If you want to do the maths, the maximum one can possibly earn in Spotify royalties is $0.003 a stream. It doesn’t add up to a living wage for most artists.
And now, to make matters far worse, starting in 2024 Spotify will stop paying anything at all for roughly two-thirds of tracks on the platform. That is any track receiving fewer than 1,000 streams over the period of a year.
So if my maths are right, this means people not getting paid...are people that would make less than 3 dollars in a whole year?
Which really illuminates how fucked it is that they aren't paying those people.
These tiny artists earning barely anything are evidently a major enough cost sector that it's worth Spotify just telling them to get fucked. Playing their content is evidently significantly important to Spotify, but not enough to justify an annual check that isn't even enough to buy a beer.
To be clear, what I said is Spotify should be sending them their annual several dollar checks. They shouldn't be allowed to just trim away that cost entirely because the artists are small and Spotify wants more profits.
And what you're saying is that they shouldn't get anything because it's "just a hobby".
Like, i dont think i deserve any money for getting some thousands of views of my art. I think im getting paid about how much money im making the platforms its on, which is nothing. Im not yet good enough to get a job making art, or to sell my art instead of making it freely viewable.
What they're actually advocating for is dividing each user's pot by their listens.
If a user primarily listens to a handful of small bands, why shouldn't their cut go to those bands, rather than being thrown into a big pool to be diluted? At first glance they'd be similar, but they're arguing that if you do the math out they aren't.
Lol thats a lunatics take. You absolutely can be expected to pay every person who gives you content to farm users off of.
Imagine applying your take to any other business. “Sorry john, I loved the soap, but you only have 4 people a week asking about you, so Im going to be keeping it for free.”
“Love the scarf, really, but you only sold what, 25 this year? 50? Nah, Im just going to keep this. Let me now when you shift real sales, maybe then you will deserve being paid.”
the product isnt being taken and needing replacing, this is like people coming to look at the soap you made. And if enough people come and look at it, an advertiser might give you some money to put an ad by the soap.
Now, there's nothing stopping you from selling the soap instead. There are avenues to sell your music instead of having it on a freely accessable platform.
Except thats incorrect. Spotify is a store, asking musicians to give them the rights to sell their songs as a package deal in exchange for a cut based on popularity. All music gets ads. There is no “low popularity ad free” section.
And now you, and spotify, are saying “yeah I know we agreed to pay you based on how many customers came in here for your stuff, but I think what you rightfully and legally earned is chump change, so I wont be giving it to you.”
You are advocating scamming people because you, personally, think the money owed is a pittance. Thats an evil, black hearted mentality.
It's sort of a sliding scale between: making content that is popular enough for a platform to make considerable revenue from it and wants to pay you a portion to keep you there, because your content is competitive and could be making other platforms money. Or, it's a free hosting site for data you're uploading that's funded with ads. Every other platform I know with this model, like Youtube or Twitch, have a cutoff between the two, it's a hosting site for users until they're popular enough to become business partners with a monetary agreement. It's two way freedom between each party, spotify doesnt have to pay anyone anything, and no one has to host their content on spotify.
This isnt a retroactive change of terms, it's new terms starting next year. Everyone's getting what was agreed to this year. If they dont support the new terms, they can leave the platform. They wont, because they're using it as a free hosting platform and not a money maker, maybe with hopes they'll be popular enough someday.
“Its a sliding scale, we want your content but we dont want to pay you for it, so if we think youre not popular enough to take us to court over this we are sliding the scale of how much we pay you for the content to zero”
You sound like an evil cartoon robin hood villain, do you get that? Are you floating about in chains and a nightgown, in preperation for scaring jeff bezos this christmas eve?
“Nah its like youtube bro, the other super evil and morally bankrupt company!” Thats not a defense, why are you saying that like its a defense
That cost is paid 100000000000000x over from the other artists they are underpaying. If this was really such an issue of cost, and not penny pinching, they would have a filter for content that isnt played enough and remove it from the service.
Why dont they? Because they cost is almost nil, its covered a thousand times over by the money gained from the platform, and they just want to keep more cash from the people they know cant fight back.
His point doesnt apply to spotify. They arent a struggling indie service trying to cover server costs. Massive super star artists frequently complain about penny pinching from spotify. Theyre just greedy.
Im an artist trying to make a living with my art. Its not like a normal job where youre profitable from the beginning. Shit is competitive, people dont want to spend money on stuff they can get for free, unless its really good. A thousand free views doesnt amount to a dime for anyone. I can and do outright sell some art, but its taken like hundreds of thousands of free views before i was good enough where anyone would give me money for it. You could also compare like patreon subscribers to twitter followers, it is a huge ratio, way more than 1000:1. You can sell your art, you can go a subscriber model, you can be hired for your art, there are plenty of avenues to profit from your art, but the bottom line is people have to willingly pay money for it.
Cool story bro, it has nothing to do with spotify ripping off artists.
Good for you that youre okay with being ripped off by spotify? I guess? But we arent talking about what immoral actions you are willing to ignore to further your potential career.
People are willingly paying spotify either monthly or via ads to listen to these artists. They have paid for the art. Spotify doesnt want to give the earned cut. Your willingness to give up your fair share in the hopes of future recognition is a personal decision, but that doesnt make it right. It just means you, personally, arent willing to fight off the boot on your chest.
Which is the mentality spotify is counting on to get away with ripping off you and everyone else who cant afford lawyers.
I dont have any content on spotify, but thats neither relevant nor the point.
This isnt immoral or wrong because it is negative for me, directly and specifically. Its not okay to rip off artists until Im the one ripped off. Its wrong to do to anyone.
Did they stop teaching that in schools, or something? What brain rot is this? Do you stand by and twiddle thumbs when you see someones purse get nabbed? Do you cheer, cause the theif got a windfall?
Aint shit been stolen. it's willingly given. Spotify doesnt have to buy their music, they dont have to let spotify use their music. They paid for it this year, they're letting artists know ahead of time, hey we're not paying that price next year. And there is zero obligation for the artists to continue letting spotify use their music next year.
I do get paid for my work and am well aware of what my work is worth. Not what I'd like for it to be worth, but the reality of people spending money on what I make.
Thats an odd lie, as youve already stated that you do not value art paid for on spotify if it isnt popular enough.
People have spent money on this art, that spotify is now refusing to pay for. You have repeatedly stated you think that money isnt deserved, despite being paid.
Any track, not any artist. You could have a hundred tracks getting hundreds of streams a piece. Maximum before cutoff would be about $3/track. Not a ton but could be hundreds of dollars. And combining that from dozens to thousands of artists potentially in that boat.
Your math assumes those people only have one track on Spotify. I currently have 25 tracks on Spotify. Without advertising or promotion of any kind, I earned about $12 this year. The big problems are:
New rules apply per song, so if ALL my songs got 999 streams, that would be $75 they wouldn’t pay me–if ONE song hit the magic 1000 streams they would pay me $3 and I still wouldn’t get the other $72
They are still making money off my streams, they are just coming up with ways not to pay me for it while still claiming to be "artist focused"
They claim the “small payments” usually don’t get claimed anyway so they don’t see the need to make them–this is ideologically "paying with exposure"
By your logic, since $33,975 annual income is the federal poverty level, anyone making less than that should not complain about not getting paid at all–you can obviously insert any arbitrary amount here to support the “logic” of “that’s not much so nothing at all is just as good”
I have no delusions about ever making a living off Spotify (or my extremely niche music in general), but the idea that a corporation should be able to monetize my work and not have to pay me anything for it is sort of distasteful
I'm...not seeing the problem here. I'm fine with there being a minimum before a check is issued as long as the amount is reasonable, and $3 seems pretty reasonable.
That's how it works with a lot of things, including advertising, referrals, etc.
It’s not a minimum before a check is issued. If you do not have a certain number of annual listeners on a track you never get paid out for it. If you had 100 tracks that were each streamed by 999 listeners who each streamed them 100 times per year every year, Spotify will no longer pay you a dime, ever.
I think a key point of confusion is in the way they presented it. They talk about how many songs have “less than 1000 listens” and that those would only make $3, but then their new policy is to deny payment for “less than 1000 listeners.” If each of those listeners streamed the song once per month, you’re talking closer to $40 than $3, and that’s on a per song basis.
How much of this is Spotify’s fault and how much is the major record labels sitting between Spotify and the individual artists?
And is there a better place for us consumers to go and vote with our wallet? Ideally somewhere that isn’t one of the 5 major tech giants that control everything
Cory Doctorow writes extensively about how it’s Spotify’s fault, as an extension of the common exploitation of musicians in the industry, in the excellent book Chokepoint Capitalism. Here’s a short summary of the Spotify argument by the author: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ5z_KKeFqE
Some context is that this is Spotify's first profitable quarter in quite a while. Also, there are 11 million artists on Spotify. I won't pretend to have any data on listening distribution, but even naively and stupidly going with a uniform split, that's of course $5 per artist if you eliminated Spotify's profit entirely. In reality, most of those will have next to no listeners, and the vast majority of streams are going to the top several thousand.
The deeper question to ask is where all the streaming revenue is actually going, and the answer to that isn't to line Spotify's pockets; it's to the labels.
It's a bit of a confusing situation. Spotify pays the labels for the rights, but also has to pay the artists? Do the artists not get money from the labels for the money they got from seeling their songs? Do artists that own their own songs get a larger cut from Spotify?
And yeah 56mil is nothing to a business like this, I'm surprised it's not more profitable with all the subscriptions and ad money. It's like THE platform for music nowadays.
I remember when Joe Rogan was getting giant paycheck from Spotify promoting antivax stuff, and people talked about moving to Apple Music, but it feels like many just stuck with Spotify.
I came across a post on instagram that says that Al Yankovic’s 80 million stream on playlist only netted him enough money to buy a sandwich.
Also, Spotify underpaying artists, making fake playlists with cover artists to undermine artists, are not new. It feels like the mainstream crowd just doesn’t care, which pushes me further into depression.
The same reason merchandise sellers are on Amazon even though Amazon forces them to lower prices and make less: if you're NOT on Amazon, people just won't find you. If you're not on Spotify, you don't exist in the music world to some people. Because otherwise where else will they search for you? Youtube Music or Apple Music, both pay sites. Otherwise you're having word of mouth or searching manually.
Apple Music isnt much better and giving even more power to such a huge corporation sucks. Regardless though, there’s this thing thats been understood with services/products where most people don’t switch unless the competition is 10x better.
I love Weird Al! But pretty sure this was hyperbole. The point still stands, though. It really is depressing that people just follow “everybody else” when giving abusive megacorporations money. Same with social media, especially when there are great, healthy, ethical alternatives to be found is the Fediverse.
I’m stuck in a family plan with 4 of my friends + a friend’s sister. I’m open to getting a Family Tidal Hifi Plus, but I’m not so sure, if all of them are willing to change for a higher tier and using a different servicr.
I personally don’t care because if a company isn’t paying you for your time/work, that’s their problem to sort out, not mine. I will go where the music is. If artists start leaving Spotify and it becomes a wasteland of nothing but trash, then I’ll find new places to get it from. Why should I worry about their income? I’m paying for a service, I get the service and use it. I have my own income issues to handle, I don’t need theirs too.
What Spotify does affects the entire music market. Why should you worry about their income? Because Spotify’s strategy makes it harder and harder for musicians to have the income to keep on making music. If you care about having music to listen to, you should care about this. Also, Spotify and music is just one example of the overall exploitation of workers. If you don’t stand for artists when it’s their livelihood at stake, why should anyone stand up for your rights when it’s your livelihood at stake?
Not op but I would not care much. Sure things could be better but it’s not my problem. There is enough shit to worry about and music (or Spotify) is nowhere near the top half.
Same argument about standing up to someone’s livelihood being at stake can be said literally about everything. I got a limited amount of fucks to give. I’m happy if people want to fight this stuff and make music better for everyone but I ain’t part of that crew.
Yeah, agreed and every person can only do so much. I like to think that it’s all the same fight, it’s the fight against the stranglehold that the rich have on the rest of us.
That’s the point, though. Spotify is rigged specifically so that they don’t have to pay small artists. Spotify splits the pot with the Big Three and everyone else can go fuck themselves. I would much rather my monthly payment go toward the artists I actually listen to. Instead, most of a monthly payment goes to the most played artists-- which Spotify rigs to be whoever nets them the most money (low royalty artists, high dividends for Spotify and the Big Three who are highly invested in it)
I think Tidal scores the best among music streaming services in terms of compensating artists. I switched from Spotify to Tidal several months ago and have no regrets
While it isn’t a lot more in general it is still about three times of Spotify. It also takes into consideration which artists you actually stream afaik, so that your money goes more towards those.
Even concerts barely break even for artists after all expenses. Right now, merch and physical album sales are the best way (other than directly giving money) to support your favorite artists. I don’t buy physical albums because they just become clutter at home, so I make it a point to buy merch when I go to a concert.
Does Spotify affect the music market or does the music market affect Spotify’s mode of operations? Can Spotify really exist in an ecosystem where artists are fairly represented and paid equally? Look at Bandcamp, it’s been trashed and deserted because the companies that have taken advantage of it found the model unprofitable by their estimates.
There of course are many things Spotify could do, but unfortunately the momentum in the music industry is towards profit and not actual talent or social consciousness. Spotify is owned by money makers, not individuals with true appreciation for the art of music.
As I said, by their estimates. I do not endorse the idiocy that compels this greed and ignorance towards true art. I myself am a musician and by no means am I popular or thriving on my art. I can’t be upset with Spotify because it’s still a better system than hoping any physical media I release will make it into the hands of others, in a music industry that has generally discouraged people from listening to underground artists. With digital media, Bandcamp is probably one of the best platforms for artists.
This is a valid opinion to have as a consumer in the here and now.
However, if you think about the bigger system and how it will change in a few years time, you’ll notice that the matter is not quite this simple. It’s easy to imagine that no single musician is brave enough to take the first step onto a new platform devoid of users, just like you are not willing to jump to a new platform devoid of musicians. And if no artist takes the first step and no user takes the first step, then the status quo will prevail. Now, that may not necessarily be a bad thing. But if artists are not paid enough to continue making music for Spotify, then they’ll stop making music for Spotify. That’s fine if you like mainstream music of whoever games the system successfully. But it’s easy to see how that would be a loss to some people.
Reporting on Spotify's payments to artists typically puts payments at 0.003 - 0.005 USD per stream. 80,000,000 streams at 0.003 is just shy of a quarter of a million dollars. And it's totally fair to still argue about whether that's enough or whether it's fair to the many small artists than Weird Al, but his video is definitely a joke and not reflective of the actual income unless he's getting unbelievably shafted by his label
I use Bandcamp instead of Spotify now, because that’s what most of my musician friends use to sell their music and recommend as the best way of supporting artists directly, and some of my favourite current artists are active on there. Yeah I can’t just stream and make playlists of whatever I want, and it’s more for new music than older stuff, but I can scroll through and play the suggested tracks which are far more interesting and diverse than anything Spotify would suggest to me, and then I can buy the stuff I really like. I’m slowly building up enough stuff that way to have an interesting collection on my phone to listen to, and it’s also introduced me to some really cool music that I wouldn’t have heard about from Spotify.
The only silver lining is even if Bandcamp goes away, I can keep the music I bought on it. It’s all drm free. If a streaming service shuts down, you’re typically left with nothing despite having paid every month.
I hope Bandcamp survives, and somehow regains independence.
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