15 Comments

This is a really good and thought provoking article, but in major artists such as Neil’s and Joni’s cases, doesn’t Spotify contract with their labels rather than directly with the artist? In that case, you could argue that the labels treat streaming as just another distribution format like CDs and vinyl, and therefore the labels are shorting the artists by not recouping their investments and getting better deals with the streamers.

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Yes it is master rights holders - labels, generally - who receive Spotify’s payments. The three major labels accepted ownership shares in Spotify as part of their original negotiations, making money on Spotify itself rather than as their artists’ advocates. This is why it is up to artists and consumers to fight this system.

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Wow, I had no idea. Is Spotify the worst offender? I know that Apple at least pays the same rate regardless of label or publisher, but don’t know about the other streamers. I’ve already canceled Spotify so am looking at other options (I spend quite a bit on Bandcamp and physical media already, but would like to have a streaming option with a bigger catalog if it treats the artists fairly)

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Apple pays 2x-3x the rate of Spotify, as does Tidal and others - note that Spotify is the only platform that offers its music service for free… (YouTube is a whole different question, it pays even less than Spotify but is obviously not a music-specific service and engages a lot of issues related to access and public use.)

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This in itself is misinformation. No streaming service really pays more than any other - well in fact Spotify pays a lot more in absolute money than the others because of their subscriber numbers.

You can't use "pay-per-stream" as a measure of how much a platform pays. The platforms pay ~70% of their revenue, regardless of the amount of streams. So say as a thought experiment that 2 services have the same amount of subscribers paying the exact same monthly fees, but users on service A listen to twice as much music - that would mean that service A pays out only half of that per stream of service B, but they both pay the exact same amount of money.

What you get from Spotify is less money "per stream" in exchange for more reach and streams and more money in total because of the free tier.

Check the numbers here for example: https://twitter.com/glenn_mcdonald/status/1420790302693003267

> At a flat average of 500 plays/user/month, the overall average payment would be $.0035/play, but broken down by plan it would be $.0069/play from premium subscribers and $.0008/play from ad-supported listeners

So the question for the artist is - would you rather not have any streams from ad-supported listeners? It's "free money" for you after all

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It's only 'free money' if you accept the premise that 'music has no value' though, right?

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I totally recommend Qobuz, a French steaming service. They pay artists the highest of all, about 8 times what Spotify pays. Also consistently rated the best sound quality of all services, CD quality , 16bit/44Khz or higher. Often include album credits, booklet pdf's and lots of editorial content.

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Interesting, is there something individuals can do? Or recommended legislation

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UMAW (https://www.unionofmusicians.org/) is working on legislative ideas. Consumers have a lot of power with Spotify, as recent days would seem to indicate. And an individual purchase supporting musicians through other ways - physical media, downloads (https://bandcamp.com/), live shows (if they are happening) - can be equivalent to thousands, even tens of thousands of streams.

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Although I appreciate the outreach and activism displayed by the two musicians..this headline was not that interesting to me at the end of the day. Joni and Niel have made their millions and can afford to lose the coverage that Spotify provides. In that sense, the gesture becomes empty rather quickly. However, there is so much to highlight within its business that is problematic, thank you for addressing this. Any avid user pays for Spotify though**

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Didn't Spotify as a company managed to get 70% of their revenue to rights holders[1]? How does it compare to other distributors?

[1] https://freeyourmusic.com/blog/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream

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I found a comment about this blog from HN interesting, just cite it here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=30251495&goto=item%3Fid%3D30250677%2330251495

> Had Spotify sided with Neil, the music hosted on their platform would still be "valueless". Neil was not pulling his music to protest for fair compensation for musicians. In fact Neil seems to care about that very little, as he has previously gone on record to say that performing artists should not even go on tour [1], the thing that in the before-times netted the vast majority of their income, so long as pandemic persists.

> In fact it's kind of insulting to struggling musicians that this controversy has absolutely nothing to do with artist compensation, the lack of which being the primary controversy of the platform before this convenient dust-up.

> 1. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/neil-young-concerts-in-covid-age-these-are-super-spreader-events-1217933/

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This is the current model for the Internet ... most creative people work for peanuts to support people with junk bond morality.

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Thank you for this. I’ve long understood Spotify isn’t about the music. That’s why I have Tidal and would never switch. Just take one a look at their interface - you can’t even play a album or make a playlist without them manipulating it. But I do have the app because I listen to a couple of podcasts through it.

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The irony of the people that complain about streaming services and their mistreatment of artists by purportedly not valuing music and the artists that produce it is that these same people will subscribe to premium services for a very nominal fee to stream as much music as they want, for the cheapest price possible, rather than buying the music as a download or physical album to support the artist directly. That is the true test of an individuals value of music and the artists that produce it. Music is a business and a cutthroat one at that. And, some artists think way more highly of themselves than they ought.

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