Spotify Is Eating the Entire Music Business?

[dayjob]

"One of the things that frustrates me is that I can't find all of my old (DJ) vinyl on Spotify. Is there a service with almost every record from the 90s? " n- Thank God I was around for Napster. I got all my old DJ vinyls in digital that way.

soulseek still exists. youtube is full of old vinyl too. monkey audio rewind is your friend.

So how is pirating music a solution to the complaining in this thread? I'm willing to pay for a valid service, I'm not asking to be able to download the music without the artist receiving whatever compensation they've been able to negotiate with any particular platform.

This also misses the point with respect to the value that I think modern services provide. I don't just want my music in digital form, I want subsets of it in playlists so that the algorithms can find similar music that's available today.

most of my dj vinyl is white label stuff, that never saw release.
good luck searching for any of it mind you, no titles, no artist name, occasionally they might put a catalogue number.

digitize it yourself. my vinyl collection isn't huge. ended up being around 100gb or something. a lot of it i had duplicates on CD/Digital.

i know some people have 5000 records from the 90s alone and digitzing that is a tough go of it. it's a good way to archive things though. at least digitize your favs.

[dayjob]

"One of the things that frustrates me is that I can't find all of my old (DJ) vinyl on Spotify. Is there a service with almost every record from the 90s? " n- Thank God I was around for Napster. I got all my old DJ vinyls in digital that way.

soulseek still exists. youtube is full of old vinyl too. monkey audio rewind is your friend.

So how is pirating music a solution to the complaining in this thread? I'm willing to pay for a valid service, I'm not asking to be able to download the music without the artist receiving whatever compensation they've been able to negotiate with any particular platform.

This also misses the point with respect to the value that I think modern services provide. I don't just want my music in digital form, I want subsets of it in playlists so that the algorithms can find similar music that's available today.

if something is unavailable, not in print, lost to history... i think it's fine to go get it however it can be gotten.

I do think piracy is more ethical than some services. i mean, is soulseek investing in Military Ai start ups to help offer up Ai targeting systems to militaries? soulseek is just extended sharing between a group. i haven't used it actually. not in any serious way.. in 20 years.. but it's still there afaik.

and i get it. you don't care. i understand. you don't have to repeat it. "it is what it is" is a valid take on just about everything. i think a lot of people delude themselves into thinking their actions are benign though and i think this isn't accurate. we all do it though.. one way or another. someone is always being exploited.. in the case of spotify it's the musician.. the artist.

we may not be scamming someone ourselves but we're participating in a system that isn't mandatory. there's a lot of choices we can make about what is good/bad/ugly etc and we can always change our minds if things improve or get worse. spotify and other streaming services aren't a necessity in my opinion. i choose not to support them. the business model/what they offer doesn't work for me anyways.

when people start talking about how they found some niche music as if there's no other way to find it i raise an eyebrow. i mean.. you know they get nothing from this arrangement.. so, good for you i guess. in the end that's all that matters.

it is different than it ever was.. it's worse. and we are propping it up to benefit a handful of people over actual working musicians. that bothers me. that's all.

and yeah.. i know.. we can look hard at any company that exists in a big way.. and look long enough and close enough and the ugly will turn up. don't even have to look too hard to find the outright atrocities in some cases. what do we do with that information? only what we can, i guess.

[ghettosynth]

"One of the things that frustrates me is that I can't find all of my old (DJ) vinyl on Spotify. Is there a service with almost every record from the 90s? " n- Thank God I was around for Napster. I got all my old DJ vinyls in digital that way.

soulseek still exists. youtube is full of old vinyl too. monkey audio rewind is your friend.

So how is pirating music a solution to the complaining in this thread? I'm willing to pay for a valid service, I'm not asking to be able to download the music without the artist receiving whatever compensation they've been able to negotiate with any particular platform.

This also misses the point with respect to the value that I think modern services provide. I don't just want my music in digital form, I want subsets of it in playlists so that the algorithms can find similar music that's available today.

most of my dj vinyl is white label stuff, that never saw release.
good luck searching for any of it mind you, no titles, no artist name, occasionally they might put a catalogue number.

digitize it yourself. my vinyl collection isn't huge. ended up being around 100gb or something. a lot of it i had duplicates on CD/Digital.

i know some people have 5000 records from the 90s alone and digitzing that is a tough go of it. it's a good way to archive things though. at least digitize your favs.

That Thomas Krome record has been to many many parties indoors and out. Always a crowd favorite. It has some crackles, I want a clean digital copy. I could get it off of youtube, I can't buy it again AFAIK. It's not on BeatPort. That said, I think that Beatport streaming might be a solution for me for a good chunk of it as it integrates with Traktor.

[ghettosynth]

if something is unavailable, not in print, lost to history... i think it's fine to go get it however it can be gotten.

I do think piracy is more ethical than some services. i mean, is soulseek investing in Military Ai start ups to help offer up Ai targeting systems to militaries? soulseek is just extended sharing between a group. i haven't used it actually. not in any serious way.. in 20 years.. but it's still there afaik.

So now you're applying your personal metric to justify your agenda? It's not in your purview to make that call. Moreover, it's not about some obscure track, even if that's the on-paper claim of intent. As I've posted, it's about sharing works that you don't have a license to share. Make whatever comparisons you want. I give Spotify a few bucks for a legal service.

someone is always being exploited.. in the case of spotify it's the musician.. the artist.

You mean the artists that voluntarily sign up knowing the terms of the contract? Those artists? There's a solution to that, no? Just stand your ground and take your music off of those exploitive channels.

we may not be scamming someone ourselves but we're participating in a system that isn't mandatory.

Ironically correct. As a Spotify artist you are participating in a service voluntarily that isn't "mandatory" and that you believe is "exploiting" you. Why would you do that? You can use Bandcamp, you can even setup your own website and be out there on the world wide web, go for it!

I don't believe that it's exploiting you. I believe that it's offering you a largely undeserved audience. Obscure artists only have my attention because of the hard work put in by the programmers and scientists who created the algorithms that allowed me to find them.

when people start talking about how they found some niche music as if there's no other way to find it i raise an eyebrow. i mean.. you know they get nothing from this arrangement.. so, good for you i guess. in the end that's all that matters.

I didn't say that there was no other way. I said that it is a great way to use Spotify. Now, with all that talk, please tell me a way that is anything close to as efficient as Spotify? You can't use the name of the above artists, or their style of music, or their instrument, or anything about them personally. In fact, I challenge you to come up with one track that's on my list by an artist that has fewer than 30,000 monthly listeners based on what I've told you so far.

it is different than it ever was.. it's worse. and we are propping it up to benefit a handful of people over actual working musicians. that bothers me. that's all.

Nobody is stopping you from working. You're placing unreasonable expectations on others to somehow pay you for easy work. It was never this easy to publish music, ergo, it's worth less than it once was.

If your tracks are on Spotify, then you are the supplier, the dealer. You are propping it up and teasing your audience with how easy it is to just sample the goods. Drying up the supply is totally in your purview, you just have to have the balls to do it.

Once done, you can get out there and hustle some gigs and sell your CDs from a cardboard box after the show. That's totally your responsibility. If you want to get back on Spotify, of course, you can call them up and tell them that you'd like to negotiate a new deal where you get paid fairly.

Alternatively, you could setup your own service where only those obscure Soulcreep artists could join. You know, because it's only about unsigned artists and not about piracy or porn. Then you would have all of the Soulcreep customers lining up to give you some money every month that you could divvy up fairly to your artists. Maybe someone would even write the software for free and give you free hosting services. Oh, and maybe a lawyer could handle all of the copyright claims pro-bono.

[dayjob]

i was speaking as a consumer. it's not mandatory. you can choose not to. we all make choices. sometimes there's no good option and even when something seems like a good option there's a compromise or it's slightly less convenient. oh my heavens.

and it's totally my call. have you never shared music with a friend. burned a CD, made a cassette, given them files of things they might like? sharing an obscure track w/a friend.. a thing that's not around anymore.. or in print etc.. is a gift. exposing someone to that is a gift. i've given a thumb drive full of Fugazi releases to a kid who'd never heard of them. i think they'd be ok w/that. if not oh well. i'll sleep fine at night. i couldn't care less if some things get shared. am i going to get in a huff over the entire beatles discography getting uploaded somewhere? nah.. not at all.

you giving spotify a few bucks for a legal service is splitting hairs in my opinion. it's corrupt and it will only get worse. the few bucks you give them is essentially just a thing to help you sleep at night. yes.. there's contracts and fine print and all the other things that enable the total exploitation of music.

it's not about signed or unsigned. that's almost meaningless.

i'm not asking to get paid. i don't make a living from music and working in studios has not been my day job for a long time. my own music is something i do seriously but it's never going to pay the bills and i've never expected it to. but what i would like is for whoever is out there trying to do it for a living to get treated fairly. the person out there really going for it as a career who has talent, work ethic etc. I'd like that person to have a chance to make art for a living.

none of this is about me. i'm just calling bullshit on all of it. i'm not concerned with efficiency. convenience and productivity. the system is bullshit. the idea that a company like spotify can control a resource, get slapped with a high stock valuation and suck money from the stock market while giving a wink/nod to music producers is offensive.

we don't need to go around in circles on this. i hope it all burns down and you want a convenient life hack to discover niche music for a few dollars a month.

edit: and that's probably awful judgy sounding or sanctimonious but that's not how i mean it. it's just.. it is what it is.

[neverbefore]

i was speaking as a consumer. it's not mandatory. you can choose not to. we all make choices. sometimes there's no good option and even when something seems like a good option there's a compromise or it's slightly less convenient. oh my heavens.

and it's totally my call. have you never shared music with a friend. burned a CD, made a cassette, given them files of things they might like? sharing an obscure track w/a friend.. a thing that's not around anymore.. or in print etc.. is a gift. exposing someone to that is a gift. i've given a thumb drive full of Fugazi releases to a kid who'd never heard of them. i think they'd be ok w/that. if not oh well. i'll sleep fine at night. i couldn't care less if some things get shared. am i going to get in a huff over the entire beatles discography getting uploaded somewhere? nah.. not at all.

you giving spotify a few bucks for a legal service is splitting hairs in my opinion. it's corrupt and it will only get worse. the few bucks you give them is essentially just a thing to help you sleep at night. yes.. there's contracts and fine print and all the other things that enable the total exploitation of music.

it's not about signed or unsigned. that's almost meaningless.

i'm not asking to get paid. i don't make a living from music and working in studios has not been my day job for a long time. my own music is something i do seriously but it's never going to pay the bills and i've never expected it to. but what i would like is for whoever is out there trying to do it for a living to get treated fairly. the person out there really going for it as a career who has talent, work ethic etc. I'd like that person to have a chance to make art for a living.

none of this is about me. i'm just calling bullshit on all of it. i'm not concerned with efficiency. convenience and productivity. the system is bullshit. the idea that a company like spotify can control a resource, get slapped with a high stock valuation and suck money from the stock market while giving a wink/nod to music producers is offensive.

we don't need to go around in circles on this. i hope it all burns down and you want a convenient life hack to discover niche music for a few dollars a month.

edit: and that's probably awful judgy sounding or sanctimonious but that's not how i mean it. it's just.. it is what it is.

100%
re making a living from art (music) I think in the modern and foreseeable economy that will only be covered by moving to Universal Basic Incomes. Which is not likely but not impossible either

[ghettosynth]

i was speaking as a consumer.

Obviously, and I turned it around on you. As a musician, it's also not mandatory. Consumers are, on average, going to act rationally. So it's on you as a musician. What are you doing to organize independent musicians to do something other than Spotify? My guess is nothing. If you don't have anything on Spotify and you aren't a customer, then you have zero skin in this game so why should anyone care what you think?

and it's totally my call. have you never shared music with a friend.

Save your attempts at justification, you have made it clear that you don't care about the rights of others but feel that somehow musicians are entitled to more revenue than they agreed to.

you giving spotify a few bucks for a legal service is splitting hairs in my opinion.

It's quite clear. I'm a consumer of a legal service. You are advocating copyright infringement and trying to justify it.

it's not about signed or unsigned. that's almost meaningless.

That's not what I mean. I mean that if your music is on Spotify, then you agreed to their terms. If you don't want that, then don't agree. As an independent musician, it is 100% in your purview.

i'm not asking to get paid...I'd like that person to have a chance to make art for a living.

They have that. Sorry, what makes you think that they don't? If they don't think that Spotify is giving them a fair shake, then they can go elsewhere.

none of this is about me.

You is meant metaphorically here. You, as a musician, have a choice to use the services of Spotify or not.

i'm just calling bullshit on all of it. i'm not concerned with efficiency. convenience and productivity. the system is bullshit. the idea that a company like spotify can control a resource, get slapped with a high stock valuation and suck money from the stock market while giving a wink/nod to music producers is offensive.

Then leverage your connections to the industry and put them out of business. You won't though, because you can't. You don't have that skill and you're mad that someone else does and made a deal that you don't like.

we don't need to go around in circles on this. i hope it all burns down and you want a convenient life hack to discover niche music for a few dollars a month.

It won't, and I don't, it's a waste of my time. I want to listen to my music legally so that the artists get the revenue that they contracted for.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/busine ... 2024-start

[ghettosynth]

100%
re making a living from art (music) I think in the modern and foreseeable economy that will only be covered by moving to Universal Basic Incomes. Which is not likely but not impossible either

Utter horseshit. Plenty of artists make a living off of their art. If you can't, make more popular art, make better art, or improve your networking skills. I'd prefer that we keep the political nonsense out of this thread so that it doesn't get moved to HPC.

[neverbefore]

That's not what I mean. I mean that if your music is on Spotify, then you agreed to their terms. If you don't want that, then don't agree. As an independent musician, it is 100% in your purview.

naive forelock tugging

[jancivil]

"The Entire Music Business"
can take a long walk off a short pier.

wait, that aleady happened. too bad/so sad.

[ghettosynth]

Music industry revenue hits all-time high

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/18/2387 ... -half-2023

Streaming revenue was up 10.3 percent from last year — at $7 billion, it accounts for 84 percent of music revenue in the United States. Importantly, the RIAA explicitly notes that revenue from paid subscriptions grew 11 percent to $5.5 billion, but the total number of paid subscriptions only grew 6 percent — that delta is almost certainly down to services like Spotify hiking prices.

[ghettosynth]

[ghettosynth]

Here you go, guy made $2.4k/month off of Spotify, some time back, with about 220k monthly listeners. Makes more than double that now with over 500k monthly listeners.

(Screenshot below) As artists we are supposed to complain about Spotify it seems haha, but damn they pay a good chunk of my bills now and as I have said before... I NEVER would have uploaded my own music before Spotify. I would have been way too daunted to try and get a "record deal"

I make music mostly in my DIY bedroom studio and now Spotify alone pays me $2-$3kUSD/month for my folk music

As an artist, I am stoked on Spotify for giving me the chance to become a paid musician and dedicate even more time to making music. In the past, I wouldn't have got a record deal, and/or people would fully just pirate my music.

What do you think? Did Spotify help or ruin artists lives?

From his posts:

Released my first song on Spotify at 27 - I am 29 now and make a full time living just from streaming revenue! Very possible with hard work and strategy.

He's modest, he forgot to add that talent might also help. From two months ago:

I am unsigned and make $7-9k CAD in streaming per month right now

https://www.reddit.com/r/spotify/commen ... ist_and_i/

Here's a song with 2.4k likes from Youtube:



Let's now compare and contrast to Mary Regaldo, lead "singer", no, bass player, of the Downtown Boys.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/musician ... gn-2901582

In a statement regarding the protests, UMAW organiser Mary Regalado said: “Spotify has long mistreated music workers, but the pandemic has put the exploitation into stark relief.

Regalado, who also plays in punk band Downtown Boys, added: “The company has tripled in value during the pandemic, while failing to increase its payment rates to artists by even a fraction of a penny.

Downtown Boys has some 6k monthly listeners. Enjoy this tight little number with a big 47 likes on Youtube!



I wonder why they're not making more. Surely it's because Spotify is paying them unfairly? Surely they deserve to make a living with their "art?" I mean, just watch her play that bass. Is that enthralling or what?

Mary goes on to say:

Musicians all over the world are unemployed right now while the tech giants dominating the industry take in billions. Music work is labour, and we are asking to be paid fairly for that labour.”

Well then.

[vurt]

that seems like a lot of money for folk music

[ghettosynth]

that seems like a lot of money for folk music

I checked out his tracks, he's legit. That's how I knew that he had over 500k monthly listeners. Who would have thought that if you are a young good looking bloke and you make nice stuff that make people feel good that you would do well in a popularity contest? Crazy huh?

Interesting point, which he discusses on reddit at the provided link, is that even though Apple pays more per track, he makes much less from Apple because they have fewer subscribers. IOW, the pool of money is smaller. One of the reasons that they have fewer subscribers is because Apple does not offer a free tier.

However, another reason that Apple pays more is almost certainly because they have to in order to compete. They aren't winning the music streaming war.