of days, a week or so a month if you want to get wasted every day while you do it.... How much money do you think the Lennon / MacCartney etc earned from the few weeks or so they spent messing about in the studio working on say "Abbey Road".
What other profession pays that well? - for the rest of your life + 50 years?!
But you might say that they had to put in years of practice to get to that level... well so do most professionals. Doctors - 5-6 years in Education, but they don't earn 20M for a few weeks of operations.
The copyright monopoly is a racket.
posted by mary8nne at 8:08 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
How long does it take to write and record a hit song?... a couple of days, a week or so a month if you want to get wasted every day while you do it.... How much money do you think the Lennon / MacCartney etc earned from the few weeks or so they spent messing about in the studio working on say "Abbey Road".
What other profession pays that well? - for the rest of your life + 50 years?!
But you might say that they had to put in years of practice to get to that level... well so do most professionals. Doctors - 5-6 years in Education, but they don't earn 20M for a few weeks of operations.
The copyright monopoly is a racket.
posted by mary8nne at 8:08 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
mary8nne: It takes way longer then that to write a song, and it doesn't actually pay all that well for the 99% of musicians.
posted by divabat at 8:14 AM on November 22, 2014
posted by divabat at 8:14 AM on November 22, 2014
I'm one of the more copyleft folks on MeFi, and mary8anne, you've got no fucking idea what you're talking about.
posted by klangklangston at 8:56 AM on November 22, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by klangklangston at 8:56 AM on November 22, 2014 [6 favorites]
and it doesn't actually pay all that well for the 99% of musicians.
But why should it pay that well for any? Why should it be such a lottery system? Write a HIT and make millions or make nothing.
And no. It doesn't really take "way longer" than say 2 solid weeks work to write and record a song.
I wrote a song once in about a week of writing / recording - that I got synchronised to a commercial which eventually paid more than about ~ US$20,000. The total time I put in on that song was probably less than 40 hours. Less than a full weeks work.
So I would say I do at least partly know what I'm talking about.
posted by mary8nne at 10:15 AM on November 22, 2014
But why should it pay that well for any? Why should it be such a lottery system? Write a HIT and make millions or make nothing.
And no. It doesn't really take "way longer" than say 2 solid weeks work to write and record a song.
I wrote a song once in about a week of writing / recording - that I got synchronised to a commercial which eventually paid more than about ~ US$20,000. The total time I put in on that song was probably less than 40 hours. Less than a full weeks work.
So I would say I do at least partly know what I'm talking about.
posted by mary8nne at 10:15 AM on November 22, 2014
TIL that in the U.K. advertising companies apparently hold a gun to your head and force you to accept large sums of money for virtually no work at all.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:42 AM on November 22, 2014
posted by soundguy99 at 10:42 AM on November 22, 2014
The Tyranny of Free
The internet radio service Pandora pitches artists an escalator to financial viability in the digital age, but it's just a staircase painted like an escalator — with the steps missing.
posted by divabat at 11:07 AM on November 22, 2014
The internet radio service Pandora pitches artists an escalator to financial viability in the digital age, but it's just a staircase painted like an escalator — with the steps missing.
posted by divabat at 11:07 AM on November 22, 2014
I wrote a song once in about a week of writing / recording - that I got synchronised to a commercial which eventually paid more than about ~ US$20,000. The total time I put in on that song was probably less than 40 hours. Less than a full weeks work.
If that was the first 40 hours you put in to writing and recording a song and you saw $20,000 fall out of the sky, I can see why you might think this is all easy money.
I also have acquaintances who've done OK for themselves with music in one way or another. It seems to me the more likely case for those who find any success at all is that the kind of return you experienced doesn't begin until they've made around a score of songs. So, maybe it's $20k (maybe) for 800 hours of work, which isn't half bad, but $25/hr is around median wages. Of course it's possible to get lucky earlier, but it's also possible to fill out two good albums and never get much in the way of lucrative attention at all (the later case is far more common in my observation).
Of course, success breeds success. One acquaintance just got a song picked up by David Archuleta. She's talented and that'll probably get her in more doors and it won't be another 20 songs before she gets a return on something else. But to get here I know she's worked her butt off for at least the last 12 years of her life and she is not out-earning surgeons.
I don't like eternal copyright myself and would be happy to see shorter terms. I also would like it if we had less of a lottery system. But that's probably less an artifact of copyright itself and more related to the fact that it's just hard to tell what will tickle people's fancy (particularly when limits to the desirability of consistency is part of people's fancy). Except for some of the established or unusually talented/lucky, every creation is a risky investment, some will pay off, most won't.
Maybe there's something that could be done to mitigate the boom/bust nature of it. But a general copyright ban or moving to a future where recording royalties are replaced with streaming royalties sure isn't a solution to that problem.
posted by weston at 12:16 PM on November 22, 2014 [4 favorites]
If that was the first 40 hours you put in to writing and recording a song and you saw $20,000 fall out of the sky, I can see why you might think this is all easy money.
I also have acquaintances who've done OK for themselves with music in one way or another. It seems to me the more likely case for those who find any success at all is that the kind of return you experienced doesn't begin until they've made around a score of songs. So, maybe it's $20k (maybe) for 800 hours of work, which isn't half bad, but $25/hr is around median wages. Of course it's possible to get lucky earlier, but it's also possible to fill out two good albums and never get much in the way of lucrative attention at all (the later case is far more common in my observation).
Of course, success breeds success. One acquaintance just got a song picked up by David Archuleta. She's talented and that'll probably get her in more doors and it won't be another 20 songs before she gets a return on something else. But to get here I know she's worked her butt off for at least the last 12 years of her life and she is not out-earning surgeons.
I don't like eternal copyright myself and would be happy to see shorter terms. I also would like it if we had less of a lottery system. But that's probably less an artifact of copyright itself and more related to the fact that it's just hard to tell what will tickle people's fancy (particularly when limits to the desirability of consistency is part of people's fancy). Except for some of the established or unusually talented/lucky, every creation is a risky investment, some will pay off, most won't.
Maybe there's something that could be done to mitigate the boom/bust nature of it. But a general copyright ban or moving to a future where recording royalties are replaced with streaming royalties sure isn't a solution to that problem.
posted by weston at 12:16 PM on November 22, 2014 [4 favorites]
Spotify has an interesting article explaining how payouts work and how they will increase over time. They also compare their business model to other services like Pandora.
posted by humanfont at 1:01 PM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by humanfont at 1:01 PM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Spotify comparing themselves to Pandora or any other streaming service or even terrestrial radio is misdirection.
They're not competing with Pandora or terrestrial radio or even YouTube. They're competing with iTunes and Amazon. They're competing against the concept of a market for owning recordings.
posted by weston at 1:19 PM on November 22, 2014
They're not competing with Pandora or terrestrial radio or even YouTube. They're competing with iTunes and Amazon. They're competing against the concept of a market for owning recordings.
posted by weston at 1:19 PM on November 22, 2014
Hey guys,
I wrote the article. Sorry I'm late to the party here, just followed the referrer traffic from Medium (and paid my $5 for the privilege). There are a lot of discussions all over the web and I'm trying to clarify the issue in as many forums as I can. It's a lot of work, I've pretty much done nothing else for the past 72 hours...
First of all the model, at it's core, is really *really* simple: if I listen to an artist x% of the time, that artist should get x% of my subscription fee's royalties payable.
The argument is rooted in ethics and morality, not wealth redistribution. In fact it's trying to put a stop to wealth redistribution that is baked into the current model. Every subscriber is paying to listen to music. By definition the value they are paying for is the music they listen to. So it's only fair that the subscriber's money should go to the artists who created the value for that listener.
I am not advocating one genre of music over another, or one size of artist over another. I only used a small death metal band vs top pop stars to illustrate the inequity. If you notice, I made it clear in the footnotes that I am not a death metal fan. There is science to support the notion that there will not be dramatic revenue shifts between different sized artists. Some may be dissapointed by this, but I am heartened: it means it's not biased towards any specific size category, and that makes it easier for the industry to adopt. It is a business at the end of the day.
According to the study there will be revenue shifts between artists. This is a good thing. Fans that listen to music 10k+ plays a month are not any more valuable than a fan that listens to a couple dozen tracks a month. They are both paying the same $10/month. Getting fans that don't listen to music much to subscribe is arguably the harder "get" so to the extent a particular artist is adept at acquiring this particular customer type, it's good for the industry. Presumably many of these fans will listen to other music sooner or later, and those artists will reap the benefits when that happens.
The proposed model does not affect what subscribers pay in any way shape or form.
Homeboy Trouble's analysis was very interesting, but there is a gigantic caveat in that data: Last.FM is a radio service. So you pick Amy Winehouse and it plays some Amy, but also a bunch of artists that sound like Amy. This winds up flattening the data quite a bit, and artist frequency count is probably as least as likely to reflect vagaries present in the artist similarity and selection algoritihm as it is actual user preference. Listening habits change a bit when you are seeking artists out and playing them exclusively. It's a good launching point though, because most services (particularly Beats) rely on playlists to some degree, so there will be some flattening no matter service you examine.
The big takeaway is that there will be winners and losers within every category and genre. There is a high degree of variability between individual artists and Taylor Swift's fans will not behave the same as Rihanna's. Likewise Pavement vs. My Bloody Valentine, Slayer vs. Exhumed, and so on.
My big message is that if an artist is somehow, by some magic, able to command some share of a listener's time, then that artist should be paid accordingly, and we should not discriminate against an artist because they are too obscure, too popular, too challenging, too simple, too major, too indie, etc. As I state in the title, the goal is to be fair(er).
The cynics view this as a quixotic effort that the labels will ignore and is doomed to fail. I am pleased to report that the former is simply not true. As for the latter, time will tell, but I am optimistic, and with good reason to be.
I'll try and check back tonight. If you want me to answer a specific question, or address a specific critique, I'll do my best.
posted by sharkyl at 1:50 PM on November 22, 2014 [10 favorites]
I wrote the article. Sorry I'm late to the party here, just followed the referrer traffic from Medium (and paid my $5 for the privilege). There are a lot of discussions all over the web and I'm trying to clarify the issue in as many forums as I can. It's a lot of work, I've pretty much done nothing else for the past 72 hours...
First of all the model, at it's core, is really *really* simple: if I listen to an artist x% of the time, that artist should get x% of my subscription fee's royalties payable.
The argument is rooted in ethics and morality, not wealth redistribution. In fact it's trying to put a stop to wealth redistribution that is baked into the current model. Every subscriber is paying to listen to music. By definition the value they are paying for is the music they listen to. So it's only fair that the subscriber's money should go to the artists who created the value for that listener.
I am not advocating one genre of music over another, or one size of artist over another. I only used a small death metal band vs top pop stars to illustrate the inequity. If you notice, I made it clear in the footnotes that I am not a death metal fan. There is science to support the notion that there will not be dramatic revenue shifts between different sized artists. Some may be dissapointed by this, but I am heartened: it means it's not biased towards any specific size category, and that makes it easier for the industry to adopt. It is a business at the end of the day.
According to the study there will be revenue shifts between artists. This is a good thing. Fans that listen to music 10k+ plays a month are not any more valuable than a fan that listens to a couple dozen tracks a month. They are both paying the same $10/month. Getting fans that don't listen to music much to subscribe is arguably the harder "get" so to the extent a particular artist is adept at acquiring this particular customer type, it's good for the industry. Presumably many of these fans will listen to other music sooner or later, and those artists will reap the benefits when that happens.
The proposed model does not affect what subscribers pay in any way shape or form.
Homeboy Trouble's analysis was very interesting, but there is a gigantic caveat in that data: Last.FM is a radio service. So you pick Amy Winehouse and it plays some Amy, but also a bunch of artists that sound like Amy. This winds up flattening the data quite a bit, and artist frequency count is probably as least as likely to reflect vagaries present in the artist similarity and selection algoritihm as it is actual user preference. Listening habits change a bit when you are seeking artists out and playing them exclusively. It's a good launching point though, because most services (particularly Beats) rely on playlists to some degree, so there will be some flattening no matter service you examine.
The big takeaway is that there will be winners and losers within every category and genre. There is a high degree of variability between individual artists and Taylor Swift's fans will not behave the same as Rihanna's. Likewise Pavement vs. My Bloody Valentine, Slayer vs. Exhumed, and so on.
My big message is that if an artist is somehow, by some magic, able to command some share of a listener's time, then that artist should be paid accordingly, and we should not discriminate against an artist because they are too obscure, too popular, too challenging, too simple, too major, too indie, etc. As I state in the title, the goal is to be fair(er).
The cynics view this as a quixotic effort that the labels will ignore and is doomed to fail. I am pleased to report that the former is simply not true. As for the latter, time will tell, but I am optimistic, and with good reason to be.
I'll try and check back tonight. If you want me to answer a specific question, or address a specific critique, I'll do my best.
posted by sharkyl at 1:50 PM on November 22, 2014 [10 favorites]
Tier Avg. pay old Avg. pay. new Change % change Share old Share new
Top 200 ..... $35,594.47 .. $31,509.80 -$4,084.67 .. -11% ... 28% .... 25%
200-2000 ..... $5,341.87 .. $5,013.25 .... -$328.62 ... -6% ... . 38% ... 36%
2K-20K ........... $478.79 .. $522.88 .......... $44.09 ... +9% .... 25% .... 27%
20K-100K ......... $17.59 .. $23.79 .............. $6.20 . +35% ...... 6% ..... 8%
100K-300K ......... $6.78 .. $15.95 .............. $9.17 +135% ...... 1% ..... 2%
There is some movement, but it doesn't add up to much.
--radwolf76
1% to 2% may not look like much, but it represents doubling the amount of money received by all the lesser known artists.
There's something about the music business where we are so used to having artists ripped off, that we accept this payment system as normal and anything that actually pays them per listen as weird. But lots of other industries do this. There are software streaming services, where your monthly fee gets distributed to the software developers in direct proportion to how much you use them. This is not weird. How Spotify, and all the others do it is weird, and they do it this way because it is more convenient for the record producers to collect money this way. Use your computers guys. It is really easy for computers to figure these fees out on a per-listen basis.
Right now if I listen to 7000 tracks a month each of those listens is as important as the ones from another subscriber that only listens to 1000 tracks per month. Under the proposed system my listens would be worth 1/7th what the other subscriber's listens were worth.--mountmccabe
No! Your listens are worth $10 a month! If you chose to divide that 10/month among 7000 tracks and someone else decides to divide them among 1000 tracks, that is just your choice. Your $10 a month doesn't multiply just because you listen to more tracks. $10 is $10. Unfortunately, the way it is now, for a lot of artists, it is a lot less.
posted by eye of newt at 1:59 PM on November 22, 2014
Top 200 ..... $35,594.47 .. $31,509.80 -$4,084.67 .. -11% ... 28% .... 25%
200-2000 ..... $5,341.87 .. $5,013.25 .... -$328.62 ... -6% ... . 38% ... 36%
2K-20K ........... $478.79 .. $522.88 .......... $44.09 ... +9% .... 25% .... 27%
20K-100K ......... $17.59 .. $23.79 .............. $6.20 . +35% ...... 6% ..... 8%
100K-300K ......... $6.78 .. $15.95 .............. $9.17 +135% ...... 1% ..... 2%
There is some movement, but it doesn't add up to much.
--radwolf76
1% to 2% may not look like much, but it represents doubling the amount of money received by all the lesser known artists.
There's something about the music business where we are so used to having artists ripped off, that we accept this payment system as normal and anything that actually pays them per listen as weird. But lots of other industries do this. There are software streaming services, where your monthly fee gets distributed to the software developers in direct proportion to how much you use them. This is not weird. How Spotify, and all the others do it is weird, and they do it this way because it is more convenient for the record producers to collect money this way. Use your computers guys. It is really easy for computers to figure these fees out on a per-listen basis.
Right now if I listen to 7000 tracks a month each of those listens is as important as the ones from another subscriber that only listens to 1000 tracks per month. Under the proposed system my listens would be worth 1/7th what the other subscriber's listens were worth.--mountmccabe
No! Your listens are worth $10 a month! If you chose to divide that 10/month among 7000 tracks and someone else decides to divide them among 1000 tracks, that is just your choice. Your $10 a month doesn't multiply just because you listen to more tracks. $10 is $10. Unfortunately, the way it is now, for a lot of artists, it is a lot less.
posted by eye of newt at 1:59 PM on November 22, 2014
sharkyl: Homeboy Trouble's analysis was very interesting, but there is a gigantic caveat in that data: Last.FM is a radio service.
Last.fm is a scrobbling service. I have scrobbled 130k tracks at last.fm and less than 20 of them are via their radio service. I understand that there are people that use it as a radio service but there are people that like stats and charts (like myself) that use it to keep track of what we listen to. So the data Homebody used is probably better than you are giving it credit for.
I am also confused as to why this proposal seems to be talking entirely about artists rather than songs when credits/rights vary from song to song, even on the same album.
I'd also like to say thanks for showing up and joining the conversation. I was in the middle of writing a new comment when yours showed up with new information to digest (the article you link to on Danish streaming is very interesting!) and it will be good to look further into this. My earlier comments were probably a little bit harsh but overall this system does not make much sense to me and does not seem like it will actually change much. But I will keep looking.
posted by mountmccabe at 2:21 PM on November 22, 2014
Last.fm is a scrobbling service. I have scrobbled 130k tracks at last.fm and less than 20 of them are via their radio service. I understand that there are people that use it as a radio service but there are people that like stats and charts (like myself) that use it to keep track of what we listen to. So the data Homebody used is probably better than you are giving it credit for.
I am also confused as to why this proposal seems to be talking entirely about artists rather than songs when credits/rights vary from song to song, even on the same album.
I'd also like to say thanks for showing up and joining the conversation. I was in the middle of writing a new comment when yours showed up with new information to digest (the article you link to on Danish streaming is very interesting!) and it will be good to look further into this. My earlier comments were probably a little bit harsh but overall this system does not make much sense to me and does not seem like it will actually change much. But I will keep looking.
posted by mountmccabe at 2:21 PM on November 22, 2014
I mentioned previously how easy it would be to rig Spotify's foolish payment model for its advertising filled free streaming service.
It turns out that a band did exacty that. They made $20,000 off of a 31 second song, consisting of absolute silence. Spotify, of course, took it down. But it proves how ridiculous the payment system is, and why a lot of these streaming services seem to be filling their libraries with more and more garbage. (By garbage, I don't mean music I don't like. I mean music put into Spotify purely to game the system).
posted by eye of newt at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
It turns out that a band did exacty that. They made $20,000 off of a 31 second song, consisting of absolute silence. Spotify, of course, took it down. But it proves how ridiculous the payment system is, and why a lot of these streaming services seem to be filling their libraries with more and more garbage. (By garbage, I don't mean music I don't like. I mean music put into Spotify purely to game the system).
posted by eye of newt at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
eye of newt: No! Your listens are worth $10 a month! If you chose to divide that 10/month among 7000 tracks and someone else decides to divide them among 1000 tracks, that is just your choice. Your $10 a month doesn't multiply just because you listen to more tracks. $10 is $10. Unfortunately, the way it is now, for a lot of artists, it is a lot less.
What you're laying out is sharkyl's proposed system, which isn't actually in place.
humanfont linked to an article from Spotify that discusses how they do their payouts:
"That 70% is split amongst the rights holders in accordance with the popularity of their music on the service. The label or publisher then divides these royalties and accounts to each artist depending on their individual deals."
The article on Danish streaming habits that sharkyl links to has the same take (see the discussion of Pro Rata that starts at the bottom of page 4)
"The current distribution model for streaming services is a pro rata model. This means that each
track receives a fraction of the total payout that is proportionate to the track’s share of total
streams on the service that month. This distribution model is relatively simple to administer, but it
also has a bias for quantitative listening."
It continues to show an example of this (more clearly than mine, even!) where every stream counts the same.
(I'll also note that when I said 7000 streams a month I was calculating from the wrong number, minutes streamed rather than streams. I actually had about 1500 streams per month over 2013).
posted by mountmccabe at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2014
What you're laying out is sharkyl's proposed system, which isn't actually in place.
humanfont linked to an article from Spotify that discusses how they do their payouts:
"That 70% is split amongst the rights holders in accordance with the popularity of their music on the service. The label or publisher then divides these royalties and accounts to each artist depending on their individual deals."
The article on Danish streaming habits that sharkyl links to has the same take (see the discussion of Pro Rata that starts at the bottom of page 4)
"The current distribution model for streaming services is a pro rata model. This means that each
track receives a fraction of the total payout that is proportionate to the track’s share of total
streams on the service that month. This distribution model is relatively simple to administer, but it
also has a bias for quantitative listening."
It continues to show an example of this (more clearly than mine, even!) where every stream counts the same.
(I'll also note that when I said 7000 streams a month I was calculating from the wrong number, minutes streamed rather than streams. I actually had about 1500 streams per month over 2013).
posted by mountmccabe at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2014
@Mount
I stand corrected. I have only used Last.fm once or twice, and was always of the impression it was radio. But even as a scrobbling service there is, I would imagine, an implicit bias: does a listener who listens exclusively to Taylor Swift have much need for a scrobbling service? It might be that listeners with diverse listening habits are over-represented in the data.
But even if we had access to real data directly from Spotify (or similar), that still doesn't tell us what we really need to know, which is how artist and listener behaviors might change when the model changes.
I'm on the side that this would be great for artists, great for listeners, great for the labels, and and great for the services. The drawbacks are exceedingly minimal when weighed against the advantages.
But I'm late to go on a hike with the kids, I'll be back tonight and try and fill in the details a little.
posted by sharkyl at 2:35 PM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
I stand corrected. I have only used Last.fm once or twice, and was always of the impression it was radio. But even as a scrobbling service there is, I would imagine, an implicit bias: does a listener who listens exclusively to Taylor Swift have much need for a scrobbling service? It might be that listeners with diverse listening habits are over-represented in the data.
But even if we had access to real data directly from Spotify (or similar), that still doesn't tell us what we really need to know, which is how artist and listener behaviors might change when the model changes.
I'm on the side that this would be great for artists, great for listeners, great for the labels, and and great for the services. The drawbacks are exceedingly minimal when weighed against the advantages.
But I'm late to go on a hike with the kids, I'll be back tonight and try and fill in the details a little.
posted by sharkyl at 2:35 PM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
One last thought: my preferred mdoel is based on minutes played, not tracks. You do not want a bias towards 30 second clips.
posted by sharkyl at 2:36 PM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by sharkyl at 2:36 PM on November 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
eye of the newt:
I have brought up that example as well: https://twitter.com/Sharkyl/status/534930277315784704
That particular scheme wouldn't work on a subscriber share model. Not without convincing your fans to listen to nothing but silence for a month. And if you can do that I would argue you have a tight enough relationship with your fans that you earned the money fair and square. :-)
OK REALLY LEAVING NOW...
posted by sharkyl at 2:38 PM on November 22, 2014
I have brought up that example as well: https://twitter.com/Sharkyl/status/534930277315784704
That particular scheme wouldn't work on a subscriber share model. Not without convincing your fans to listen to nothing but silence for a month. And if you can do that I would argue you have a tight enough relationship with your fans that you earned the money fair and square. :-)
OK REALLY LEAVING NOW...
posted by sharkyl at 2:38 PM on November 22, 2014
I often get asked how Safari prevents people from just "reading" their own book over and over again. They're welcome to do that if they like, but it would be a lot easier to just read a single page. If you buy a $30/month account and read one page of your own book or 1,000 pages of it, you'll get the exact same amount of money — a fraction of your $30 (just don't read anyone else's stuff in that period).
Note that other ebook subscription services typically use a threshold model: if a subscriber reads more than 10% or so of a given book, the publisher is compensated the full wholesale price of the book. This is nuts, since a high volume reader can easily generate more payments than revenue, but at least it's "unfair" to the service itself and not to the publisher/author.
posted by nev at 3:02 PM on November 22, 2014
Note that other ebook subscription services typically use a threshold model: if a subscriber reads more than 10% or so of a given book, the publisher is compensated the full wholesale price of the book. This is nuts, since a high volume reader can easily generate more payments than revenue, but at least it's "unfair" to the service itself and not to the publisher/author.
posted by nev at 3:02 PM on November 22, 2014
The thing about copyright is that it only actually helps a small percentage of musicans anyway. Its a bit like why people vote for the Republican party in the USA. Because everyone thinks they will be a millionaire one day. They just haven't struck it rich yet.
Of all the people who have attempted to be a Musican how many actually made money out of copyright? maybe the top 10% - and they make loads. There is just not much in the in between. If you aren't selling 100,000k + then you don't make a living anyway. You don't even pay for your instruments from royalties. and thats like 90% of people who are out there playing gigs etc..
The only reason they actually support the idea of copyright is because they have this delusional belief that one day they too will write a "hit song".
posted by mary8nne at 3:17 PM on November 22, 2014
Of all the people who have attempted to be a Musican how many actually made money out of copyright? maybe the top 10% - and they make loads. There is just not much in the in between. If you aren't selling 100,000k + then you don't make a living anyway. You don't even pay for your instruments from royalties. and thats like 90% of people who are out there playing gigs etc..
The only reason they actually support the idea of copyright is because they have this delusional belief that one day they too will write a "hit song".
posted by mary8nne at 3:17 PM on November 22, 2014
Well, you yourself made $20K from one song, which is hardly a "hit song", but a pretty good payday nonetheless, yes? And you only made that money because of copyright.
Everything you're objecting to is a function of how music is produced (in an industrial sense), distributed, and marketed. Your problem isn't with the core concept and principles of copyright, it's with the machine of pop music creation and distribution and how that machine has used and altered the application of copyright in its favor, and at the expense of the creators.
You're firing off your guns in the wrong direction, son.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:48 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Everything you're objecting to is a function of how music is produced (in an industrial sense), distributed, and marketed. Your problem isn't with the core concept and principles of copyright, it's with the machine of pop music creation and distribution and how that machine has used and altered the application of copyright in its favor, and at the expense of the creators.
You're firing off your guns in the wrong direction, son.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:48 PM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
I disagree. it is copyright that created "the machine of pop music creation and distribution". and it is the machine that is acting to maintain and increase the extent of the monopoly rights they have been given. My point is that most individual artists actually don't get any real benefit from copyright. They only THINK they will.
That it is actually the pop machine that is behind the current copyright regime. Who is it that ends up lobbying for extensions? artists? - no. Its the labels that have this mass of "cultural capital" that they are about to loose control of if it falls into public domain.
I would highly recommend the Lessig book on copyright.
And the story about the song was to prove that I "Do know what i'm talking about" and actually I think it was an insult to real labourers that I could make 20k in a couple of days due to this odd artificial thing we call copyright.
posted by mary8nne at 3:20 AM on November 23, 2014
That it is actually the pop machine that is behind the current copyright regime. Who is it that ends up lobbying for extensions? artists? - no. Its the labels that have this mass of "cultural capital" that they are about to loose control of if it falls into public domain.
I would highly recommend the Lessig book on copyright.
And the story about the song was to prove that I "Do know what i'm talking about" and actually I think it was an insult to real labourers that I could make 20k in a couple of days due to this odd artificial thing we call copyright.
posted by mary8nne at 3:20 AM on November 23, 2014
We could do well by making copyright non-transferable for a start. If a record label wants to distribute my music for me, they can license it. When I and my co-writers/bandmates die it should become public domain. How is copyright supposed to incentivise me to keep making music when I'm dead?
posted by Dysk at 3:45 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 3:45 AM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
So, just so there's no confusion here, I am absolutely not arguing in favor of the copyright laws and practices as they currently exist as being the best possible situation for artists and the public, forever and ever amen. I am well aware that the laws of copyright have changed significantly in my lifetime, and both the laws themselves and the practical applications of those laws have often worked to the detriment of creators and the public. I will, however, posit that as long as we exist in a capitalist social framework, some form of copyright is necessary and good, because it incentivizes the creation of works of art and other intellectual property, which in turn is beneficial to the public. A song or a novel or a computer program can still have benefit to the public even if only the creators have control over the work and receive financial benefit for a certain period of time. If your argument is that copyright is an inherently corrupt concept, or that its misuse means that the entire concept should be eliminated, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
My point is that most individual artists actually don't get any real benefit from copyright. They only THINK they will.
In the first place, you seem to be defining "real" benefit as "lots of money", and yes, only a few will get lots of money, but again, that's an effect of an industrial-style production and distribution model - which was arguably the only practical way to distribute creative works in the pre-internet days. If an artist's choice is between "make no money from my creative output because I don't have the resources to widely produce and distribute the work" and "make a deal with the Devil in order to receive some material benefit from my work", it's understandable that they'll go ahead and make the deal.
Furthermore, if you can expand your definition of "real benefit", many artists can and will derive "real benefit" from copyright. In fact, expanding that "real benefit" to less popular artists is actually what sharkyl's essay (the subject of the post) is all about.
The real issue, which has become a growing factor in many forms of media - books, films, music, software - since at least the middle of the 20th century, is that the industrial producers & distributors (a.k.a. the "gatekeepers") are increasingly chasing the blockbuster (a work that makes them a lot of money very quickly) rather than investing in works that have a longer tail, that will make them less money immediately but will continue to provide income for them (and their creators) for a long time. And many artists could and do produce work with a longer tail, and for them copyright does have "real benefit", if they're given the opportunity to derive said benefit from their work.
One of the hopes of the growth of the internet was that it would reduce the power of or eliminate the gatekeepers, leading to more artists being able to derive benefit without having to create blockbusters. This has not worked out entirely as hoped, but we're still, honestly, in the early days, and there still needs to be a framework of copyright in existence.
Who is it that ends up lobbying for extensions? artists? - no.
How is copyright supposed to incentivise me to keep making music when I'm dead?
Actually, in the U.S., it was Mark Twain who did some of the significant arguing in favor of extending the copyright, back in 1906. Admittedly, a large part of his concern was that without copyright extensions, the publishers could make money off an author's work without compensating the author, but he also believed that he had a responsibility to provide for his children, and extending the terms of copyright was a way to do that.
I think you can make a legitimate argument that if we, as a society, are going to allow people in more "standard" businesses to pass the benefits of their work on to their descendants, then we should not penalize those who work in creative fields by denying them that same opportunity. Exactly how to balance this opportunity with the rights of the public to freely access creative works is, of course, open to discussion.
I would highly recommend the Lessig book on copyright.
I'm not sure which book you mean, nor have I previously read any of his work, but if it's Free Culture (which I will read, since of course it's available for free download), note that even according to the Wikipedia article he does not seem to be arguing in favor of entirely eliminating copyright, but instead that the law prior to 1976/78 struck a much better balance between the rights of the creators and the rights of the public, and that changes to the law since then have only increased the power of the gatekeepers rather than the creators. As I stated at the beginning, I think this is an argument that has some merit.
it was an insult to real labourers that I could make 20k in a couple of days due to this odd artificial thing we call copyright.
And here you are displaying an attitude that kewb mentioned above - to quote, "a significant number of people don't see creative work as *work*"
So, why do you not consider this "work"? Does "work" have to be nasty, brutish, and physically demanding in order to have intrinsic value? Do people who write the software that runs this computer I'm typing on do "work"? Do bankers and accountants? Doctors? If so, they're certainly not doing physical labor any more than a songwriter is, so why is their work legitimate while creative work is not?
And again, the fact is that you made any money at all is because of the existence of copyright - that you made the rough equivalent of 6 months worth of "labor" in one fell swoop is an artifact of our current "free market" approach to creative endeavors, not an indictment of the basic conceptual underpinning of copyright.
And I would argue that the very idea that creative work is not "real" work is one of the things that helps create that free-market approach, and thus the wide disparity in income levels among artists. Instances where someone is paid an actual salary to produce creative work on a daily basis are rare and few and far between, and so those hoping to benefit from creative work must often, by necessity, become small independent businesspeople, and their best shot at some level of income security is to make a lot of money all at once, as a bulwark against a lack of income the rest of the year.
IOW, you feel it was insulting to "real" laborers that you made $20K for a weeks' work -- but what if you'd been offered $40K per year to show up every week for 40 hours a week and write songs for commercials?
The catch being that you weren't offered this kind of job, precisely because our culture doesn't consider creative work "real" work, so these jobs don't really exist.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:59 AM on November 23, 2014
My point is that most individual artists actually don't get any real benefit from copyright. They only THINK they will.
In the first place, you seem to be defining "real" benefit as "lots of money", and yes, only a few will get lots of money, but again, that's an effect of an industrial-style production and distribution model - which was arguably the only practical way to distribute creative works in the pre-internet days. If an artist's choice is between "make no money from my creative output because I don't have the resources to widely produce and distribute the work" and "make a deal with the Devil in order to receive some material benefit from my work", it's understandable that they'll go ahead and make the deal.
Furthermore, if you can expand your definition of "real benefit", many artists can and will derive "real benefit" from copyright. In fact, expanding that "real benefit" to less popular artists is actually what sharkyl's essay (the subject of the post) is all about.
The real issue, which has become a growing factor in many forms of media - books, films, music, software - since at least the middle of the 20th century, is that the industrial producers & distributors (a.k.a. the "gatekeepers") are increasingly chasing the blockbuster (a work that makes them a lot of money very quickly) rather than investing in works that have a longer tail, that will make them less money immediately but will continue to provide income for them (and their creators) for a long time. And many artists could and do produce work with a longer tail, and for them copyright does have "real benefit", if they're given the opportunity to derive said benefit from their work.
One of the hopes of the growth of the internet was that it would reduce the power of or eliminate the gatekeepers, leading to more artists being able to derive benefit without having to create blockbusters. This has not worked out entirely as hoped, but we're still, honestly, in the early days, and there still needs to be a framework of copyright in existence.
Who is it that ends up lobbying for extensions? artists? - no.
How is copyright supposed to incentivise me to keep making music when I'm dead?
Actually, in the U.S., it was Mark Twain who did some of the significant arguing in favor of extending the copyright, back in 1906. Admittedly, a large part of his concern was that without copyright extensions, the publishers could make money off an author's work without compensating the author, but he also believed that he had a responsibility to provide for his children, and extending the terms of copyright was a way to do that.
I think you can make a legitimate argument that if we, as a society, are going to allow people in more "standard" businesses to pass the benefits of their work on to their descendants, then we should not penalize those who work in creative fields by denying them that same opportunity. Exactly how to balance this opportunity with the rights of the public to freely access creative works is, of course, open to discussion.
I would highly recommend the Lessig book on copyright.
I'm not sure which book you mean, nor have I previously read any of his work, but if it's Free Culture (which I will read, since of course it's available for free download), note that even according to the Wikipedia article he does not seem to be arguing in favor of entirely eliminating copyright, but instead that the law prior to 1976/78 struck a much better balance between the rights of the creators and the rights of the public, and that changes to the law since then have only increased the power of the gatekeepers rather than the creators. As I stated at the beginning, I think this is an argument that has some merit.
it was an insult to real labourers that I could make 20k in a couple of days due to this odd artificial thing we call copyright.
And here you are displaying an attitude that kewb mentioned above - to quote, "a significant number of people don't see creative work as *work*"
So, why do you not consider this "work"? Does "work" have to be nasty, brutish, and physically demanding in order to have intrinsic value? Do people who write the software that runs this computer I'm typing on do "work"? Do bankers and accountants? Doctors? If so, they're certainly not doing physical labor any more than a songwriter is, so why is their work legitimate while creative work is not?
And again, the fact is that you made any money at all is because of the existence of copyright - that you made the rough equivalent of 6 months worth of "labor" in one fell swoop is an artifact of our current "free market" approach to creative endeavors, not an indictment of the basic conceptual underpinning of copyright.
And I would argue that the very idea that creative work is not "real" work is one of the things that helps create that free-market approach, and thus the wide disparity in income levels among artists. Instances where someone is paid an actual salary to produce creative work on a daily basis are rare and few and far between, and so those hoping to benefit from creative work must often, by necessity, become small independent businesspeople, and their best shot at some level of income security is to make a lot of money all at once, as a bulwark against a lack of income the rest of the year.
IOW, you feel it was insulting to "real" laborers that you made $20K for a weeks' work -- but what if you'd been offered $40K per year to show up every week for 40 hours a week and write songs for commercials?
The catch being that you weren't offered this kind of job, precisely because our culture doesn't consider creative work "real" work, so these jobs don't really exist.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:59 AM on November 23, 2014
I think you can make a legitimate argument that if we, as a society, are going to allow people in more "standard" businesses to pass the benefits of their work on to their descendants, then we should not penalize those who work in creative fields by denying them that same opportunity. Exactly how to balance this opportunity with the rights of the public to freely access creative works is, of course, open to discussion.
People who work in 'standard' businesses can pass the money they earned during their lifetime onto their kids. They don't get to leave a continuing salary to their kids. Similarly, musicians (and other artists) should be able to leave the money they've made to their kids, but not a continuing revenue stream.
posted by Dysk at 11:29 AM on November 23, 2014 [3 favorites]
People who work in 'standard' businesses can pass the money they earned during their lifetime onto their kids. They don't get to leave a continuing salary to their kids. Similarly, musicians (and other artists) should be able to leave the money they've made to their kids, but not a continuing revenue stream.
posted by Dysk at 11:29 AM on November 23, 2014 [3 favorites]
Mmmmm . . . . . but what about the idea that since, in practice, an artist does not have the same likelihood or assurance of a regular yearly income stream, they are (on some level) unable to build up a comparable "nest egg"? So in order to achieve something closer to an equitable level of inheritance their heirs should be allowed to benefit from the work for at least some length of time after the creators' death.
Maybe not the 70 or 95 years (depending on the date and terms of creation) as in the current US law, but I don't know? 10? 25? The heirs have to actively file 15-year extensions, with a limit of two?
Of course, this could seem like bending over backwards in favor of the artist if we're considering the Stephen Kings and Lady Gagas of the world, but I think changes in the laws & applications of copyright need to also consider the Philip K. Dicks and David Lowerys.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:31 PM on November 23, 2014
Maybe not the 70 or 95 years (depending on the date and terms of creation) as in the current US law, but I don't know? 10? 25? The heirs have to actively file 15-year extensions, with a limit of two?
Of course, this could seem like bending over backwards in favor of the artist if we're considering the Stephen Kings and Lady Gagas of the world, but I think changes in the laws & applications of copyright need to also consider the Philip K. Dicks and David Lowerys.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:31 PM on November 23, 2014
"I would highly recommend the Lessig book on copyright."
How can you have read any Lessig and not understand the difference between copyright and royalties? How can you have made $20,000 off one song and not understand the economics of the music business at all?
"And the story about the song was to prove that I "Do know what i'm talking about" and actually I think it was an insult to real labourers that I could make 20k in a couple of days due to this odd artificial thing we call copyright."
Except that it didn't. It dubiously asserted that you got lucky in a way that doesn't actually represent the general experience or work level of musicians and just kinda made you look like a blithe, oblivious jerk.
posted by klangklangston at 1:40 PM on November 23, 2014
How can you have read any Lessig and not understand the difference between copyright and royalties? How can you have made $20,000 off one song and not understand the economics of the music business at all?
"And the story about the song was to prove that I "Do know what i'm talking about" and actually I think it was an insult to real labourers that I could make 20k in a couple of days due to this odd artificial thing we call copyright."
Except that it didn't. It dubiously asserted that you got lucky in a way that doesn't actually represent the general experience or work level of musicians and just kinda made you look like a blithe, oblivious jerk.
posted by klangklangston at 1:40 PM on November 23, 2014
Mmmmm . . . . . but what about the idea that since, in practice, an artist does not have the same likelihood or assurance of a regular yearly income stream, they are (on some level) unable to build up a comparable "nest egg"?
The same is true of low-paid workers in more typical jobs, though. And comparable to whom? If you make the same money, why does the regularity (or not) of that income stream affect how much nest egg you can build up?
If the purpose of copyright is to incentivise work, then there is no reason whatsoever for it to extend beyond death or be transferable. Hell, it shouldn't be long enough that you can be sure it'll last until you die - otherwise, if you've made a successful thing that's making a bucketload of money, why would you ever make another thing again?
posted by Dysk at 3:56 PM on November 23, 2014
The same is true of low-paid workers in more typical jobs, though. And comparable to whom? If you make the same money, why does the regularity (or not) of that income stream affect how much nest egg you can build up?
If the purpose of copyright is to incentivise work, then there is no reason whatsoever for it to extend beyond death or be transferable. Hell, it shouldn't be long enough that you can be sure it'll last until you die - otherwise, if you've made a successful thing that's making a bucketload of money, why would you ever make another thing again?
posted by Dysk at 3:56 PM on November 23, 2014
Not sure if the $20,000 windfall anecdote is on the level or just troll bait, but either way, please don't anyone leave this discussion thinking that things like that actually happen often, to any significant proportion of talented working musicians. Maybe if you're already well-connected, rich, lucky, or some combination of all three, but we're talking lottery lucky these days.
It's too easy now to just get some corporate hack with a laptop to throw together a quick tune using canned loops and Acid Music. Or pay some studio guy on contract to the producer to make a sound-a-like. That's what most cheap commercial music is.
There's been a trend toward commercials featuring tracks by hip new indie artists for some time now, but the majority of what we hear is cookie-cutter loop based music, no instruments or technique required, drag and drop. I make loop based music, with real instruments I play myself, but that canned corporate stuff chokes out the market for original recorded music like an invasive weed.
Don't get me wrong: There are people doing worthwhile things tweaking canned loops to create new sounds, and people using canned loops and found sounds in other interesting ways, but the canned corporate stuff is a calamity.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:33 PM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's too easy now to just get some corporate hack with a laptop to throw together a quick tune using canned loops and Acid Music. Or pay some studio guy on contract to the producer to make a sound-a-like. That's what most cheap commercial music is.
There's been a trend toward commercials featuring tracks by hip new indie artists for some time now, but the majority of what we hear is cookie-cutter loop based music, no instruments or technique required, drag and drop. I make loop based music, with real instruments I play myself, but that canned corporate stuff chokes out the market for original recorded music like an invasive weed.
Don't get me wrong: There are people doing worthwhile things tweaking canned loops to create new sounds, and people using canned loops and found sounds in other interesting ways, but the canned corporate stuff is a calamity.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:33 PM on November 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
Upon more consideration of the alternative model propsed in the article, it is crap.
The model fails to define and ignores the realities of much c production and ownership by sweeping it all under the term artist. The "artist" is treated as a singular person or band when in fact individual songs are most often the result of a collaboration of artists including song writers, session muscisians, voice talent, samples from other tracks and so on. Each participant in the performance may be entitiled to ongoing royalted while others will he paid on a work for hire basis.
Next the discrepancies in payouts which form the basis of fhr claim that the new model is fairer are only possible undrr a very specific listener profile. It requires that there exist a set of subscribers who are narrowly focused on one obscure artists. These users must also listen to fewer streams than typical users. If this set is large enough then there will be bias towards the new model. However if users meeting bith the fewer streams and single artist are rare then the new model doesnt have a clear advantage. Furthermore if the single artist fans listen to more streams per month than a typical user then these artists might lose out. Consider a two subscriber model where there is a $14 royalty pot. If both fans listen to 10 streams a month, but one selects a single artist and the other streams from 10 artists then it is the same result as the new model. If the first fan listens to 5 streams or 15 streams then the payments will shift, but as you add more users to the model it is likely that things will regress to the mean. One exhuberant fan will cancel out the more occasionnal user.
In conclusion the proposal is nonsense. It fails to acknowledge the complexity of artistic ownership and royalty rights and the math doesnt work outside of a very carefully constructed set of conditions.
posted by humanfont at 8:25 PM on November 23, 2014
The model fails to define and ignores the realities of much c production and ownership by sweeping it all under the term artist. The "artist" is treated as a singular person or band when in fact individual songs are most often the result of a collaboration of artists including song writers, session muscisians, voice talent, samples from other tracks and so on. Each participant in the performance may be entitiled to ongoing royalted while others will he paid on a work for hire basis.
Next the discrepancies in payouts which form the basis of fhr claim that the new model is fairer are only possible undrr a very specific listener profile. It requires that there exist a set of subscribers who are narrowly focused on one obscure artists. These users must also listen to fewer streams than typical users. If this set is large enough then there will be bias towards the new model. However if users meeting bith the fewer streams and single artist are rare then the new model doesnt have a clear advantage. Furthermore if the single artist fans listen to more streams per month than a typical user then these artists might lose out. Consider a two subscriber model where there is a $14 royalty pot. If both fans listen to 10 streams a month, but one selects a single artist and the other streams from 10 artists then it is the same result as the new model. If the first fan listens to 5 streams or 15 streams then the payments will shift, but as you add more users to the model it is likely that things will regress to the mean. One exhuberant fan will cancel out the more occasionnal user.
In conclusion the proposal is nonsense. It fails to acknowledge the complexity of artistic ownership and royalty rights and the math doesnt work outside of a very carefully constructed set of conditions.
posted by humanfont at 8:25 PM on November 23, 2014
The model fails to define and ignores the realities of much c production and ownership by sweeping it all under the term artist. The "artist" is treated as a singular person or band when in fact individual songs are most often the result of a collaboration of artists including song writers, session muscisians, voice talent, samples from other tracks and so on. Each participant in the performance may be entitiled to ongoing royalted while others will he paid on a work for hire basis.
I'm not sure how this is relevant? The musicians paid on a work for hire basis have been paid, royalties are irrelevant to them, and they are irrelevant to a discussion on royalties (whether you think this is fair or not is another discussion). If there is a group of people - say a band, or several artists collaborating, or a songwriter and different performer - that is also irrelevant to Spotify or other streaming services. They pay out the royalties that the track generates to an organisation (usually a record label and/or a musician's union) who then distribute those royalties based on whatever split or setup the group or individuals who made the music have. Spotify doesn't touch that. If a song generates $5, it generates $5 and that's what Spotify pays, and then it's up to the people who made the song to have an agreement on how that $5 gets split between them, and to handle that internally, effectively.
posted by Dysk at 2:32 AM on November 24, 2014
I'm not sure how this is relevant? The musicians paid on a work for hire basis have been paid, royalties are irrelevant to them, and they are irrelevant to a discussion on royalties (whether you think this is fair or not is another discussion). If there is a group of people - say a band, or several artists collaborating, or a songwriter and different performer - that is also irrelevant to Spotify or other streaming services. They pay out the royalties that the track generates to an organisation (usually a record label and/or a musician's union) who then distribute those royalties based on whatever split or setup the group or individuals who made the music have. Spotify doesn't touch that. If a song generates $5, it generates $5 and that's what Spotify pays, and then it's up to the people who made the song to have an agreement on how that $5 gets split between them, and to handle that internally, effectively.
posted by Dysk at 2:32 AM on November 24, 2014
I'm not sure how this is relevant?
It is relevant because the claimed benefits are derived from an over simplified view of how the "artist" is defined. Royalties don't get paid out based on the artist alone. Two people could probably listen to Madonna exclusively on Spotify but that wouldn't generate the same payment to her because the payments vary based on the frequency that individual tracks were played. Different recordings of the same song could even change the payouts.
The model would have to take the individual subscriber fees and divide them between the frequency of the tracks played by the subscriber in a given month. This makes it much more difficult to demonstrate any benefit over the current model. The benefits only emerge for the subset of users who listen to a small number of tracks and at a frequency lower than other users.
posted by humanfont at 2:26 PM on November 24, 2014
It is relevant because the claimed benefits are derived from an over simplified view of how the "artist" is defined. Royalties don't get paid out based on the artist alone. Two people could probably listen to Madonna exclusively on Spotify but that wouldn't generate the same payment to her because the payments vary based on the frequency that individual tracks were played. Different recordings of the same song could even change the payouts.
The model would have to take the individual subscriber fees and divide them between the frequency of the tracks played by the subscriber in a given month. This makes it much more difficult to demonstrate any benefit over the current model. The benefits only emerge for the subset of users who listen to a small number of tracks and at a frequency lower than other users.
posted by humanfont at 2:26 PM on November 24, 2014
Upon more consideration of the alternative model propsed in the article, it is crap.
The model fails to define and ignores the realities of much c production and ownership by sweeping it all under the term artist. The "artist" is treated as a singular person or band when in fact individual songs are most often the result of a collaboration...
If the first fan listens to 5 streams or 15 streams then the payments will shift, but as you add more users to the model it is likely that things will regress to the mean. One exhuberant fan will cancel out the more occasionnal user.
In conclusion the proposal is nonsense. It fails to acknowledge the complexity of artistic ownership and royalty rights and the math doesnt work outside of a very carefully constructed set of conditions.--humanfont
You mention two separate issues here.
1. Music production is complicated. Lots of people work on tracks, direct, produce, etc. This model is not trying to address the entire complexity of the music industry. It is only addressing the method streaming services pay money. Where the money goes after they pay out is a very separate issue, that a streaming payment system cannot solve. A solution isn't crap if it doesn't solve everything.
2. "One exhuberant fan will not cancel out the more occasional user"
I disagree. Let's say just 100 rabid fans of an indie ban listen 50% of the time to the band, and they pay $10/month and 70% is paid out, The band makes $350/month from just 100 fans! How much do you think they would make from how Spotify pays now? I'm guessing it is in the pennies.
I personally am very confused that people are resisting this. Don't you want the money you pay to go to the artists you are listening to instead of to some top 10 pop artist you can't stand? What am I missing here?
posted by eye of newt at 11:08 PM on November 24, 2014
The model fails to define and ignores the realities of much c production and ownership by sweeping it all under the term artist. The "artist" is treated as a singular person or band when in fact individual songs are most often the result of a collaboration...
If the first fan listens to 5 streams or 15 streams then the payments will shift, but as you add more users to the model it is likely that things will regress to the mean. One exhuberant fan will cancel out the more occasionnal user.
In conclusion the proposal is nonsense. It fails to acknowledge the complexity of artistic ownership and royalty rights and the math doesnt work outside of a very carefully constructed set of conditions.--humanfont
You mention two separate issues here.
1. Music production is complicated. Lots of people work on tracks, direct, produce, etc. This model is not trying to address the entire complexity of the music industry. It is only addressing the method streaming services pay money. Where the money goes after they pay out is a very separate issue, that a streaming payment system cannot solve. A solution isn't crap if it doesn't solve everything.
2. "One exhuberant fan will not cancel out the more occasional user"
I disagree. Let's say just 100 rabid fans of an indie ban listen 50% of the time to the band, and they pay $10/month and 70% is paid out, The band makes $350/month from just 100 fans! How much do you think they would make from how Spotify pays now? I'm guessing it is in the pennies.
I personally am very confused that people are resisting this. Don't you want the money you pay to go to the artists you are listening to instead of to some top 10 pop artist you can't stand? What am I missing here?
posted by eye of newt at 11:08 PM on November 24, 2014
Oops --my post doubled somehow--deleted.
posted by eye of newt at 11:09 PM on November 24, 2014
posted by eye of newt at 11:09 PM on November 24, 2014
eye of newt: 2. "One exhuberant fan will not cancel out the more occasional user"
I disagree. Let's say just 100 rabid fans of an indie ban listen 50% of the time to the band, and they pay $10/month and 70% is paid out, The band makes $350/month from just 100 fans! How much do you think they would make from how Spotify pays now? I'm guessing it is in the pennies.
Let's compare that to how it works under the current system! It depends a lot on how much music those fans listen to a month. If it's an average of 1000 plays then that means 500 plays per person times 100 people times $0.007 per play = $350 per month. (1000 plays a month at 3.5 minutes per play means about 2 hours per day).
The difference in the new system would be that this would hold if those subscribers listened to 200 or 2000 tracks a month.
If we want to look at real numbers (from Spotify, to be fair) their chart shows a "Niche Indie Album" made $3,300 in July 2013. Though, of course, they don't say what album this is for.
posted by mountmccabe at 1:16 PM on November 25, 2014
I disagree. Let's say just 100 rabid fans of an indie ban listen 50% of the time to the band, and they pay $10/month and 70% is paid out, The band makes $350/month from just 100 fans! How much do you think they would make from how Spotify pays now? I'm guessing it is in the pennies.
Let's compare that to how it works under the current system! It depends a lot on how much music those fans listen to a month. If it's an average of 1000 plays then that means 500 plays per person times 100 people times $0.007 per play = $350 per month. (1000 plays a month at 3.5 minutes per play means about 2 hours per day).
The difference in the new system would be that this would hold if those subscribers listened to 200 or 2000 tracks a month.
If we want to look at real numbers (from Spotify, to be fair) their chart shows a "Niche Indie Album" made $3,300 in July 2013. Though, of course, they don't say what album this is for.
posted by mountmccabe at 1:16 PM on November 25, 2014
Some of why that $3,300 seems high is that that money gets split up. Spotify pays songwriting royalties but also (unlike terrestrial or satellite radio) pays performance royalties. These charts try to give an overview of how the money goes out from different sources.
posted by mountmccabe at 1:27 PM on November 25, 2014
posted by mountmccabe at 1:27 PM on November 25, 2014
eye of newt: 1. Music production is complicated. Lots of people work on tracks, direct, produce, etc. This model is not trying to address the entire complexity of the music industry. It is only addressing the method streaming services pay money. Where the money goes after they pay out is a very separate issue, that a streaming payment system cannot solve. A solution isn't crap if it doesn't solve everything
This is a simplification in the discussion of the proposed model but it does not seem to be a fundamental part of it.
The proposed payout system could be implemented to deal with rights varying on a song by song basis. Spotify already tracks that so that the money they payout can be distributed correctly. It's just added complexity, which shouldn't be that big of a deal to implement.
This ties in to my current feelings on this proposal. The actual idea is not bad but it is being presented in what I find to be a confusing way. It has nothing to do with metal bands or niche indie artists or hypothetical users. The article in the main post really turned me off, but this
sharkyl: First of all the model, at it's core, is really *really* simple: if I listen to an artist x% of the time, that artist should get x% of my subscription fee's royalties payable.
is not something that I have a problem with.
posted by mountmccabe at 1:41 PM on November 25, 2014
This is a simplification in the discussion of the proposed model but it does not seem to be a fundamental part of it.
The proposed payout system could be implemented to deal with rights varying on a song by song basis. Spotify already tracks that so that the money they payout can be distributed correctly. It's just added complexity, which shouldn't be that big of a deal to implement.
This ties in to my current feelings on this proposal. The actual idea is not bad but it is being presented in what I find to be a confusing way. It has nothing to do with metal bands or niche indie artists or hypothetical users. The article in the main post really turned me off, but this
sharkyl: First of all the model, at it's core, is really *really* simple: if I listen to an artist x% of the time, that artist should get x% of my subscription fee's royalties payable.
is not something that I have a problem with.
posted by mountmccabe at 1:41 PM on November 25, 2014
Keep in mind that 0.0007 figure includes radio streams which don't pay out at the same rate as full subscriber plays. This figure is also rising as users shift away from radio to Spotify premium.
If the hardcore fans listen to the same number of tracks as a typical Spotify user then it makes no difference. If you and I both listen to 100 tracks per month and I listen to 100% of one artist vs. you dividing it up against ten artists. Then by the hand wavy rules of the article the payouts would come out even. There were 200 tracks played and $14 in the royalty pool. The artist I listened to gets $7 and each artist you listened to got $0.70 either way you calculate it.
Where this changes is if I happen to listen to 300 plays vs your 100 plays. Then the artist I listened to gets $10.50 and the others get $0.35 each. However as Spotify adds subscribers and months of payouts we would expect these differences to shrink because the increased sample size will result in a regression to the mean. That is there will be an average Spotify user listening to a typical number of "artists" for a typical number of hours. Outliers such as one user who listens to substantially more or fewer artists or tracks will have less impact on the royalty payments.
posted by humanfont at 1:53 PM on November 25, 2014
If the hardcore fans listen to the same number of tracks as a typical Spotify user then it makes no difference. If you and I both listen to 100 tracks per month and I listen to 100% of one artist vs. you dividing it up against ten artists. Then by the hand wavy rules of the article the payouts would come out even. There were 200 tracks played and $14 in the royalty pool. The artist I listened to gets $7 and each artist you listened to got $0.70 either way you calculate it.
Where this changes is if I happen to listen to 300 plays vs your 100 plays. Then the artist I listened to gets $10.50 and the others get $0.35 each. However as Spotify adds subscribers and months of payouts we would expect these differences to shrink because the increased sample size will result in a regression to the mean. That is there will be an average Spotify user listening to a typical number of "artists" for a typical number of hours. Outliers such as one user who listens to substantially more or fewer artists or tracks will have less impact on the royalty payments.
posted by humanfont at 1:53 PM on November 25, 2014
Outliers such as one user who listens to substantially more or fewer artists or tracks will have less impact on the royalty payments.-- humanfont
And this is the root of my problem. Just based on user posts of tracks, I would guess that a large percentage of Mefites would fit into that outlier category, which means that our artists are getting ripped off by the system Spotify uses now. Our money is going to bands we don't like and don't listen to while the ones we do listen to are not getting paid. The system gives incentives for music to move toward the mean, getting blander and blander.
Here's a link that shows just how bad Spotify is.
posted by eye of newt at 11:42 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
And this is the root of my problem. Just based on user posts of tracks, I would guess that a large percentage of Mefites would fit into that outlier category, which means that our artists are getting ripped off by the system Spotify uses now. Our money is going to bands we don't like and don't listen to while the ones we do listen to are not getting paid. The system gives incentives for music to move toward the mean, getting blander and blander.
Here's a link that shows just how bad Spotify is.
posted by eye of newt at 11:42 AM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
The data in that link is from an undisclosed small indie label. Meanwhile Kobalt reported that Spotify revenues for its artists out peformed itunes in Q3 in Europe. It also noted that streaming revenues are the fastest growing source of its songwriters earnings and are on pace to hit 10% of artists earnings this year.
True mefites listen to vinyl records, live music, and the free mefi music site. They have no impact on streaming royalties.
posted by humanfont at 6:36 PM on November 26, 2014
True mefites listen to vinyl records, live music, and the free mefi music site. They have no impact on streaming royalties.
posted by humanfont at 6:36 PM on November 26, 2014
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