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The boss of a major record label has been described as “living in cloud cuckoo land” after he claimed artists were happy with the music streaming model.
I know this is a hot topic on here; interesting that there's a digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) committee inquiry into it.
I'm not really sure what the story is there, artists want paid more (fair enough), record boss says they pay them enough, MP gets his name in the headlines by challenging that. I have to say i use streaming almost exclusively and it is really cheap for what it is. I don't want to pay more, i do think artists should get more as we want better quality music these days, but surely its a purely commercial decision?
Spotify will be outlawed but one of Boris's mates will setup a UK based alternative that only plays British music for twice the price?
Next the clueless ****s will be telling artists to go get a job in computing.
(Sorry, didn't read the article)
"I don’t want to pay more, i do think artists should get more as we want better quality music these days"
You can't really have both of those. Artists used to make their money from touring and that's gone away for the time being. They're not getting rich from streaming that's for sure.
but surely its a purely commercial decision?
I imagine the issue is who and how makes that decision. Is there a reasonable alternative route to market, is it competitive, is it possible for artists to make a living wage and so on.
I’m not really sure what the story is there, artists want paid more (fair enough), record boss says they pay them enough, MP gets his name in the headlines by challenging that.
Yes that is the story, not sure if you understand how parliamentary committees work - they meet to discuss issues which are of concern to the government or society and try to suggest solutions to those. The press then report what is said. We then get to discuss them because this is a discussion forum - the headline might suggest the MP was the one being outrageous (using relatively unparliamentary language) but I think the outrageous thing is for someone in the record industry to suggest that most artist are happy with streaming income.
I have to say i use streaming almost exclusively and it is really cheap for what it is. I don’t want to pay more, i do think artists should get more as we want better quality music these days, but surely its a purely commercial decision?
OK, so the choices that would enable the artist to get more would appear to be: 1. you pay more (or advertisers do); 2. the streaming platforms make less money; 3. the record labels make less money; 4. Perhaps at a push someone pays less tax so government make less money.
IF someone (record labels, streaming platforms etc) is exploiting their market dominance at the expense of the artists that would seem an entirely reasonable thing for government to get involved in. Perhaps through anti-monopoly regulations or modifications to the patents and copyright act so that content creators are protected (say through contracts that are easier / fairer to escape, or certain minimums analogous to minimum wages) etc. Or maybe even regulation of any "recommendation" service streamers are providing (the cynic in me thinks the record labels probably benefit from that unfairly making it harder for independent artists to compete).
One thing I didn't know until the last few days is that if you listen to music outside of the mainstream those artist's are unlikely to see any benefit from it.
https://twitter.com/nigelgod/status/1351175149307965442?s=20
One of the artists I listen to (there are 3 in the group), said 2020 was the first year they'd made enough from Spotify plays to pay their Spotify Premium subscriptions.
Yes that is the story, not sure if you understand how parliamentary committees work – they meet to discuss issues which are of concern to the government or society and try to suggest solutions to those. The press then report what is said. We then get to discuss them because this is a discussion forum – the headline might suggest the MP was the one being outrageous (using relatively unparliamentary language) but I think the outrageous thing is for someone in the record industry to suggest that most artist are happy with streaming income.
OK bit condescending but nevermind. Outrageous thing to say is up for debate, i think that's probably his job to try and hoard the money for him and his side of the business is it not?
OK, so the choices that would enable the artist to get more would appear to be: 1. you pay more (or advertisers do); 2. the streaming platforms make less money; 3. the record labels make less money; 4. Perhaps at a push someone pays less tax so government make less money.
IF someone (record labels, streaming platforms etc) is exploiting their market dominance at the expense of the artists that would seem an entirely reasonable thing for government to get involved in. Perhaps through anti-monopoly regulations or modifications to the patents and copyright act so that content creators are protected (say through contracts that are easier / fairer to escape, or certain minimums analogous to minimum wages) etc. Or maybe even regulation of any “recommendation” service streamers are providing (the cynic in me thinks the record labels probably benefit from that unfairly making it harder for independent artists to compete).
I was more thinking along the lines that i would rather see the balance of what i pay for streaming music to go towards the artist and not be massively weighted towards the label, but that's not my choice as the customer. In the list of things the government should be legislating to make fairer, music isn't close to the top of the list for me. I'd far sooner they spent the time discussing the pay gap between executives and workers in every industry not just the gap between musicians and record labels.
In the list of things the government should be legislating to make fairer, music isn’t close to the top of the list for me. I’d far sooner they spent the time discussing the pay gap between executives and workers in every industry not just the gap between musicians and record labels.
But culture and the media is this department's brief!
But culture and the media is this department’s brief!
Yeah I get that. I just don't understand why it's the governments job to tell private companies how much they should be paying other Ltd companies.
Spotify operates in a really screwy way that only benefits artists that have a lot of streams.
Spotify survives on membership fees and advertising revenue. A proportion of this goes into a pot for paying royalties to artists.
Artists get a proportion of this pot, depending on how many streams they have, in total, across all users.
So, high streaming artists like Ed Sheeren, Beyonce, etc. will get a large cut of your membership fee, even if you've been listening to an obscure indie act and have never listened to Sheeren.
This is, frankly, bonkers but, seeing as large streaming artists are generally signed to large labels, the major labels love it.
A much fairer way would be to apportion an individual user's membership fee to artists based on which artists that individual user streams.
Heard a great bit yesterday on the car radio where one of the execs was told (and yes, sadly, I paraphrase) that he was more of a dissembling gobshite than Google & Facebook were 🤣
I think the important bit for me is that streaming services, left to their own devices, will play their selection of anodyne MoR shite all day long, racking up tiny credits to those artists/labels whose songs are chosen by the algorithm - so spotify (or anyone with a bot-farm) is in a position to choose who it pays on a user's behalf, and that surely is a anti-competitive
IMO that sort of streaming is background filler and should be "valued" way less than tracks deliberately chosen by a user
I also think there's a middle ground for tracks on playlists a user might load up but didn't create
A much fairer way would be to apportion an individual user’s membership fee to artists based on which artists that individual user streams.
Exactly. I do wonder how many of the people complaining though are sharing spotify, Netflix, Disney Whatever accounts with people they shouldn't really be...
Im just playing devils advocate really as I have no skin in the game, but artists choose to put their music on Spotify dont they? If they don't like the way the money works on that platform find another.
A much fairer way would be to apportion an individual user’s membership fee to artists based on which artists that individual user streams.
It doesn't matter whether you do it this way or put everybody's subscription in a pot and divide it up by the number of streams. Mathematically it comes to the same thing.
Im just playing devils advocate really as I have no skin in the game, but artists choose to put their music on Spotify dont they? If they don’t like the way the money works on that platform find another.
Because if you're not on Spotify you might as well not put music out - a massive part of your potential audience is there & ultimately these people might buy your merch or gig tickets.
Because if you’re not on Spotify you might as well not put music out – a massive part of your potential audience is there & ultimately these people might buy your merch or gig tickets.
Some people would say that's just business, if it's genuinely seen as a monopoly though perhaps an investigation by the competition and markets authority would be better than some useless MP getting his name in the press.
Some people would say that’s just business, if it’s genuinely seen as a monopoly though perhaps an investigation by the competition and markets authority would be better than some useless MP getting his name in the press.
It's still a new business format - MPs are clueless how tech works.
Bit of an old link - but still relevant I think.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/17/gavin-barwell-date-arab-girls-twitter
Best way to support artists ( especially less well known ones ) is to buy physical stuff ( CDs or Vinyl ) at gigs .... remember them ?
Alternatively buy from the artists web site... I find myself doing that more and more....
Next option is independent record shops.....
But I’m an old fossil who doesn’t do streaming for reasons far too numerous to go into here ( but not least cos it mainly benefits labels not artists )😉