
Music artist: "Why I prefer piracy to Spotify" - e03179
http://derekwebb.tumblr.com/post/13503899950/giving-it-away-how-free-music-makes-more-than-sense
======
kennywinker
Those numbers are shocking. $0.00029 per streamed song. I just back-of-the-
enveloped my iTunes library, and with 8649 plays, it's worth $2.51 on Spotify.

That's disgusting, considering the value I've gotten from it.

~~~
sleepyhead
I'm not arguing that what Spotify pays artists is reasonable, but what many
fail to understand is that streaming is very different from buying. I don't
own the songs I listen to on Spotify thus pricing must be different. And I
listen to a lot of music I would normally not buy making it more similar to
radio in many ways.

~~~
bad_user
You NEVER "own" the songs you buy. You only "own" the right of listening to
those songs whenever you want.

So how is "owning" a CD any different from Spotify?

Also, the value of a song diminishes the more you listen to it. Seriously,
even if you love a song, put it on repeat for a day and you probably won't
listen to it again for a couple of months.

So it's not like Spotify customers will one day buy the music, unless they
really have very specific needs, like being somewhere with a bad or expensive
Internet connection, but if you subscribed to Spotify in the first place then
I doubt that.

~~~
technoslut
> So how is "owning" a CD any different from Spotify?

Because if you quit Spotify you lose all the music. The CD you can keep for
life without having to pay $10 every month.

------
chunkyslink
I'm one of those people that buys CD's and Vinyl over mp3 or streamed music.
This is how it works for me.

1\. I download legal podcasts / radio shows and listen for stuff I like.

2.Then I'll maybe go an MP3 site and check I have the right stuff / listen a
few times to make sure I'm happy.

3\. Once I know I want the music I order the CD or sometimes if I feel like
splashing out, and its available, I'll order the vinyl.

The joy I get from music and the importance it has to my happiness and
productivity means I'm getting a good deal.

I have no idea if the artist gets a better deal because of it, but I hope so.
The real reason I do this. MP3 sound quality is not the same and Spotify just
sounds flat to me. (excluding your compressed to all fuck pop songs)

edit: Also I can honestly say, I do not have one pirated piece of music on my
machine. That makes me feel good :)

~~~
comex
Just curious: Have you considered iTunes or other high-quality digital music
sources? I've heard that most people can't distinguish 256kbps AAC from CD
quality.

~~~
ugh
You have to personally test that. (You should obviously do a blind test. When
I did this I didn’t go all out and fired up R, but some statistical analysis
would certainly not be overkill.) I can’t tell them apart but other people
might.

It would be absurd, though, for me to buy CDs over AAC files because of the
audio quality. Additionally to the indistinguishable audio quality I get a
better price (I guess I’m paying about one third less on average), instant
delivery wherever I am and the music is nice and compact. I don’t have to deal
with boxes full of CDs.

Streaming doesn’t fit the way I listen to music (nor are any great streaming
services available in Germany). I like my curated music collection.

~~~
jncraton
The Foobar2000 ABX plug-in can do this for you. It automatically sets up a
blind test, and calculates the probability that you can tell the difference
between.

<http://www.foobar2000.org/components>

------
ordinary
This is not about the article, but about the page itself: can someone explain
to me why you would load all the content statically, hide everything through
CSS, and then show it by Javascript? I mean, I realise that I'm an exception
and that most people simply have Javascript enabled all the time, but isn't it
simply bad design to take the worst of both the AJAX load-everything-
dynamically and the static HTML full-page-reloads-at-every-click worlds?

~~~
sp332
It might be an overly-aggressive response to "Flash of uninitialized JS UI"
www.kendoui.com/blogs/teamblog/posts/11-10-06/foujui_flash_of_uninitialized_javascript_ui.aspx

------
thomasgerbe
Relevant:
[https://twitter.com/#!/Jon_Hopkins_/status/13714775382964633...](https://twitter.com/#!/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336)

------
Gustomaximus
Comparing Spotify to a one-off fee on itunes / album sales is not a fair
gauge. For example; if I like a song I might listen to it 1000 times over my
lifetime (...does that sound right...). If I used Spotify this would be a life
value of $0.29 to the artist. This is very low but is a fairer comparison
amount to revenue the artist receives from an itunes sale.

Also it is worth understanding the label will be paid $1.60 for these 1000
spotify song plays and the artist gets from this $0.29. So it's not the
steaming services doing all the screwing here. If you compare this to a itunes
sale where the label gets $0.64 per song sale you would need 400 plays over
someones lifetime to get this revenue on Spotify or 160 plays on Last.fm. This
to me is is a fairer simple comparison without bringing in factors like future
value of money or if spotify reduces piracy....etc

------
MatthewPhillips
> Music does have monetary value.

The market says otherwise. People are willing to pay almost nothing for music,
even risking huge penalties, because it does have value (the other types you
listed). Just not monetary.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
That's funny, I recently paid $120 for two tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie
perform songs live that I've heard a thousand times before on my computer.

(I've seen them live probably 7-8 times, and have likely shelled out something
around $600-700 total for the privilege. Music absolutely has monetary value.)

~~~
lt
You're paying for the performance. You wouldn't pay that just to hear the
studio songs be played over the amps. And I guess you'd be fairly satisfied
even if they only played songs you haven't heard before.

------
bootload
_"... The whole business used to be focused on the head of the sales curve,
the handful of artists who were selling records in the millions of copies.
..."_

Selling records, LP's (33rpm) only really took off after FM radio started
playing up to 20 minutes segments of ad-free music, uninterrupted. Prior to
FM, the single (45's) was king.

    
    
      "President Kennedy got shot. It wasn't only the 
       president that got shot, 50's rock-n-roll died... 
       then they started playing mourning music... then 
       emerging out of the mourning music was FM radio...
       because during those days it was singles, you were 
       selling singles. Nobody cared about LP's." 
       Link Wray [0],[1] 
    

A combination of technology & societal disruption allowed records to sell.

[0] Link Wray, interview _"Link Wray video interview-pt 3"_ starting at
4.00min. Exert from _"Rumble Man"_ cf [1].

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViHdDE0ks3E&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViHdDE0ks3E&feature=related)

[1] Link Wray, _"Rumble Man"_

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1650853964354373174>

------
shibboleth
These are just my views from what I've experienced during my time in the
industry, but the figure being given by Derek Webb is extraordinarily low for
a service like Spotify, even for an (assumed?) independent artist. The price
he gives for Spotify's artist payment per listen ($0.00029) is even lower than
Last.FM's ($0.00070). For additional comparison, Spotify pays labels $0.002
while Last.FM pays $0.005. I'm not exactly sure how/why Last.FM pays better
than Spotify, but I would wager to guess that it is a combination of Spotify
having larger operating expenses and advertisers willing to pay less per
session. Nonetheless, these figures are awfully low and I would like to see
more artists coming forward with information like this (even though it
probably won't matter).

 _After looking through some notes, I found that Rhapsody is closer to Spotify
when it comes to artist payments. Rhapsody pays artists ~$0.0002 but pays
labels significantly more at ~$0.03 (!)_

~~~
sp332
I think Spotify gave the labels a large amount of stock when they made the
deal. So it's not $.002/play, it's a bunch of stock + $.002/play.

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mashmac2
Derek Webb (article author) has been pushing alternative distribution for
music for a long time... well before it was popular. Take a look at his most
recent album's store: <http://derekwebb.com/store/feedback> Different options
for different levels of fan, fairly common these days, but Derek has been
doing this a long time.

I discovered him after he gave away his 2005 album, Mockingbird
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockingbird_(album)>)

~~~
jamesgeck0
I first saw him at a concert at my university in 2006. He did a Q&A session
afterward, during which time he said he was OK with the audience copying his
music if they couldn't afford it.

His rationale was that he first learned about a lot of his favorite bands via
illegal mix tapes, but later bought their work. He views it as marketing, as
far as I can tell.

------
shawnc
Wish I could forward this over to some of my favourite, although small, bands
and have them take notice. But they won't - the label deal is too important.

------
will_critchlow
I'm intrigued: what massive negotiating power does spotify have to force
labels / artists onto their platform? Is there a market failure here? What
keeps the pricing unfair?

Why not just pull your music from spotify if you don't want it "sold" there?

(Written as a spotify premium subscriber who loves the service, but assumed
that the music was legitimately obtained through a negotiation with the labels
and / or artists).

~~~
Jgrubb
It's not about that. It's about "Oooo, shiny new music toy that's included for
free with Facebook. Awesome! Now I don't have to buy music ever again!"

This inevitably erodes purchases from any other online outlet, which leads to
less money flowing to artists. This is made worse by the fact that Spotify's
royalty rate is absolutely abysmal. This is well known, and leads to less
money flowing to artists.

Spotify is such a good thing for the consumer of music. I say that as a
consumer of music who was a Premium Spotify subscriber until last week. But as
an artist, it's just another mechanism for record labels to whittle down the
money they owe you for your working for them. That's why I cancelled my
subscription last week.

This is the key bit to me -

"...I actually prefer illegal downloading over Spotify because when you get
music illegally it’s at least implicit in the transaction that what you’re
doing is potentially harmful to the artist. But with Spotify, your conscience
is clear because you’re either enduring ads or paying to use the service and
access the music."

------
blasdel
Artist royalties have gone from dollars (physical albums), to dimes (digital
singles), to fractions of pennies (streaming). Once you can track how much it
actually gets used, it becomes readily apparent just how overvalued it's been.

See the progression in advertising from print and broadcast to adsense.

~~~
mattmanser
Correlation does not imply causation.

Also the idea that listening to a song once is worth fractions of a penny is
really stupid further making your 'revelation' totally fatuous.

------
Jgrubb
It seems to me that there is a major market opportunity in a co-operatively
owned version of this sort of service, one that placed getting $ to the artist
as it's highest goal. A more or less P2P exchange that let consumers
stream/discover to their heart's content, but after a certain number of plays
prodded them to buy. It'd be open only to artists without label/licensing
encumbrances, and would therefore be able to funnel most of the money back to
the artist themselves.

It seems really obvious if not simple, but the chief goal isn't to make piles
of money for whomever builds it. That's the only reason I can see that it
doesn't already exist.

Semi-side note - It irks the shit out of me that even something as cool as
Spotify is still just a means of propping up the same old major label system.

------
BerislavLopac
Hm, is there a Web platform for musicians to give away their music away in
return for the fans' social info? With an added feature of discovering new
music and artists?

If not, maybe someone could start it up. This field is definitely ripe for
disruption.

~~~
lt
NoiseTrade, referenced in the original post, seems to be exactly that:

<http://www.noisetrade.com/info/about>

------
VonLipwig
Something is going to have to give. Either artists quit bemoaning Spotify OR
they withdraw their music.

Spotify has created a business model that works for them. If it isn't working
for individual labels or artists they can withdraw their music and provoke a
change in Spotify's business model.

Spotify's value exists because of the huge range of music it supports. If you
take that away Spotify will be forced to react.

Perhaps the simplest thing Spotify could do is charge more for power users.
I've listened to 46,000 tracks on Spotify. Charging people like me more would
mean they could up the price paid to artists.

------
555imon
Musicians and labels need to find new ways to monetize instead of distributing
copies of master recordings. If artists have records that are widely listed to
they can play well payed gigs or get endorsment deals. Seems like the average
consumers thinks, that listening to music must be free.

------
bgarbiak
_It’s true that iTunes is a place for people to purchase music, but it offers
all the same benefits of Spotify in terms of discovery._

Last time I've checked to discover music on iTunes you had to purchase it.

~~~
arethuza
You do get to preview songs on iTunes - can't remember how long it is, but
it's certainly long enough for me.

It appears that previews can now be up to 90 seconds:

<http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/02/itunes-previews/>

~~~
bgarbiak
For me: if it's not entirety - it doesn't count. Lala figured it out and I had
hoped Apple will follow this path after they bought them. Sadly, they didn't.

~~~
technoslut
It's not a question of what Apple figured out but what the labels would allow.
Frankly, the combination of Genius suggestions and 90 second previews should
be enough for most.

------
omfg
Is the story the same with other services like Rdio? I only seem to see stuff
like this talking about Spotify but the models seem similar.

------
gizzlon
A redable version: <http://www.readability.com/articles/9lzok3re>

------
BasDirks
Title is arguably inaccurate; is freely distributing by the artist still
piracy?

~~~
lloeki
Well it's accurate in that at some point, the author says piracy is a "worse
is better" case because the pirate knows someone is not getting paid, whereas
Spotify makes one think that artists get paid properly for their work.

------
Darningn
Hey musicians: Stop trying to make money and focus on creating great music.

If you're focused on the business angle, you're doing it wrong. In fact, it's
none of your concern. Success will come if you create great music.

------
haraball
I lose a bit of interest in artists who complain about not making money on
people listening to their music. It then seems that they make music to make
money, instead of making money because they make music.

~~~
powrtoch
Did you actually read the article?

Making music takes a lot of time, effort, and money. Promoting it (as opposed
to just playing for you and whoever you live with) takes more of all three.
The author specifically says he isn't talking about getting rich, only about
making enough to continue doing it ("blue collar musician").

In fact he created and uses a service that gives away his music for free, in
exchange for some info about the customer downloading it. "Complaining about
not making money" really isn't a fair summary.

~~~
haraball
Maybe I'm looking at making music in the same fashion as open source
programming. It also takes a lot of time, effort and some times money, and it
does not give you any income directly. People may fork your code and you don't
get any money from it. But it may also land you some programming gigs that can
pay much more because of your effort.

Making a living out of making music is like making a living out of open source
programming. If it does not pay enough, you have to either put more effort
into it and make some sacrifices, or you have to play by some other mans
notes/specs.

~~~
Jgrubb
"Making a living out of making music is like making a living out of open
source programming. If it does not pay enough, you have to either put more
effort into it and make some sacrifices, or you have to play by some other
mans notes/specs."

As a professional musician of the last 14 years, and a professional web
developer of the last 2 years, I can tell you that this is not a good analogy.

There are many good analogies to be drawn between the music scene and the OSS
scene, but the simple fact is that there is a fraction of a fraction of the
money slushing around music that there is in software. There is a fraction of
a fraction of the demand for talent in music as there is in software. It'd be
like saying "I'm not making enough money as a Latin scholar, so I need to
study harder." It's (for all intents) a dead industry, and no amount of
individual effort is going to change that.

The fundamental paradigm of the music business - fans on one side, artists on
the other, labels/gatekeepers in between - has to be changed. Neither Spotify
nor iTunes nor any other offering that I know of out there do anything to
advance that goal.

~~~
haraball
Yes, that was my point. Latin compares to music noone wants to hear or code
noone wants to use.

Spotify and its likes is a place for people to discover and share music. If
your music gives you fans, they will come to your concerts and buy your
records.

People are used to test running stuff before they buy it these days. The
chance of buying a new magazine is bigger if you can flip through it and see
what it's about, than if it is wrapped in plastic. I look at Spotify as a
legal place where you get some money from the test runners also, which is
those who wouldn't have come to your concerts anyway.

------
mehwoot
Hooray, now all the people stealing music can feel good about themselves
because one particular artist agrees with them. Ergo, it is ethically ok.

~~~
JshWright
I take it you didn't read the article?

The entire point of the post is that _Spotify_, rather than piracy, is the
option that lets users "feel good about themselves". With piracy, at least the
user _knows_ they're not compensating the artist.

~~~
wmf
I think you can take both interpretations. Someone might think "if Spotify is
paying artists virtually nothing, I might as well cut out the middle man and
just pirate music".

~~~
jiggy2011
Is this particularly different from other industries?

When I buy clothes, how much of it goes to actual factory worker / designer?

~~~
wmf
Spotify is worse than that; even the labels are getting virtually nothing. But
you have a good point; when you buy something at Wal-Mart, the company that
makes the product doesn't make any profit either.

