[Closed] Have we done Taylor Swift and Spotify yet!?

This won't be the last time this happens with a 'major artist' this pay-for streaming thing is still a really new product so the goal posts will move about - but the truth is Spotify has recently got it's 10 millionth pay subscriber but it still paying fractions of a penny per play to the record companies, but the time it dribbles down to the artists it's even smaller - this is no doubt a result of a deadlocked negation.

Taylor Swift is one of the biggest names in Pop at the moment, brand new album out and with Xmas just around the corner I wouldn't blame her pulling her stuff to try to increase sales of downloads and physical sales.

Business in making money shocker.

Most albums probably get listened to once or twice, then put on the shelf and not touched again, doubly so manufactured pop drivel.

No different to there being a big delay between a film showing in the cinema, and appearing on Netflix. I'm supprised it's not more common.

New, upcoming or smaller artists need the exposure, and all straming will help them one way or another.

Big artists don't need the exposure - they can afford to pull stuff from Spotify etc. With the added bonus of bring to our attention that they only get fractions of a penny from each play.

Anyway, [cough]torrent[/cough].

Not the first time she's pulled her catalogue from Spotify.

IIRC Apple are getting on the torrent bandwagon too.

Just found this article from Spotify...

http://www.spotifyartists.com/2-billion-and-counting/

[i]IIRC Apple are getting on the torrent bandwagon too. [/i]

Hmmmm - possibly fronted by Taylor Swift! 😕

P-Jay - Member
but it still paying fractions of a penny

per play to the record companies, but the time it dribbles down

to the artists it's even smaller - this is no doubt a result of a deadlocked negation.

Always needs to be a middleman in there! i reckon that's the problem with music in more than one way.

I love Spotify, but am amazed that it works as a business and that established bands are happy to have their money on it. They must make such small amounts of money from it.
Not surprised big artists are pulling their catalogue from it. I hearda about this on the radio the other day and they were saying how well her album is selling.

I use Spotify free, as I really don't mind the adverts but do keep thinking about paying for a subscription.

It's rubbish though.

Pink Floyd new album is on Spotify but look at the sales.

Just read that link from the-muffin-man. Reckon it's spot on.

His description about getting people on board with the free version, who then sign up to the paid version is pretty much exactly where I am. I haven't signed up yet, but it's just a matter of time really.

And I am adding artists and music to 'my music' that I would never normally consider. Then when I have time, I can look them up, see what their other music is all about and probably buy a CD or two (I still like old skool CDs).

Big round of applause from me for her.

Spotify rip off artists, have you seen the derisory royalties paid. I won't use it and I support artists who don't.

A point on @muffin's linked piece from Spotify. They quote that artists get zero from piracy and $2 billion from them. The fact is piracy is still growing and Spotify are reducing artists income from paid income streams, people aren't using Spotify instead of piracy, they are using Spotify instead of buying music.

if you choose to rent music instead of buying it then this is bound to happen

I've had to pirate all her albums now her back catalogue has gone from Spotify. Not pirated any music for years since Spotify came along...

Am tempted to cancel my Spotify subscription and just go back to pirating music.

^ Which is why I dont subscribe to Google Play Music thingy.

At £10 a month it's too much for something I can only "Borrow" from the cloud. And I say that as a cloud fan. If I want to "share" music Ive bought from Google with Mrs Stoner, I have to download it (via google music manager) then upload it to her google account (via music manager, having first changed log in on The Big Computer). If I want to share a book Ive bought in google books, I have no idea how to do that, It's not like putting a hardback in her pile on the bedside table. They really need to get round the sharing thing, as pirate torrents are still far more convenient sometimes.

I particularly dislike Google movie pricing. £2.50/£3.00 to "rent" a film - start in 30days, finish in 48hrs and then it's Gone. When most of the films I want to get I can pick up as DVDs s/h on eBay for £2. If they did old catalogue movies at 50p, or £2 to buy Id fill my HDD with them.

I'd like to give her a hug...

for being so brave...

people aren't using Spotify instead of piracy, they are using Spotify instead of buying music.

Actually, I stopped pirating music as I've got Spotify premium, it saves me the faff of having to find and download all the music I want.

the-muffin-man - Member
And apparently all her video are still on YouTube which supposedly offers even worse terms than Spotify.

From experience I wouldnt say they were worse than spotify.

teethgrinder - Member
New, upcoming or smaller artists need the exposure, and all straming will help them one way or another.

The tricky bit is always getting the exposure, lots of great new undiscovered music will always remain burried & hidden on iTunes / Spotify etc. Marketing & Exposure still vital.

jimster01 - Member
IIRC Apple are getting on the torrent bandwagon too.

Part of their stratergy in securing Dr Dre Beats I believe.

seosamh77 - Member
Always needs to be a middleman in there! i reckon that's the problem with music in more than one way.

Are you implying record labels are a/the problem? I think you would be surprised how much good they do for their artists.

Lifer - Member
It's rubbish though.
Pink Floyd new album is on Spotify but look at the sales.

Interested to know what you mean?

'Pirate music'.

So if I steal a bike from a London city workers shed its alright cos he can afford it?

Ms Swift can afford to avoid Spotify but it is a help for artists trying to establish themselves. I have listened to the odd artist I have heard of and if I like it will buy something and if not move on. The royalty for an artist is pretty poor, less than 1p iirc.

I have a nice hi-fi system (Linn / Naim fancy cables etc)and find music through computer pretty rubbish so still buy vinyl or cd.

I want to see artists paid for there work, maybe if other major artists also pulled from Spotify they could collectively bargain for a better royalty for all artists including the up and coming ones who need the financial help more. I recognise that is a bit naive from me, doubt major stars are thinking of the whole community.

It's hardly the same same hora. It would be more you like copying exactly the bike but letting the city worker keep the original.

Are you implying record labels are a/the problem? I think you would be surprised how much good they do for their artists.

If the record labels didn't demand such onerous terms from the streaming companies then maybe Taylor would get paid a little more? Imo the record companies are desperately trying to cling to old methods of making money and refusing to adapt. Instead trying to sue their way out of trouble.

whatnobeer - Member
If the record labels didn't demand such onerous terms from the streaming companies then maybe Taylor would get paid a little more? Imo the record companies are desperately trying to cling to old methods of making money and refusing to adapt. Instead trying to sue their way out of trouble.

Can you quote these 'onerous terms' for everyone's reading?

I will respect your opinion but I suspect your not best informed to draw that conclusion.

Steve Albini knows his stuff. http://www.stereogum.com/1678835/steve-albini-thinks-the-internet-solved-the-problem-with-music/news/

Is there really a need for record labels anymore?

Taylor who?
Yeah, I know who she is, but who gives a toss what she does with her cacky pop music. She can chuck it all in the waste disposal for all I care.

Yeah, I know who she is, but who gives a toss what she does with her cacky pop music.

My 11yr old daughter cares!!! 😀

Buy her the CD 🙂

No! She can listen to Ariana Grande instead!

Worryingly the boy (4) loves dancing around to a bit of Taylor Smith (impossible to correct him...) on MTV even more than my daughters!

Edit - Is it OK to perve on Taylor and Ariana Grande...?

I quite like a bity of Swifty - her newish one, something about shaking is good and I liked the one about feeling 23, I feel about 23 when I'm riding, of course when I crash I feel every one of my 37 years ha ha

davidtaylforth - Member
Steve Albini knows his stuff. http://www.stereogum.com/1678835/steve-albini-thinks-the-internet-solved-the-problem-with-music/news/

Is there really a need for record labels anymore?

You can't make sweeping generalisations for a varied global market like he does. Releasing music in different countries can be a very different task. It is not a case of simply putting music on sale. It can be a very complicated process, especially in the UK.

Of course you can release music without a label, there are examples of it all the time, but its a lot better when someone else takes the financial risk for you (a label) and puts in far more resources & experience than you could as an independent artist.

It's evident the vast majority are unaware of the modern day roles of a record label & how the music industry actually works.

It would be great if Spotify introduced a 'donate' button, so you could donate a few quid to artists who's music you have enjoyed. I used to spend £50-100 quid a month on new music, and now I just pay a tenner on Spotify. I still want to support artists though.

You shouldn't feel obliged to make a financial contribution, the label / artist have decided to let you enjoy the music that way, buy an album if you feel compelled though 🙂

timc - Member
You can't make sweeping generalisations for a varied global market like he does. Releasing music in different countries can be a very different task. It is not a case of simply putting music on sale. It can be a very complicated process, especially in the UK.

His whole point is that it doesn't need to be.

What exactly in his piece do you disagree with?

Of course you can release music without a label, there are examples of it all the time, but its a lot better when someone else takes the financial risk for you (a label) and puts in far more resources & experience than you could as an independent artist.

What's better?

Lifer - Member
His whole point is that it doesn't need to be.

What's better?

But it does need to be that way, because that is the way of the world, the way of the entertainment & music industry, it's far far more complex than even he eludes to. You simply can't compare releasing music globally in such a simplistic manner, not if you want it to reach its full potential anyway.

Which is better? Working with a label I would say.

I wanted to upload my bands EP to spotify a couple of months back-I'm not interested in it making money, so wasn't really bothered about what the royalty payments were (let's face it, no one is going to listen to it!)

It turns out that you have to pay to upload your tracks onto spotify! Erm, no thanks!

Taylor Swift is a pretty girl isn't she. 😛

I really haven't a clue about her music but somehow managed to google her. 😆

Spotify? Nice name but I don't listen to music so rather irrelevant to me but her name is rather weird ... not sure if that is a good thing or not. 😯

not if you want it to reach its full potential anyway.

What do you mean by full potential?

Music would still exist without the music industry. I guess most of the shite (Taylor Swift?) would disappear, along with the record industry and all the other unnecessary rubbish.

They really need to get round the sharing thing, as pirate torrents are still far more convenient sometimes.

This is the crux of the situation for me - people are lazy & will chose the easiest solution because the music industry is still hoping the internet & digital files will go away piracy is still the easy option.

Slightly different, but I like to rent movies, if I rent or buy from itunes I cannot stream it from my computer to my Chromecast to watch on the big telly & through my a/v amp. However if I download the movie illegally I have no such issue...

timc - Member
But it does need to be that way, because that is the way of the world, the way of the entertainment & music industry, it's far far more complex than even he eludes to. You simply can't compare releasing music globally in such a simplistic manner, not if you want it to reach its full potential anyway.

Full potential? How do you measure that in something so subjective as music? 'Because it's the Satus Quo' is not a reason for doing anything.

Which is better? Working with a label I would say.

Many artists wouldn't, and there are plenty of lawsuits to testify to that. And I asked "What's better?" The music? The paycheck?

As a producer of many, many bands (dealing with major labels and independents), and a touring and record artist in his own right I think Albini know what he's talking about. What exactly did you disagree with?

[i]Taylor Swift is a pretty girl isn't she[/i]

Well, duh. How else would she have made it??

Dammit, I just listened to Taylor Swift on Youtube ... I mean why can't she just sing with nice rhythm rather than talking/rapping through the music? ... silly girl. 🙄

davidtaylforth - Member
What do you mean by full potential?

Music would still exist without the music industry. I guess most of the shite (Taylor Swift?) would disappear, along with the record industry and all the other unnecessary rubbish.

Full potential, maximum exposure world over maybe? sell as many units as possible so a career can be had & a living be made? Etc

Of purse music would exist without an 'industry' but I think you would find the quality would drop, not improve.

Taylor Swift is one of the biggest names in Pop at the moment,

prior to this thread i had no idea that she existed. after having googled her and fliced through three of her songs i have to agree with chekw and DT....

if it wasn't for the music industry and the likes of MTV there would be an awful lot less shite music on the airwaves. i'm surprised people buy this "pop" stuff.

i occasionally use spotify... usually when in the workshop and tend not to notice the adverts so much what with machinery running. (prefer to stream radio 4/6 whilst driving.) my problem with spotify is that if i pay 10€ a month my collection is no longer mine as soon as i decide not to pay 10€ a month.

was never a big buyer or downloader of music. what does a single song cost to download? have heard a few artists that i would like to her more of/own but have never looked into downloads.

can anyone recommend a decent download site other than itunes as i don't want to give Apple any money.

timc - Member
Full potential, maximum exposure world over maybe? sell as many units as possible so a career can be had & a living be made? Etc

Of purse music would exist without an 'industry' but I think you would find the quality would drop, not improve.

Pfffft

[url= https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110707/03264014993/riaa-accounting-how-to-sell-1-million-albums-still-owe-500000.shtml ]Making a living?[/url]

[url= https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml ]Who's making a living?[/url]

And apparently Jared Leto [url= http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6070010/jared-leto-on-leaving-virgin-thirty-seconds-to-mars-doc-artifact ]just doesn't understand the music industry[/url]

With streaming music services like Pandora, Spotify, iTunes Radio and Beats Music still on the rise, Leto is cautiously optimistic a new business model is in the works for the industry, even as those services continue to sort out their economics and royalty rates for artists.

“We’re all trying to figure out ways to share our music with the world, in new and exciting ways that don’t force us to have to sign some convoluted record contract that’s designed to keep us terminally in debt for centuries,”

I haven't watched the video but your linking to two extreme examples, not a standard. also very US based & the UK for example differs greatly from the US industry.

Im not denying unfavourable deals exist, but to suggest they are commonplace is simply not true, there are so many variables that can make a deal good or bad dependant on what level the artist & label achieve.

When I was younger this was cutting edge
[img] ?4dc55f[/img]
Sharing music was when you let your mate listen to one of the headphones
We made tape copies of CD's when they came out and people still recorded from the radio.

less than 10 years after that Napster was changing the world

Now we are in a situation where the genie is out of the bottle, I can access any song in the world in a matter of seconds, listen to it discard it and move on. Same with TV & Film.

The current models are based around an outdated business model crashing head on with new ideas, streaming services are a great idea and the variety of music available is huge. It's also a very cheap consumption method costing about the price of 1 album a month.

The next part of the solution is to make sure the money flows in the right direction.

what money? thats the point? the money from streaming currently isn't enough even without a label taking a slice…

lifer i forgot to ask, you seem to advocate streaming / free music (which i don't object too), but then highlight vast costs in your example of label costs, without labels & sales revenue, how do you expect an artist to pay such costs?

what money? thats the point?

Somethings that may also need to be taken into consideration, the product isn't worth what people thought it was.
There is too much "fat" in the system
Streaming services need to cost more.

The itunes/mp3 shops have already dismantled the album as a sales model by letting you buy the tracks you want.

I'm not claiming to have answers just that the entertainment industry needs to come up with some ways to fund itself and keep consumers happy.

timc

Are you implying record labels are a/the problem? I think you would be surprised how much good they do for their artists.

I'm not implying anything. I'm straight up accusing them of being a cancer on the music scene! 😆 on many levels.

BTW timc, what label do your work for? 😆
:

seosamh77 - Member
I'm not implying anything. I'm straight up accusing them of being a cancer on the music scene! on many levels.

Well you may as well elaborate?

Part of the issue is that the old model of making popular music = making stacks of money has been blown apart.

There is no divine right for a recording artists to be massively rewarded for what they do - most people who write and record songs never were.

The recording industry will contract, there will be fewer 'stars' and perhaps we will get to hear more of the brilliant music that never got airtime in the past.

I think it is wrong to compare spotify with owning music, it is more like a personalised radio station. That is what the revenue streams should be compared to, how much money does an artist get from a radio play with a million people listening?

As has been shown many times, the people who listen to most music and watch most movies from different sources, are also the ones who buy the most media. The majority of users who solely rely on streaming services, would never have been big purchasers anyway.

I'm not implying anything. I'm straight up accusing them of being a cancer on the music scene! on many levels.

as an artist, i find this argument to be reductive (and wrong). when i sign record contracts - got one to sign this week in fact - it's because the record label are offering something i haven't got.

Capital, business acumen, the organisation and manpower to get a record pressed, promoted and distributed. I've tried self-releasing before and i'm shit at it. I'm just not business-minded enough. So i have no problem giving half the profits to a label who are going to do that for me. And most of the really good artists I know would be much worse -
they can barely remember to tie their shoelaces, let alone negotiate a promo spot on iTunes.

of course there are examples of record deals gone sour, but take a poll of a random selection of artists and you'll find that most are happy enough with their label.

as for spotify (back on topic) i'm pretty ambivalent. The most popular tracks of mine on there have plays in the low tens of thousands, and that works out to basically £0, same as Youtube, same as most streaming services. I don't budget for it, get a few pennies each quarter. But from a user perspective it's fantastic! I have a premium account and I love it.

if we could get enough people on board, paying (say) 5 quid a month for a spotify-like service, i think there'd be a lot of money coming in to the industry, possibly even comparable to when people were buying records. what's not in doubt is that streaming is the future - it's basically here in fact, my back of an envelope maths suggests that more listens of my tunes come from streaming than purchased - so we'd better get used to it.

But i totally support artists having the right to choose what happens to their music and i back Taylor Swift in all this. If she doesn't want her music on Spotify she should have the right not to - and i think her album sales the next week vindicated her from a business perspective too.

I've had to pirate all her albums now her back catalogue has gone from Spotify. Not pirated any music for years since Spotify came along...

shame that someone was holding a gun to your head and forcing you not to use all those other services where her music was available to stream for free, eh? must have been pretty scary.

[i]Edit - Is it OK to perve on Taylor and Ariana Grande...?[/i]

😳

doris5000 - Member

"I'm not implying anything. I'm straight up accusing them of being a cancer on the music scene! on many levels."

as an artist, i find this argument to be reductive (and wrong). when i sign record contracts - got one to sign this week in fact - it's because the record label are offering something i haven't got.

Capital, business acumen, the organisation and manpower to get a record pressed, promoted and distributed. I've tried self-releasing before and i'm shit at it. I'm just not business-minded enough. So i have no problem giving half the profits to a label who are going to do that for me. And most of the really good artists I know would be much worse -
they can barely remember to tie their shoelaces, let alone negotiate a promo spot on iTunes.

Sure.

But there are better ways of doing it that will make the whole thing better for fans and artists.

I wrote a big post this morning at home about things that artists I know have done to take more control but forgot to post it, will do tonight.

The genie is out of the bottle on free content now, but hopefully people are slwoly realising that everyone can't get something for nothing.

Seems like artists are making most of their money touring now, as a revenue stream which they can fully control.

Ironically the charts are much more interesting than they were a few years ago, maybe because everyone can hear records before they buy them?

Seems like artists are making most of their money touring now, as a revenue stream which they can fully control.

i tend to take issue with this one too! But yes, by definition, if someone's main revenue streams are touring and sales, and you remove one of them, they'll now 'make most of their money' from the other one.

But touring really isn't any more controllable than sales. In my experience, as an 'underground' artist, you go on tour for 3 or 4 weeks and hope to come home with a grand maybe. But one cancelled gig can throw the whole thing into the red! There's so much that can go wrong, it's amazing. It's fun but you're definitely not in full control....

Doris5000 - any chance of a link to your music on Spotify/ soundcloud whatever

No worries if you would rather stay annonymous - if I like your music I promise to buy some 🙂

i tend to take issue with this one too! But yes, by definition, if someone's main revenue streams are touring and sales, and you remove one of them, they'll now 'make most of their money' from the other one.

That's what I meant, necessity being the mother of invention and all that. But I was thinking more of mainstream artists TBH.

Look at One Direction, one of the biggest acts in the world but they don't even do that well in the singles chart. They are permanently on world tour though.

Madonna barely sells any new records, but people happily stump up £100+ per ticket to see her at the O2.

I'm aware that smaller acts are on very tight margins playing gigs and that despite (and a bit because of?) the vast array of interesting new music - it must be harder than ever to make a living from music.

if we could get enough people on board, paying (say) 5 quid a month for a spotify-like service, i think there'd be a lot of money coming in to the industry, possibly even comparable to when people were buying records. what's not in doubt is that streaming is the future - it's basically here in fact, my back of an envelope maths suggests that more listens of my tunes come from streaming than purchased - so we'd better get used to it.

Herein lies the problem, no money for the artist so it's either live on the benefits or get a real job & stop recording & touring.... ultimately less choice for the consumer & eventually Simon Cowell controls all music. Apart from odd old punk record that music fans get to number one at Christmas to protest.

So Spotify claim (and probably have the numbers to back this somewhere) that $1.4Bn has been paid to music labels/artists as their share since they started. Of this Taylor Swift was on course to get $6m. [url= http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/11/spotify-ceo-taylor-swift-albums-daniel-ek ]Source[/url]
Where has all this money gone?
Miss Swift comes across as just a little entitled.

surely there's a case to be made either way. Ms Swift may come across as entitled, but then again so do all the people demanding that she should make her music available for free/do what everyone else wants.

Doris5000 - any chance of a link to your music on Spotify/ soundcloud whatever

i'd rather not, if you don't mind! 😆

let's just say i'm currently trading as a moderately credible, low to mid-ranking deep house producer from bristol. 😉

it's been fun, but i got a day job this year. my goodness this 'getting paid each month' malarkey is cushty!