Thought Provoking Article: "The coming implosion of the record business…"

[PeterG]

15 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

The record companies are not friends to consumers as well.  I never, ever, listen to Taylor Swift (for example), yet she's getting money from me when I stream.

 

Read the OP's article if you're curious about this.

 

I read the article closely--both because I like math and because my son is an artist with a modest Spotify following.  I agree with the general point that the industry is brutal for all but a few, but I disagree with you and the author on the math.  I hope you'll advise if I am wrong (for my son's sake!)

 

You point out that Taylor gets a sliver of your payments even if you don't listen to her.  Good point.  But this ignores that some people listen to Taylor every day, and she likely gets a smaller fraction of their fees than she is due.  My understand of the math from the article--if she is 5% of the streams, she is 5% of the money paid out.  Therefore, your overpayment and the Swifties underpayment balances out.

 

Similarly, Whalen asserts in his point #3 that a single Taylor stream pays more than a single Whalen song stream.  Once again, I do not understand how this can be if the streaming is split pro rata.  Doesn't every stream get paid the same half cent?

 

Looking forward to your thoughts on the math

[PeterG]

3 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Not disputing your math, but I'm not understanding how Taylor Swift should be getting any money from what I spend on audio streaming services.  It's grift as far as I'm concerned.

 

I don't think it makes a difference, because it all balances out at the end.  Here's an extreme example of splitting on a % of streams basis--Let's say there are only 3 artists on Spotify--Taylor, Shakira, Bruno.  And only two listeners--you and me.  I listen to nothing but Taylor, you listen to nothing but Shakira--we both listen to 1,000 songs.  At the end of the month, they put our $15 in a pot, and split it $7.50 to Taylor and $7.50 to Shakira.

 

 

[PeterG]

14 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

How does you math work when I listen to zero contemporary music acts? The lesser acts get no access to the "pot", so how do they get any of the money I pay to streaming services?

Every act has "equal" (will caveat in a moment) access to the pot.  If an artist has 5% of the streams, she gets 5% of the royalties.  If another artist has 0.0000005% of the streams, she gets 0.00000005% of the pot.  It is not that the lesser acts have no access to the pot, it is that very few people stream their work, so their revenues are miniscule. 

 

One funny thing about the article is that it mentions a significant number of artists with zero streams.  Frankly, I do not understand how this is possible.  They didn't even listen themselves?  Or send links to family and friends?  But the total stream numbers are posted from every song, and the artists get detailed breakdowns--they even know how many people are listening at a given moment.  so I do not think the numbers reported are bogus.

 

But I concur with your general point about small artists having a tough time.  Some artists are more equal than others.  When Taylor or Kanye release a song, their labels flood the zone with advertising, pitches to Spotify for playlist inclusion,  and other support, thus creating momentum that feeds on itself with the algorithm.  Of course, in the good old days, these top tier artists had huge support in other ways, and it may have been even more difficult for the little guys, relatively speaking.

[PeterG]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I'm struggling to get through this article. I got to this one and couldn't go on. 

 

 

"The average income of a musician in the UK pre-COVID was about 20,000 pounds a year (about $27,500 USD). Now, according to PRS, that figure is about 8,000–10,000 pounds a year. Without government help, many musicians cannot survive without working outside of music."

 

I'm all for people making a living at doing whatever it is they want to do, but at some point people need to get another job it what they want to do doesn't pay the bills. Nobody is entitled to make a dime doing what they love. 

 

 

The other thing that the article overlooks here is that musicians' plummeting incomes during covid are primarily driven by the dearth of live performance opportunities.  This is not a streaming issue

[PeterG]

1 hour ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

How does you math work when I listen to zero contemporary music acts? The lesser acts get no access to the "pot", so how do they get any of the money I pay to streaming services?

 

Sam--here's a service you'd like!  Deezer splits each person's subscription fees into artists.  So an old guy who listens less often than his kids sends his artists more $/stream.

 

https://www.deezer.com/us/ucps

[PeterG]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I don't think Deezer actually does this. The company wants to. Do you know if they've implemented this yet?

 

Ooo--good question.  I assumed they did when I posted, but upon further checking I see they do not.  From their community page pasted below, I see that they are waiting for the record labels to approve.  I suppose we all expect this to be a long wait, for reasons discussed above, especially for a service with only 16MM subscribers

 

• Jaime. 
• Community Manager
• 2245 replies
• 4 months ago
• ANSWER

Hi @fasdork Deezer has everything needed to launch a UCPS pilot roll out but we need all the labels to approve it in order to proceed. We continue to provide labels with all the information necessary for their analysis and are working hard to get consensus so that UCPS can be implemented as soon as possible.
Thanks 

 

[PeterG]

1 hour ago, DuckToller said:

If me and my math are not completely mistaken, there is a dependency between income from stream and pandemic closures, indirectly.
As it is mentioned in the article, there has been sufficiently more artist's output in that period, but perhaps not so much more slots to distribute this art and money to distribute (or at least not as much as it would need to compensate their missing live performances). And even the services would have had suffiently more money to diffuse, their distribution key would leave most of it with the Taylor Swifts alike, anyway.
OTOH, If three hunderts artists play 20 people per performance  for 100$ each at one one evening (6000 listener/30k$),  while TS plays 30. 000 eyeballs for 300k bucks, she has five times the listeners for 10x the money. Which may be ok, because TS can take only one stage at the time and her tickets are clearly more expensive.
Thus,  the other artist may use another stage and have an income too.
Due to the possible omnipresence in streaming, these slots are overtaken by TS-alike and leave other artists apart, financially.
That system, if it doesn't integrate a basic support for the "independent artists" may canibalize creativity and artistry for profits. Especially in pandemic times.

 

I agree that live music is more egalitarian than recorded music.  As you say, Taylor cannot be everywhere at once.

 

But I also think, for all its flaws, Spotify is more egalitarian than the old system.  Pre-internet, the big labels were the only game in town.  It was sign a deal heavily favoring the label, or do not sell any prerecorded music.  Today the labels dominate the playlists and Spotify in general, but a real indie path exists

[PeterG]

13 hours ago, GregWormald said:

Strictly speaking—yes.

 

However, the poor artist payment from streaming (another middle man to take a big cut) meant that (before covid) artists were turning to live shows in order to make a living. So on that note it is a streaming related issue.

 

I'm a bit confused by your comment.  My take is that to evaluate streaming's economic impact on artists, we have to compare it to the pre-streaming world in which major labels controlled the production and distribution of vinyl and CDs.  In this pre-streaming world, a large majority of artists were getting the lion's share  of their income from live performances.  Also, when you say "another" middle man--this is only true for the minority of artists who have record deals.  So it that sense nothing has changed.  But on the bright side--for the past few years young artists have had the ability to distribute (and record!) their music without record contracts.

 

To be sure, I agree with you in spirit--Spotify, YouTube, EMI, Warner, and the rest are all doing their best to minimize artist compensation.  But many artists are, or at least should be, grateful for the Spotify ecosystem compared to their previous alternatives