

Streaming Music Is Ripping You Off - fordh
https://medium.com/cuepoint/streaming-music-is-ripping-you-off-61dc501e7f94

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tired_man
That was a very interesting explanation on how streaming royalties are
generated and distributed.

I think that the Silent September idea is good. I'd thought that the groups I
streamed got a fair distribution of royalties. Now I see that I was completely
mistaken on that count.

Perhaps it's better to download everything and send money directly to the
groups :-)

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dimlyaware
While the system is definitely a better solution, you also have to look at it
from a database performance level. I would prefer the above, and to be honest
my knowledge of databases is not strong enough to say that the below makes it
impossible or difficult to implement but something that needs to be taken into
account.

Spotify currently has a database that tracks the number 'Plays' each artist
gets. They then roll that up into a combined number that gives them their
royalty payout for the year. Have lets say 100,000 artists, that is 100,000
records accessed when they run their end of year report. On the user level
(lets say you have a million users) you now need to keep track of the number
of clicks per artist per user. Most likely through having each user have its
own click counter table that has a record for each artist they listened to
(probably through a foreign key) and then the number of clicks for that
artist. When the end of the year report rolls around instead of simply looking
at 100,000 records. You are now accessing 1 million records times the average
number of artists a user listens too and then running calculations to figure
out how much each artist gets by the user. I'm sure there is better database
design then the above mentioned but you still run into a more power intensive
process to calculate it.

Not something I think will completely stop companies like spotify from
switching to this model but something worth considering...

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danielki
Spotify already tracks user listening history. I can see a "Recently Played
Artists" section on my profile, and I assume they're using some of it to
generate the user-specific "Discover Weekly" recommended music playlists.

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jsf666
Why should I care as a consumer? The musicians aren't 5 year old children and
should know for what they're signing. I pay the subscription and get the
product, you really don't have anything more interesting to do than trying to
find problems where there ain't none?

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akshat_h
The same paying model would be used for consumers, but with subscriber share
model presented in the article, the author argues would be a more equitable
distribution for the artists. It seems simple in theory, but I would like to
see some actual numbers of the users. I am not sure if the infographics in the
article are based on real world numbers, or some assumptions.

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rmah
While I understand the point of the author, I don't really see why paying per
play is unfair. It seems to me that artists who creates a song that I love
enough to play it 100 times in a year should get more than a song by a random
artist listened to just once.

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benbristow
When people criticise streaming services because it's 'not giving the artists
enough money' it sometimes annoys me a little.

What would you prefer?

\- A service where people are able to freely access a huge music library from
all their devices for a minimal subscription fee.

\- Having to buy albums one by one, where one album is more than a whole month
of a streaming package.

Streaming stopped me pirating music. I have no reason to do so (other than the
odd MP3 file for video editing/DJ practice etc.) any more.

Services like Spotify/Apple Music need to also take a cut for server
management, developers and management staff etc.

Also the record industry takes massive cuts so the artist doesn't seem to see
much of it at all, even with normal albums.

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joshstrange
So you either didn't read the article or you are choosing to ignore the
alternative proposed which I've felt is the better way to do this for some
time. Each subscriber's $10 -> $7 (After _streaming service_ fees) is divvied
up between the artists they listen to in a given month. I fail to see how this
causes any issues at all and does not result in having to buy albums one by
one and gives you access to a huge music library for a minimal fee.

