By making really short songs.
noise artists ahead of the curve putting 500 songs on a cd
that got nerfed after a band put a 30 second white noise song on their page and asked fans to play it while they slept
They aren't. The fees are supposed to benefit the streaming companies.
I hope the bill discussed in the article helps rectify that.
Less avocado toast.
Those goddamn machiatos.
You heard that new song by Avocado Toast and the Macchiatos?
Oh yeah, their seminal EP "I'll never afford a house at this rate" sure is a banger.
To put that in perspective... If you listened to 30+ songs a day, a thousand a month. And you only listened to ONE artist. That artist's label company would get $1.73 for the month, and of that, the artist would probably pick up like 50c.
To give an alternative perspective.
Dua Lipa "Levitating" has made 3.4 Million dollars on streaming revenue. Blinding Lights by The Weeknd is over double that.
Then the real success stories are the Indies. Run the Jewels only have 1.2 Billion streams but that 2 million dollars is their 2 million dollars.
Its peanuts per stream but anyone anywhere in the world can be a fan and show their support by ordering an overpriced Tshirt from the website.
Ok, not defending the record and streaming companies but this is nothing new. In the past if you bought an album the artist would see around 1.50$. At an average of 13 tracks on an album you would have to listen to the full album 133 times to equal 3$. That would be close to the band getting 1.50 depending on their contract. This math makes a lot of assumptions about royalties that are varied and complex but I listen to many albums more than that on streaming.
Bands never made tons of money off record sales, there are lots of better ways to support bands you like. Royalties are often paid to the band in merch, so buy a CD or vinyl directly from the band. Same for anything they sell directly at concerts or on their site.
That said I would love to see better shares for the artists, but it’s unlikely going to get better because screwing artists goes back decades.
The access to Spotify is also super easy. I was in bands and unless you were already popular or had a record deal, getting your CD in stores was almost impossible. I managed to get my bands CD into all the hot topic stores in my state but it was a huge undertaking for a 20 year old kid that just wanted to play music and knew nothing about getting upc codes and negotiating margin and managing inventory.
When Spotify came around I was able to put my music up with about an hours worth of work which was mostly entering banking details, uploading the songs and artwork, and writing a blurb.
I honestly want to start a record label just to put all the local bands I used to play with up on Spotify. Most of them broke up just before the barriers to entry fell down and now the music is lost forever.
Thats why RTJ drop their albums for free. The money is in fans buying merch, buying limited edition vinyl pressings, appearance fees, licencing the songs to tv and movies touring and concert appearances.
On their own label, they have absolute control of how the money is spent.
RTJ.
Man so many acronyms. Cant know em all.
TIAFPMWAA
Return ~of~ The Jedi.
Yeah thats my bad. Run The Jewels.
Presumably not run the jewels as it seems they charge for theirs?
For RTJ 3 and 4 If you registered before the release date they sent a code to redeem on Google Music for the full album for free.
No catch, no strings, no being pestered with marketing emails till the end of time.
Considering there are 10s of millions of users that doesn't seem too bad tbh.
I feel like people are starting themselves blind on per-stream revenue in a bad way - no one is actually paying per stream. Not the customers, not the streaming companies, not the labels. This is the deal when it comes to streaming platforms - you get to listen to as much as you want for a fixed amount of money per month.
It's a little bit like saying someone who bought a CD in the 90s for $10 and listened to every song 100 times is a 10 times worse customer than someone who bought the same CD and listened to every song just 10 times. Yes, the person who listened to the CD 100 times paid 10 times less on a per-song listen basis, but that's quite simply not relevant.
I think the latest issue now is how Spotify for example is changing their revenue sharing model in a way that big artists (i.e. Taylor Swift) get a bigger chunk from the pie and smaller artists get close to nothing in % from streaming income. So the value of a single stream for a song is different depending on who you're listening to.
What change is this in reference to? I'm not familiar with it.
This article can probably explain it better than I can: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2024/01/06/spotify-royalty-model-ramifications/
Meanwhile... Last year, Taylor Swift received over $100 million for streaming from Spotify alone, making her a billionaire.
Clearly, (some) musicians are doing better than ever. And, judging by this dishonest, manipulative screed, they are determined to do better still.
uh cool trick, they don't.
Turns out small artists who pay middle men (publishers, who rake in billions a year) money to host their music on platforms like spotify, who then makes zero money because they run an unprofitable business (damn, if only there was a way to make money from this) and the listeners, who earn them, on average, 0 dollars, from a stream. Which means they lose money.
Pirating your favorite bands music is going to make you more likely to buy an actual physical release, or digital. Thus paying them more in that one interaction than they have potentially ever been paid in your lifetime of listening to them on a streaming service.
Btw, just have a think about the fact that artists, and spotify make ZERO money, more than likely negative money. Only to have a middle man raking in literally BILLIONS of dollars a year. Capitalism truly is something isn't it? Oh and i haven't even mentioned money laundering on spotify either, that's a whole other thing.
You piqued my interest and holy shit, Spotify money laundering is wild.
it sure is. Benn jordan has a good video on it as of recent.
This is why more people need to move away from Spotify. They pay artists way too little.
That figure is potentially misleading. You want to know how much of your subscription or ad revenue is paid out. The per stream royalty is diluted by non-paying users, or by users paying lower rates (in poorer countries, etc). If you move your subscription to a service that pays out a lower share, then you pay musicians less, even if the average payout per stream is higher.
0 . 0 0 3
Give me two years, and your dinner will be free
Gas station champagne is on me
Edgar cannot pay rent for me ... 🎶
Record companies have been stealing artist record sales for 70 years. This is nothing new to musical artists. The motivation to get on a streaming service is so sell tickets to your tour shows. Inflated album prices of the 90s made very few artists any money.
Streaming was never going to be profitable, it was the only option the music industry had to make any kind of money over piracy.
Most artists are happy to be making nothing on streaming, because giving access to your recorded music sells tickets. Tour tickets sales and merch has been the bread and butter for the musical artist for decades and remains the primary source of income.
Most artists are happy to be making nothing on streaming
Which artists have said they're happy with no income on streaming?
How many minor artists are doing big tours?
We need a users controlled streaming platform. First we have to get rid of those disgusting capitist rats, then we can work on a revenu model. People are willing to pay a small amount to access content, that' proven now, we just need to give the control to the users.
There's this streaming co-op that me and my friend joined a few months ago. It's still in the building stages but hopefully it gains some traction. It's called jam.coop
This looks awesome.
I'm more concerned that streaming platform algorithms prioritise passive listening (maybe not more concerned... I'm not sure how concern is quantified). It goes against their business model to risk serving users music that might actually push, and thus potentially expand, their taste. Music that is challenging may cause a user to stop listening. Better for the auto play algorithm to serve up safe bets, homogenising the general popular music gene pool. Like serving endless Big Macs in case tom yum is too spicy or lamb shoulder is too rich. As a result, the way to find success in the era of streaming platforms is to play G-D-Em-C and sing about the boy/girl you like/liked. This causes a feedback loop where bland music leads to bland tastes, which leads to bland music...
btw, if you want to broaden your taste in music, go listen to an entire album with a few or just one song you like from a particular artist a couple of times.
You like one album they've done, go listen to the other work they've made. Trust me, it's very worthwhile.
Because there's a fuckload of people streaming and because they've already paid for it, they do it for hours every day.
There's artists on tens of billions of streams. That's enough to live on for anyone.
Of course if you've got only a few thousand streams then you're going to make fuck all, but you probably weren't going to make anything anyway. You might get a few fans from discovering things on Spotify who might turn up to your gigs or buy that T-shirt or whatever, but with that number of listeners you probably wouldn't even have got any radio play in the old days, let alone make money from albums.
Most people never make money on art, no matter which art it is, or what business model they use. It's just life. If you never hit that mainstream vein, you're going to need a proper job.
Commercial radio stations pay about 12 cents per play, while college stations pay about 6 cents per play. Half of the money goes to the publisher and half goes to the songwriter or songwriters.
It's always been a crap shoot for musicians. They make more money touring which is why even really successful musicians tour well into their twilight years.
Record sales are also a crapshoot. Someone else posted the numbers for those in this thread. Streaming allows more access by more people to more music. But that access results in a cost. The cost is less pay per listen. The entire industry is broken.
https://kbin.social/m/music@lemmy.world/t/926850/-/comment/5918633
Easy.
The average middle class income in Canada is $70,000. All I have to do is get 40.5 million streams per year to afford a small home 2 hours away from the city where I play music.
Honestly, you can be a full-time musician or you can have a comfortable life. You can't have both.