I'm sure we're all vaguely aware of this phenomenon but I saw this Guardian article today which really hit it home:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2...indie-musicians

 

The way Spotify accounts for the music it uses is a zero-sum game. Each of us is paid not by the individual listeners we attract to our recordings, but by the proportional share we can claim of the total money in the system. This seems like it might work out the same, but it doesn’t: it slants toward the top, where massive numbers pull massive proportions of the pot. Down at the level of most tracks on the platform, a devoted fan who listens to the work of a lesser known artist over and over still pays most or all their subscription money to Ed Sheeran, Drake, Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. Even if they have never, ever streamed any of those very, very popular artists.

Not only do Spotify barely pay artists (unless you're literally Taylor Swift) - 0.003p a stream, but starting from early next year they won't even be paying smaller artists at all if they don't get 1000 streams a year. Doesn't sound like much, but when you realise that's about 2/3rds of music on the platform that's a huge "saving" for the streaming giant. This alongside the imminent collapse of bandcamp (thanks Epic Games) makes me despair for the future of the industry- Bandcamp was one of the few places left where fans could choose to directly support artists.

 

 

Musicians used to make the most money from recorded music, that collapsed due to the death of physical sales and the (necessary) rise of streaming, then it was supposed to be tours and live music, which collapsed over COVID and still hasn't fully recovered in many ways- not to mention tours are SO much more expensive for fans as a result, additionally there are huge costs involved in touring. Merch (including the semi revival of vinyl) is legitimately one of the few revenue streams left for many artists. Of course it wasn't perfect before, labels have always been predatory particularly towards young musicians... but it feels like you just can't win now, no one can just make a living in this climate unless you're really on the top end. I recently saw on social media the mid-level moderately successful band Meadowlark (multiple BJSC artist, some of you may know them) are splitting up and I 100% believe it's partly because of the climate, even saw it in one of Kate McGill's posts on discord:

 

"just so so so hard to sustain a low to mid level indie band in this day and age"

 

On a personal level, I would’ve loved to work in the frontline of this industry but a big reason I went into a stable job in education as a technician with a salary was the state of it right now, it’s so unstable for anyone but people right at the top.

 

But there aren't many alternatives, we can't just not use streaming services. This is one of the reasons I use Apple Music, it pays artists better- certainly not well enough, it's marginally less exploitative, but all of the streaming giants have the same problems at their core. I suppose the reason I post this here is we're all music fans, Spotify wrapped has just come out which puts a spotlight on this again and we all like stats etc, but can we do anything as consumers? Pressure from fans to create a fairer system where plays directly translate on an individual level from listener to artist? "Democratisation" of the industry is all well and good until you realise that if you can't make a living from music, smaller artists, particularly those at the low-mid level will start to die out, you just can't sustain a career and there's only so much a musician can output if they're putting all their time into an unrelated full time job. I know some bigger artists have thrown their weight behind this but I really do worry we're seeing the makings of the death of the music industry as we know it, thanks (once again) to corporate greed.

It’s not directly related but I think it was either from September that the cost of Spotify Premium increased to £10.99 a month which might not seem like a lot for but their millions of subscribers that’s a hefty payrise per month and where does it all go?

 

Is there a case that Amazon music treats artists better especially when they get exclusives that aren’t available to stream on Spotify or Apple Music?

Both Amazon and Apple are marginally better on this I believe but I'm loathe to trust them (particularly Amazon) given their track records as corporations.

I don't and never will pay for Spotify. I dislike it for all the reasons you've posted about there, plus on a fundamental level I hate the way it has such a direct influence over what is 'popular' and the way it can exploit that. I guess radio stations would have had a similar impact years ago too but Spotify takes it a step further.

 

I do buy the vinyl of my absolute favourite albums each year, although I think they are now becoming so expensive that it's a less viable thing to do for the majority of people. And I love Bandcamp and have been equally worried by the takeover this year - I know it's old fashioned but I will try to at least download a track by an artist there if I love it enough, I think it's fair to contribute to the act in that way.

This is a part of why I still buy a lot of physical media. Ultimately the only way we continue to get media content is to actually pay for it, and so I’m still happy to go out there and support my faves however I can. My living room looks like a branch of HMV :lol: but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Never been a fan of Spotify, and the way AppleMusic integrates itself with my library of bought content was the driving factor behind my choice to use it, but it’s good to know that they are better in how they remunerate the artists

 

(But still, tickets and merch. I’m excited when a band has some really nice merch)

It’s not directly related but I think it was either from September that the cost of Spotify Premium increased to £10.99 a month which might not seem like a lot for but their millions of subscribers that’s a hefty payrise per month and where does it all go?

 

Is there a case that Amazon music treats artists better especially when they get exclusives that aren’t available to stream on Spotify or Apple Music?

All three platforms have many exclusive tracks to them.

Not sure I've understood this - if a prominent artist (let's call them Swaylor) has total streams for their entire catalogue of 500 million a year, and indie band The Somethings get just 500 streams a year for theirs, does that mean that for every $1 million they pay Swaylor, they give $1 to The Somethings, or is it less than that - and if so, how do they work that out? That's the main thing I have an issue with.

 

In any case it seems like 1000 streams a year would generate a negligible income in the current model as it is, so would make little difference at an individual level if Spotify stop paying them. That may account for 2/3 of music on Spotify, but in terms of Spotify's "saving" you'd need to consider the proportion of total Spotify streams coming from artists in this bracket, which has to be much much smaller. Although the principle behind stopping these payments is shoddy, regardless.

It seems to me steaming in general is fantastic for the consumer and not very good for the artist. I’ve listened to more than 5,000 different songs in the last year on Spotify for my £130 subscription. In the download age I’d have had to pay nearly £5,000 in theory to do the same thing. I’d actually happily pay much much more for my subscription and have all the excess go directly to artists, but I realise I’m a very heavy user and many people wouldn’t want to or couldn’t do that.

I agree with a lot of the concerns you have raised, however I don't pay for Spotify less on a moral stance but more out of practicality. This is because I don't like it that Spotify can at any point take a song down or change it. For example Shygirl's “BB” - which samples the Spice Girls “Viva Forever” was changed when the sample couldn't be cleared - but having bought the digital single from iTunes I'll always have the proper original copy of it, at least for as long as I can hang on to the file. There are also many songs that I love that I can't access on Spotify, the proper versions of them I mean. Like others, I like to support the artists that make music I love through buying physical copies, attending tours and buying merch... though I appreciate this isn't always possible to survive on or become viable for smaller to medium size bands.

 

Could perhaps a way to address some of the issues be met by a UBI or UBS in the future?

 

I think that we probably need to start having a serious debate about a post-work society brought about by increasing automation, and look at how we prevent the slide into increasingly meaningless jobs (see: David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs).

 

All of this talk about post-work reminds me I still need to read Fully Automated Luxury Communism !

 

Or we could all join TIDAL...

Not sure I've understood this - if a prominent artist (let's call them Swaylor) has total streams for their entire catalogue of 500 million a year, and indie band The Somethings get just 500 streams a year for theirs, does that mean that for every $1 million they pay Swaylor, they give $1 to The Somethings, or is it less than that - and if so, how do they work that out? That's the main thing I have an issue with.

 

In any case it seems like 1000 streams a year would generate a negligible income in the current model as it is, so would make little difference at an individual level if Spotify stop paying them. That may account for 2/3 of music on Spotify, but in terms of Spotify's "saving" you'd need to consider the proportion of total Spotify streams coming from artists in this bracket, which has to be much much smaller. Although the principle behind stopping these payments is shoddy, regardless.

It's more that it's based on the number of streams from across the board rather than tracking per subscription.

 

Let's say that someone paying £10.99 a month (so £11 for simplicity) for Spotify only listens to 110 different tracks over the month, each with only 1 listen. In a fair system, that's 10p a stream per track, directly going to the tracks the consumer is actually listening to (then it'd be split between label, platform, artist etc afterwards).

 

As it stands the £10.99 goes into a big pot with the rest of the subscriptions, Spotify takes its cut (bigger than it should be) and distributes royalties based on total plays, so it doesn't matter that the £10.99 from that user is 50% unknown indie band X, that money will still go towards paying royalties for total numbers. You're not paying for the music you listen to, you're paying Spotify for the potential access to everything they could possibly have in their catalogue, then they split your money based on total popularity. It means there's no real direct support between consumer and artist, other than the (in the grand scheme of things) miniscule increases in plays. Look at it this way- you used to pay £9.99 for a new album or whatever but even as a superfan if you listened to that album 100 times over (10 tracks, 1000 plays), you've generated 3p for that artist. Of course the £9.99 would be before retailer, label etc but I guarantee that used to be more than 3p.

I agree with a lot of the concerns you have raised, however I don't pay for Spotify less on a moral stance but more out of practicality. This is because I don't like it that Spotify can at any point take a song down or change it. For example Shygirl's “BB” - which samples the Spice Girls “Viva Forever” was changed when the sample couldn't be cleared - but having bought the digital single from iTunes I'll always have the proper original copy of it, at least for as long as I can hang on to the file. There are also many songs that I love that I can't access on Spotify, the proper versions of them I mean. Like others, I like to support the artists that make music I love through buying physical copies, attending tours and buying merch... though I appreciate this isn't always possible to survive on or become viable for smaller to medium size bands.

 

Could perhaps a way to address some of the issues be met by a UBI or UBS in the future?

 

I think that we probably need to start having a serious debate about a post-work society brought about by increasing automation, and look at how we prevent the slide into increasingly meaningless jobs (see: David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs).

 

All of this talk about post-work reminds me I still need to read Fully Automated Luxury Communism !

 

Or we could all join TIDAL...

Yeah it does irritate me when things just get taken down, I like Apple because it seamlessly blends with iTunes so I still have a load of bought music in the same place and I have things there you can't get on streaming platforms any more.

 

On UBI, I couldn't agree more, I guess that's a different conversation to some extent but de-commercialising art would be fantastic. At the same time while there is money involved the system should still be fair across the board, even if everyone was on UBI it wouldn't be right to pay as little as streaming services do per play while the streaming services and labels are raking it in.

 

On your other point with automation etc, AI art and AI music really does depress me. Why the hell is THAT what people have chosen to use AI for? Isn't it great that we've managed to automate things people live for so we have more time for our soul destroying meaningless jobs? :)

On your other point with automation etc, AI art and AI music really does depress me. Why the hell is THAT what people have chosen to use AI for? Isn't it great that we've managed to automate things people live for so we have more time for our soul destroying meaningless jobs? :)

 

Yes, I completely agree with you ref AI 'art'. It's soulless.

Also: AI at it's current level merely reflects back to us what we've already produced, and so it is pretty pointless. I expect it's just a novelty at the moment that will hopefully pass.

Never knew about this. That's really awful that they're going to just straight up not paying artists if they don't get a certain number of streams, that's gonna kill off so many up and coming artists :( That doesn't feel right as they are essentially being denied any income, I'm not hugely clued up on that but still. AI still rising doesn't help either, it's a joke now but it seems like it will only get more advanced. I know money was really bad from streaming, but didn't know it was quite that bad. I can't claim I'm above this as I use Apple Music, but at least they are paying their artists slightly better. I've always been very averse to Spotify, admittedly it's more practical than moral as said, but the fact they let Joe Rogan continually spread misinformation with no consequences always put me off them.

 

I'm not sure of any solutions sadly, I stream myself so have no moral high ground, though Bandcamp has been one of the main ways I've really liked to help smaller, more niche artists and I downloaded some songs from them this year, just a shame that seems to be in trouble too...

Not to rock the boat but it doesn't bother me THAT much because it's more analagous to the radio than to music buying in my opinion.

 

That is, the vast majority of people that listen on streaming would never have been album/single buyers anyway before the service existed.

 

An alternative to trying to change the entire system might be for artists to bring back a 'fan club' style subscription service in order to support your favourite artists directly instead of relying on streaming or itunes to do it for you.

 

If artists think of it more as an advertising platform than a selling platform I think that shifts the mentality around it. It does for me anyway. So that as a young artist starting out you would try to use spotify to engage and drive potential fans to support you directly, instead of just putting your content on spotify and having that be the end of it.

The model of music streaming just isn't well adapted to capitalism, seen here where the Spotify algorithm seeks to make a botched version of capitalism, Drake has more capital in the music world, therefore he takes more. Nor are consumers are now, being used to access virtually any song for £10ish a month on demand, going to accept the TV model where exclusivity runs rampant which would be worse for consumers than this (and doesn't seem all that better for entertainers either).

 

It does strike me that there needs to be better regulation on these services to fix some of the glaring anti-meritocratic holes in the system, but even then you're going to have the huge power of their playlists where by their whims they make or break a music career, it has to happen some way but handing over that decision to streaming giants is also not a particularly natural way of letting entertainment run through.

 

Bandcamp should be a good alternative (if in trouble) as is buying merch/donations, it does seem like the artists who'll do best on this are those who can monetise some part of the fandom that their music brings in some other way, however that goes and I'm not so certain that's a good thing. Far better that musicians get subsidies in some way, art is an important goal of humanity as others have said, it would benefit us all if every talented person didn't have the need to make ends meet and could create without financial pressure.

The music industry has been far the worst for neopotism and money for ages. Sure the Spotify model is not ideal and I do think they should pay more to the artists per stream, but you're looking at one small problem in the crux of a much larger one. Unless you base yourselves in LA, New York or London it's nearly impossible to break through in the music industry. Getting added to playlists is just the new getting added to Radio playlists, a lot of it all done through gentleman agreements, publishing deals, money etc.

 

Even just off the top of my head Dua Lipa, Mimi Webb, Olivia Rodrigo, Fred Again., Charli XCX, Ellie Goulding, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift - all have had hits this year.. and they're all Trust Fund babies..

It all seems very unjust.

 

My thought a while back was to have a subscription-based service where you paid a certain amount of money and got a certain number of songs. Even if the amount was quite low and the number quite high, it feels like it would still give more back to the artist than, for example, Spofity does. I know Emusic did something similar many years ago, although I've just looked them up now and apparently things haven't been going brilliantly for them recently.

Not to rock the boat but it doesn't bother me THAT much because it's more analagous to the radio than to music buying in my opinion.

 

That is, the vast majority of people that listen on streaming would never have been album/single buyers anyway before the service existed.

 

An alternative to trying to change the entire system might be for artists to bring back a 'fan club' style subscription service in order to support your favourite artists directly instead of relying on streaming or itunes to do it for you.

 

If artists think of it more as an advertising platform than a selling platform I think that shifts the mentality around it. It does for me anyway. So that as a young artist starting out you would try to use spotify to engage and drive potential fans to support you directly, instead of just putting your content on spotify and having that be the end of it.

 

You make some excellent points there!

Not to be defeatist but the fact is that Spotify is nothing new, it’s been around since 2006 and the model, as ones have already explained, is not viable for new artists.

 

What would change? Would some new subscription music service come about that would give more to the end user whilst at the same time provide artists with royalties they deserve? It’s hard to see anyone challenging Spotify with a different model anytime soon, and that’s why the likes of Apple Music, Amazon Music and others have jumped on the same bandwagon to hitch a ride. There’s nothing new here, and perhaps it will stay that way, regardless of what artists themselves try to do to make things better.

 

I think what it comes down to is what does your average subscriber want for their money?

 

• They want the latest music to listen to and create their own playlists

• They want access to historic music from over many decades

• They want to be able to listen offline if necessary and with as little disruption as possible (i.e. advertisements)

• They want exclusives (live versions/music videos/exclusive mixes)

• They want personalised recommendations from their own listening habits

• They want annualised listening statistics and trends

 

They don’t want to be paying more than the cost of a double compilation per month for this.

 

So where do you go from here if you were to devise a new platform for digital music consumption? :thinking:

I’ve listened to more than 5,000 different songs in the last year on Spotify for my £130 subscription.

 

You can do it on Youtube for free.

When CD market died in my country (+ modern music became trash) somewhere in 2011-2012 years I moved on Youtube and mostly listen very unpopular retro songs.

Edited December 2, 20231 yr by Last Dreamer