
Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich Are Removing Their Music from Spotify - balbaugh
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130714yorke
======
jmduke
For reference: Radiohead's pay-what-you-want model for _In Rainbows_ was the
first of its kind, and groundbreaking. It's entirely possible this starts a
trend.

On the other end: I don't like the idea of new artists not getting paid (I try
to go out of my way and buy tickets for indie musicians I like or, failing
that, purchase swag), but as a consumer I like Spotify a lot. It's also hard
for me to conflate the ideas that new artists are being trampled by Music 2.0
with success stories like Karmin and Chance the Rapper, who put out free
material (via YouTube and a free mixtape, respectively) and the massive
coverage launched them into the national spotlight.

You know what would be awesome? A Flattr-esque system for music. You pay
$XX/mo, can listen to whatever, and your money gets divvied up to artists
based on play count. (if half of my play count in July comes from Blind Pilot,
for instance, then they get half my money.)

~~~
forrestthewoods
$10/month for infinite access to all music ever created just isn't reasonable.
And the ad revenue from a majority free user base for infinite access to all
music ever created is _definitely_ unreasonable.

It's hard to argue with th connivence factor. However right now Spotify is
destroying an existing model, not paying artists, and losing money hand over
fist. It's lose/lose/lose. I'd rather consumers just pirate the music that way
they at least know they aren't supporting the artists.

~~~
stdbrouw
Then how unreasonable is $0/month for radio? I'm happy there's people who can
look at services like Spotify and Rdio critically, but I don't think appeals
to intuition like "that can't be right?!" help us much.

~~~
gamble
Because radio is not a substitute for recorded music. The inability to choose
what you're listening to was always the stick that compelled listeners to
purchase a recording. If you have Spotify, there is no reason to ever purchase
that music in a download store.

~~~
lukifer
Fast, reliable, and unmetered wireless is by no means ubiquitous. There is
still the benefit of being able to play offline, burn to CD for the car, share
with friends, etc.

Admittedly, the incentive to want offline music may continue to diminish over
time.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Spotify offers offline access of their $10 p/m plan.

~~~
lukifer
Ah, didn't know that. Guessing they don't allow CD burning, but I imagine
that's a dwindling use case.

~~~
stdbrouw
Well, more importantly, they don't allow sharing. You can have it offline but
it's not like they're giving you plain mp3's to do with what you please.

------
balbaugh
This is only for Thom Yorke solo tunes, Atoms for Peace music from Thom and
Nigel, and Nigel's side project Ultraista. The two make the argument that new
music is hurt in the Spotify revenue equation.

With the large stake of Spotify that is owned by the Majors and other large
corporate entities such as Coca-Cola, it would be interesting if the
'independent labels' were to come out with some sort of streaming service of
their own, whether it be on a label by label basis or on a combined level.

Anyways, let's see what happens with this in the news cycle.

Edit: Found an interesting Thom Yorke quote on his feelings about digital
content:

 _Radiohead have often riffed on the edge of that thoroughly modern
disjunction. From their landmark album OK Computer on, the band seemed like
evangelists for the revolutionary possibilities of a digital world, self-
releasing 2007 's In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want download. Yorke is a bit
more sceptical about all that now.

In the days before we meet, he has been watching a box set of Adam Curtis's
BBC series, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, about the
implications of our digitised future, so the arguments are fresh in his head.
"We were so into the net around the time of Kid A," he says. "Really thought
it might be an amazing way of connecting and communicating. And then very
quickly we started having meetings where people started talking about what we
did as 'content'. They would show us letters from big media companies offering
us millions in some mobile phone deal or whatever it was, and they would say
all they need is some content. I was like, what is this 'content' which you
describe? Just a filling of time and space with stuff, emotion, so you can
sell it?"

Having thought they were subverting the corporate music industry with In
Rainbows, he now fears they were inadvertently playing into the hands of Apple
and Google and the rest. "They have to keep commodifying things to keep the
share price up, but in doing so they have made all content, including music
and newspapers, worthless, in order to make their billions. And this is what
we want? I still think it will be undermined in some way. It doesn't make
sense to me. Anyway, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. The
commodification of human relationships through social networks. Amazing!"_[1]

[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/feb/23/thom-yorke-
radio...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/feb/23/thom-yorke-radiohead-
interview)

~~~
anigbrowl
_This is only for Thom Yorke solo tunes, Atoms for Peace music from Thom and
Nigel, and Nigel 's side project Ultraista. The two make the argument that new
music is hurt in the Spotify revenue equation._

Dear Thom,

I wish you had thought about this after you got very rich but before you
decided that that made it a good idea of give away music for free. When lack
of access to a reliable revenue model makes it difficult for build an audience
for your own projects, the problem is primarily one of low return on your
artistic endeavor.

But for those who don't happen to be associated with an existing success such
as Radiohead, that low return often means no prospect of making money at all.
Whereas you can have the guitar amp of your choice or feel sure of an audience
when you announce a gig, the lack of a revenue model for new music means many
will never taste the leverage that you enjoy, with corresponding limitations
on their musical development.

This isn't all your fault, of course. But it might be good if you could devote
some of your energy to finding a model that works for people without name
recognition, eg by relying on your great musical talent but operating under a
pseudonym while you search for new ways to sell it.

~~~
clicks
Did you read the article?

Thom and Nigel seem to be lamenting new bands' inability to bring in money,
they're not grieving about how they themselves don't make enough through
Spotify.

------
netcan
I may be wrong, but is seems like a central part of the complaint is that
newly released/recorded music isn't getting a big enough piece of the pie.

I'm not sure if this is just a trollish interpretation but it sounds like they
are they asking for a return to the system where "this summer's new hits" get
played relentlessly until everyone is sick of them and ready for "this year's
christmas albums?"

I understand the argument that sales of new music funds new albums getting
recorded while new sales of Hotel California don't promote any kind of
artistic work. That's a purely producer side perspective though. For a
listener, there is a lot of recorded music that exists. Very little of the
best stuff was recorded this year (or in any given year).

------
netcan
Technology giveth, technology..

I think a great analogy is/was the porn industry. Every time a new technology
made it big, the industry was turned upside down. Ferraris bought by new guys.
Ferraris repossessed for others. Home VCRs created an industry that dwarfed
adult cinemas. Selling DVDs over the internet was even better until
streaming/download video killed that model. The porn industry collapsed and
immediately started trying building a new economy on newer technology. How
about interactive and realtime? Can that work? If it can, they'll figure it
out pretty quick.

No one takes an indignant pornographer seriously so the industry doesn't spend
much energy being indignant. It just grows and shrinks as it can or has to.

Thom and Nigel are great artists. I'm glad they're out there making music. But
I'm a little turned off by the tone of their comments (now and at other times)
it all rings of a feeling that the world owes them or (more often than not)
younger artists a certain business model.

~~~
duaneb
> No one takes an indignant pornographer seriously so the industry doesn't
> spend much energy being indignant. It just grows and shrinks as it can or
> has to.

If only indignant moralistic artists were appropriately looked at as foolish.
We live in a capitalist world, where the things sold are only limited by what
they can give the customer. The artist loses the second they allow their music
to be stored in a big, copy able file, and lose all value. Convenience is by
far what drives my listening habits, so if you aren't on spotify, to me, might
as well not exist (unless I pirate it.)

------
2pasc
I have always wondered why Spotify does not raise their subscription fees
(maybe after one year for example). If they asked me to pay more than
$10/month, which seems a totally unreasonable number for everybody in this
market, I would just do it because the convenience is awesome, and it is so
much cheaper than any other legal alternatives for music lovers...

~~~
k-mcgrady
I think they could certainly raise their prices in the US. Unless I'm mistaken
it's cheaper there than anywhere else. e.g. In the UK it costs £9.99 which is
just over $15.

They could also differentiate their plans better and add in higher end ones. I
think they would make more money and not impact consumers too badly if they
charged for use. e.g. $5 per month for 20 songs per day. $10 per month for 40
songs per day. $20 per month unlimited.

~~~
2pasc
Indeed - they could definitely do that.

------
liveinoakland
i'm an avid spotify user (~4+ hours a day) and honestly have no idea how this
is a sustainable business. how much are the 20+ artists a day that I listen to
making from my $10 a month? genuinely don't understand how this is working.
there are so many artists that come out with new albums that I _would_ buy
except for the fact that I can get them free on spotify. It's saving me
probably 100-200/year and that's being conservative. That means it's costing
artists that much * users.

Why don't more artists take the Jay-Z approach? Build an app for your album,
make people buy it, or sell it in bulk to a big brand like Samsung. This seems
like a way for artists to take back the industry. Pirating music from a Jay-Z
app seems much much harder than from a desktop. I think we're on the verge of
a total shift back to the world of pre-CD burners where you simply had to pay
10-20 to listen to an album.

What am I missing?

~~~
icebraining
_Pirating music from a Jay-Z app seems much much harder than from a desktop._

There are already dozens of torrents with thousands of peers on The Pirate
Bay. It doesn't really matter how hard it is, as long as a single individual
can do it.

 _I think we 're on the verge of a total shift back to the world of pre-CD
burners where you simply had to pay 10-20 to listen to an album._

Before CD burners we had tapes. The logo of the music industry campaign
against home taping is actually part of The Pirate Bay's:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music)

~~~
anigbrowl
_Before CD burners we had tapes._

...which were subject to generation loss. You had an incentive to buy albums
you liked, because taping involved a loss of quality.

------
gamble
The streaming-music business reminds me of Netflix in its early days, before
movie studios became worried that it was cannibalizing rental/VOD revenue for
new releases. There are a certain group of fans who are willing to pay $10-20
per album for access to music the moment it's released. With Spotify, those
fans are treated like any other stream even though they're willing to pay
more. It's inefficient pricing, except from Spotify's perspective as they're
able to use immediate access to new release music as a lure for subscribers.
So really, you can look at Spotify as capturing that demand and converting it
into free advertising for themselves. I don't see that as sustainable in the
long run. Some artists are already holding back new releases from streaming
services. Like Netflix, I think that in the future you will see few new
releases from popular artists until they've been available through premium
services long enough to capture demand from hardcore fans.

Spotify treats all songs as if they have equal value, but that's obviously not
true from the listener's perspective. For any given person, there are going to
be some songs that they're willing to pay a premium to hear, and some that
they'll only listen to if it's free. Spotify is a good deal for the latter
case, but not if it offers a discounted version of the former to people who
could pay for it. Just because Spotify counts every stream as a single
interchangeable unit of value doesn't mean that listeners value every stream
equally.

~~~
hatu
I think Spotify is in a great position right now, they are building up a huge
userbase right now (first step for Facebook etc. too). But the service will
monetize very well. For example I would pay extra per album to get to stream a
couple albums on the day of their CD release just because it's convenient to
have all my music in one application. Or charge me 15$ a month for a gold
account and add a feature on the artist page to leave a 1$ tip. This extra 5$
goes into my "wallet" that I can then disperse straight to my favorite artists
each month. Like a microtransaction.

------
josteink
I wonder if artists who withdraw their music from services like this because
they don't make "enough money" from them, realize they are getting paid again
and again for me listening to albums I've already bought.

You may not be getting paid in buckets and buckets of cash, but what you're
getting is really just a freebie. You cannot complain about getting free
money.

If enough artists do this, services like Spotify will not offer me enough
convenience, and the other option (simply mirroring my 100GB music collection
to my work PC) will then be good enough that no artists stands to earn free
money for albums I've already paid for.

As far as Thom Yorke's argument goes: That artists are severely underpaid in
the streaming-world, I'm not going to debate that or even oppose that. He
probably knows better than me.

But we've already established that this was a problem with the album-model as
well. You have record companies taking $10 per album and the artist getting
paid $1. With a $100,000 "credit" for studio-engineers to repay.

It seems the only truth and rule in the music-industry is that the artist
always gets screwed.

~~~
tzs
> I wonder if artists who withdraw their music from services like this because
> they don't make "enough money" from them, realize they are getting paid
> again and again for me listening to albums I've already bought

I wonder how common that is? At least 90% of the things I listen to on Spotify
are things that I have not bought on vinyl, CD, or any non-streaming online
format.

~~~
Nursie
I think I'm about 70:30 stuff I already own to new stuff. Possibly even 80:20.

This is probably because I have a huge music collection already, and I'm in my
30s and don't like you kids and your darned modern music so much any more.
Music was so much better in my day, mumble mumble, get off my lawn etc etc.

------
lalos
'New artists' always had it hard, I don't think it was easy to get your record
printed and distributed all over the world, at least now people can find them
easier with youtube, spotify and other services without a big risk
(investment). If an artist is good, they will probably get viral (see Justin
Bieber) and then earn all the big bucks like Thom and Nigel. Maybe I'm missing
something else since I haven't read anything related to spotify in the last
few weeks.

~~~
anigbrowl
It was certainly always hard to become a megastar, but it used to be a lot
easier to put out a genre record (eg techno, drum'n'bass, jazz) because a
well-run label had a pretty good sense of what would sell enough copies to
turn a modest profit for everyone involved. An album that sold 4 or 5000
copies to a niche audience could make about 25k each for the artist and the
label (record deals in genre music are generally a more equitable than major
label ones). That's not a lot, but it's not terrible either, you could pay
your rent with it. Nowadays you'd be lucky to sell 1000 copies, so small
labels are correspondingly less willing to take a risk on unknown artists, and
there are fewer labels with the expertise in distribution, marketing, and
developing an artist's career than there used to be.

 _If an artist is good, they will probably get viral_

Don't be absurd. Justin Bieber is talented, but he's also extremely attractive
and happens to be proficient at the sort of music that appeals to teenage
girls. That's a bit like expecting J. Random Developer to enjoy the same sort
of success as Bill Gates, and concluding that if he doesn't it must be because
he's no good as a programmer.

~~~
lalos
Well then maybe the way the market is only certain people can get paid that
much (just like a random developer becoming the next Bill Gates). Also I said
artist not musician, Bieber got to where he's at not for being a talented
musician but for being an artist (attractive, catchy, etc).

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biolime
As a fan of both Radiohead and Spotify this makes me sad :(

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ChikkaChiChi
Why can't Spotify follow the old VHS/Cinema model? If you want it today, you
pay the premium. If you want to rent, you have to wait a bit longer.

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henrik_w
Avid Spotify-user here (paying about $15 a month in Sweden). I just wish they
can work it out so the artists get paid fairly - it shouldn't be that hard,
should it?

On the topic of pirating as an alternative - it is just _sooo_ nice not having
to manage a bunch of MP3s. Playlists are just way more convenient.

------
hkmurakami
I had no idea that individual artists had any say in this (thought that the
mega labels determined the fate of everything related to their signed
artists).

Or are Yorke and Godrich's solo arrangements with the labels nonstandard,
which makes this possible?

~~~
carlio
Radiohead had a 6-album contract with EMI, but from In Rainbows onwards
Radiohead were able to call the shots a bit more, hence being able to release
it with a 'pay-what-you-want' model.[1]

The article states that Radiohead's old stuff is still on Spotify, and that
the albums removed were Thom Yorke's solo projects. So I imagine that EMI
controls the first 6 albums, and so they are still on Spotify, while newer
Radiohead content and Yorke's personal projects are more under his control.

This isn't a typical arrangement for new artists, they only got that because
they were a huge superstar band already.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Rainbows#Release](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Rainbows#Release)

------
moomin
Could someone throw up a pie chart showing exactly how much of your $10
actually goes to an artist? I'm guessing you're going to need to make it
pretty large for it to be even visible.

Good on them.

~~~
effn
A friend of mine with a record deal is getting more from a single album sale
than he gets from 50K listens on spotify.

------
lewisflude
Someone once said that music is the only thing that you consume before
purchasing.

