I’ve checked the small, mostly non-profit venues in my city where I usually go to concerts again. You’re right, they’re usually embedding Youtube videos and not Spotify. I don’t know if Google is that much better than Spotify. And I can’t listen to that on the go. So I’m usually looking up these artists on Spotify, download an album and listen to it in a trip or while cleaning, to see if I wanna go to the concert. If I liked the show, I will buy some merch and maybe an LP at the show and subscribe to their newsletter, if they have one.
So yeah, I could probably listen to their stuff on Bandcamp before the show instead, which would be a bit less convenient for me but better for them. If they weren’t on Spotify, I would probably find them on Bandcamp and still see the show. But chances are probably higher on Spotify and they eventually get my money at the show, which is the only way to make a bit of money right now. I think overall, less people would see the show if they weren’t on Spotify and I don’t think that helps. I know that sounds lazy and it probably is, but I’m trying to be honest with you and myself here.
edit: Going to Le Guess Who festival over the weekend, which is probably the biggest niche festival there is. I will listen to all artists on the Spotify playlist and to the albums from the artists that I liked. Hard to do that on Bandcamp. Many shows I’ve seen there in the past lead to a year long and deep relationship with the artist’s music.
edit2: @Fin25: I agree in spirit about working your ass of to find music, but I also remember how many artists I’ve later discovered simply weren’t available anywhere when I was a teenager.
I think the real issue is the underlying “streamshare” model, which makes an even worse deal for small artists when you remove half of the tracks from the equation, those labels who had x% of streams now get two times x% of the money.
From what I’ve heard, Tidal pays $1 for 78 plays, where Spotify requires 314, but I haven’t had the time to look into that more closely, and I wonder how Tidal will fare in the future with Square as majority stakeholder.
Yes, that is exactly pointing the problem here. Each time small steps are taken to squeeze out the artists. Practically this 1000 streams step won’t have that much of an impact for individual small artists, but in 10 years with more of these steps further we will all ask wait, how did we get here?.
This is a very feasible explanation. To impose a threshold on royalty payments depending on the amount of plays (per track) you basically redistribute the money to the big(ger) artists and labels. As several sources state that Spotify did not actually make a profit for the last 5 years (this year it seems to be the first one with a bit of profit), the big players (Warner etc) probably demanded Spotify to increase their royalty payments:
$40 million will be redirected to those above the threshold in 2024 alone.
Its called “Price Leadership” now,
One company raises their price and the others follow…
Its the same with new “features” such as Streamers not allowing login sharing, Netflix started it and everyone else followed.
I´m guessing we will see similar action from other music platforms removing royalties from smaller artist´s now that Spotify has done it.
Also good to bear in mind that Spotify seems less and less interested in music but more in podcasts instead. I don’t know how this goes together, but maybe they’re also interested in not having to host small artists anymore.
@Jeanne’s argument that this is only the beginning convinced me that this actually does make a difference.
Also a big difference that it’s per track and not per artist.
I’ve just looked at my stats on Spotify for Karhide and in the last month, I have about 1800 plays spread over about 100 tracks so that would work out at around 21000 plays over 12 months and the payout would be around $72 based on 314 plays per $. But if they introduce the 1000 plays per track before they pay out then this would go down to $0
I don’t make any money out of this but it goes to pay for my Label account at Distrokid. I also release under multiple names and looking at the releases none of them have tracks that will break the 1000 plays per year so I’d have to think if it is worthwhile keeping it. I know there are more than just Spotify and I seem to get plays on Apple Music and the other platforms but Spotify is the biggest for me at the moment.
Similar situation here. Many tracks make a bit of money for me, not all breaking the 1000 plays x year. This is really fucking the small artist even more than before.
The fact that spotify necessitates a service like distrokid always does my head in. The label services all seem so annoying to me that it just put me off the whole thing and made me go with bandcamp and youtube only.
How is it that spotify leaves this money on the table? They should be doing their own verification service for artists for a reasonable fee and identification info. My best guess is that they don’t want the legal headache. They also owned a sizable share of distrokid for a while, though now they only own 4% of their shares.
Even better, they should have a free label service where I can upload my music for free (within reason, say two albums a year) and give them a big slice of any streaming revenue I make. I’m sure lots of folks are like me where they just want other people to hear their music and don’t care too much about seeing a return.
even with soundcloud pro where you can see the actual people who listen to your tracks, you still dont know if anyone actually listened to the whole track or just was served it and immediately skipped. streams are a worthless and obtuse data point, tech businesses most lucrative kind of data.
Based on how streamers handled password sharing, I am fairly certain that other music platforms will follow in Spotify’s footsteps. They will just let Spotify take the lead and see how artists react…
This is probably the beginning of the end for smaller artists on these platforms…
a vetted “underground” electronic music jamboree of curated (by the bloody mods and elektron hq ) quality audible productions. not just any old pap.
i’m sure most would be content to part with a percentage to fund its running, except on nauts wednesdays.
said this before but still think this community/users is/are well poised for something disruptive and unique in terms of independent music, creating a new scene and benefiting small artists.
I honestly won’t even bother listening most of the time if it’s just a bunch of singles, for some reason it’s an immediate turn off for me. This might be an “old man yells at clouds” moment but I’m really only interested in cohesive bodies of work (even EPs).
There’s an exception there for the things that people share here, or in other communities I’m connected to. But if somebody’s got 11 single on Spotify? I’m just not going to listen.
Edit to bring this more on topic: I realize that a stream of constant singles is the best way to work the algorithm in an artist’s favor, but it all feels so gross. Every change Spotify makes is designed to screw artists and it sucks.
…well, this is the exact opposite of the user focus pay model…
since, technically, that user focus pay model is possible and would lead into a better tomorrow for everybody involved musicwise, it’s obviously not of any intrest for those who run the musicbusiness…what a surprise…
radio broadcasting will see it’s 100’ds birthday next month…!!!
and look where it took us within just that little spit of time…one hundred years from first terrestrial radio waves to full blown information age madness all over the place…
when started the music recording industry…?
somewhat in the 40ie something…?..that’s just two more decades until it’s 100 birthday…
oblivion…
Every few months I used to get about £60 off youtube/adsense, then youtube changed the goal posts where you needed more followers & time watched to get payed, therefore I don’t get paid anymore, so who gets that money now?
Now they are changing things on Spotify as soon as I get a chance I’m going to remove all my music and end my Distrokid account.
If I do release any music in the future it will be on bandcamp, whilst that place lasts anyway.
it is a morally bankrupt decision but in reality how far would you get on the $4 that you will be missing out on? your banks take more than that from you on a monthly basis.
I still stand by my statement that Spotify isn’t the primary one screwing artists, people are. Maybe you could argue that maybe Spotify is ruining Art/Artistry, but then I’d argue that Spotify implemented a process that works for people therefore, its still people that are doing the screwing.
Society loves art in the same way an Oro Boros loves its meal.
) quality audible productions. not just any old pap.