
$2B and Counting - robin_reala
https://news.spotify.com/us/2014/11/11/2-billion-and-counting/
======
rjtavares
Spotify has been claiming to make huge payments to the industry, and no one
tries to deny that. But artists constantly complain about payments to them...

This stuff needs to be more transparent, for both the artists and the fans'
sake.

~~~
cylinder
Artists should bear the risk on their own then, and self-publish directly to
Spotify and iTunes and negotiate their own rates.

------
toblender
Great response by the company. It's hard being the head of the pack of a new
field the spotlight is on them the most.

------
elmin
I just want to point out that by Spotify's own accounting, they pay out an
average of less than a penny per play. For someone like Taylor Swift who would
otherwise be selling an album on iTunes for $12.99, this is massive pay cut.

~~~
jobposter1234
Are you sure that it's a massive pay cut for Taylor Swift, or is it just less
money going to the point-of-purchase and the labels?

Further, I wonder what time frame this would no longer be true. Seemingly+,
the $12.99 album on iTunes is a 1-time purchase. If someone listened to 1 TS
song every day for a year, that's $3.65. Somewhere around 4 years is the
break-even point in this admittedly constructed argument. My point, however,
is with streaming we have to reference a time-frame, because I'm willing to be
over a thousand year period the streaming model is more lucrative. (Think
about how much software has switched to a SAAS, aka streaming, model...
granted, many differences surrounding IT support and upgrades, but I'm not
trying to draw a close analogy...)

\+ outside of the record industry's desire to have consumers re-license the
music for every different format that comes out...

EDIT - formatting

