Spotify to launch in the US this week!!!
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Prog_Please
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I was just thinking to myself that I listen to 10x more CM stuff than Earache. Lol.
- Aug 14, 2008
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lol was that statement necessary? I've known their catalog was on Spotify since I got Spotify since... I listen to those albums? Someone's fishing for attention.
Pelata
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It's called promotion. Just because you know doesn't mean everyone else does.
- Aug 14, 2008
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Anyone with Spotify who searches Carcass will know as well. It's not promotion, it's shamelessly attaching themselves to this Century Media drama just for attention. If putting out a press release that your shit is on Spotify is "promotion" for Earache... well, haha that just makes me laugh even harder. How about putting out a press release for all the unpaid royalty issues they've had with their bands?
btw sweet avatar dude. Love that movie.
btw sweet avatar dude. Love that movie.
Pelata
FINAL SIGN
Thanks...awesome movie.
And how is a press release from a record label announcing that the entire label's catalog is available on the hot new audio streaming service NOT promotion? You're just focusing on the timing...promotion is promotion.
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People who want to listen to Napalm Death and At The Gates will already have known that they're on Spotify because well, they've already listened to them on there. The people who would get turned onto Spotify because of one press release would be minimal. It's promotion in the most literal sense, but it's not promotion in the business sense. I don't see them buying banner campaigns announcing that their catalog is on Spotify, they put out one statement about capitalizing on this drama with CM. It just feels really cheesy, especially given Earache's history and shoddy business.
Any band you see on Spotify is there because their label has told its digital distributor to place the artist on Spotify. If you see a Relapse release, a Season of Mist release, a Def Jam/Island release, a Roadrunner release on there, chances are the entire label's catalog is on there. It's a redundant notion and in bad taste to put out a statement saying "HEY GUYS OUR STUFF IS ON HERE" in lieu of another label explaining why their stuff isn't on Spotify (which personally, I also think was unnecessary and created all this drama and uproar on the interwebs. CM should have not come out publicly about it) I think.
Any band you see on Spotify is there because their label has told its digital distributor to place the artist on Spotify. If you see a Relapse release, a Season of Mist release, a Def Jam/Island release, a Roadrunner release on there, chances are the entire label's catalog is on there. It's a redundant notion and in bad taste to put out a statement saying "HEY GUYS OUR STUFF IS ON HERE" in lieu of another label explaining why their stuff isn't on Spotify (which personally, I also think was unnecessary and created all this drama and uproar on the interwebs. CM should have not come out publicly about it) I think.
Pelata
FINAL SIGN
None of that changes the fact that it's promotion...oppotunistic...but still a promotional move.
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Anyways nitpicking aside, I *am* glad that there are labels who mostly got behind the Spotify tip and allowed for their catalogs to be put up. Spotify's success obviously is solely dependent on its content, and being able to listen to !TOOH! and At The Gates on here is surely a good thing. It is certainly a bummer that I cannot listen to Nachtmystium, Intronaut, Terror, etc etc.
Pelata
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It's not really "nitpicking" per se...actually it's more like.....
..... Just kidding.
Spotify is another horrible blow to an already struggling business!!!!!!!!!!
If a band sells 10.000 copies of an album, they'd have an income of approximately 15.000 us dollars (if they have a good deal with a label). On top of that comes the mechanical royalties that nowadays are making a band much more money than normal royalties.
If the numbers are correct and you’d need 4 million streams to create a salary for a band of 1160 dollars (MIND YOU – bands normally consist of 4 – 6 people who happen to have to share these 1160 dollars….in general 212 dollars per person for a 5 person band), we’d need 51 million streams to get the same income. Certainly looks like a losing battle for any band out there.
Let’s assume that the average song is 5 minutes long. That’s 12 songs pr. Hour. Let’s assume that all “music lovers” at Spotify listen to music nonstop 10 hours pr. Day (you also have to eat, shit, shower and sleep), that’s 120 streams pr. Day. Can we assume that these people will listen to 120 different artists, since there’s so much new music there, or will the listener concentrate their efforts on one single band? Let’s give the great band the benefit of the doubt and give them 10 streams pr. Day X 10.000 listeners (who’d have to buy a copy of the CD otherwise). That’s 870 dollars in one month.
How many months of having 10.000 people streaming 10 songs with band X pr. Day on this “service” would it take for the band to reach their previous income? Remember that songs become old, and people have a tendency to move on to the next band fairly quick, since there’s so much new music there.
10.000 people just paid 6 dollars each to have music available, and band X + the 11 other bands in this equation get paid (in all): 10440 dollars.
This is in case the artists have submitted their music themselves to Spotify. If the record label did it, you can remove 50% (at least) of the income for the artist – another kick in the groin for the bands.
Winners:
1 Spotify!!! (by a loooong run).
2 Consumers – finally you’re allowed to get music that cheap, legally, without anybody being able to call you a thief.
Losers:
1 Record labels – the sale of CD’s drop….once more.
2 The whole under-industry (manufacturers, distributors, music stores, cover artists, managements, etc etc).
3 Bands!!!! Once again, the bands get fucked in the A**, and everyone’s whining and crying out, when your Jag panzer, Pure Reason Revolution, etc etc bands put a stop to the folly that is continuing making music at own expense. Well, get used to it, coz a lot more bands are turning the key within the next few years – also the ones you never thought would be gone.
Don’t even try to tell me that all this digital crap like file sharing, streaming, a.o. has helped small artists gain ground and exposure so they can sell lots more (that’s what we call a paradox, isn’t it)….I have the numbers right here, and TRUST ME – they are depressing, seen from my point of view.
The Duke Of Copenhagen
If a band sells 10.000 copies of an album, they'd have an income of approximately 15.000 us dollars (if they have a good deal with a label). On top of that comes the mechanical royalties that nowadays are making a band much more money than normal royalties.
If the numbers are correct and you’d need 4 million streams to create a salary for a band of 1160 dollars (MIND YOU – bands normally consist of 4 – 6 people who happen to have to share these 1160 dollars….in general 212 dollars per person for a 5 person band), we’d need 51 million streams to get the same income. Certainly looks like a losing battle for any band out there.
Let’s assume that the average song is 5 minutes long. That’s 12 songs pr. Hour. Let’s assume that all “music lovers” at Spotify listen to music nonstop 10 hours pr. Day (you also have to eat, shit, shower and sleep), that’s 120 streams pr. Day. Can we assume that these people will listen to 120 different artists, since there’s so much new music there, or will the listener concentrate their efforts on one single band? Let’s give the great band the benefit of the doubt and give them 10 streams pr. Day X 10.000 listeners (who’d have to buy a copy of the CD otherwise). That’s 870 dollars in one month.
How many months of having 10.000 people streaming 10 songs with band X pr. Day on this “service” would it take for the band to reach their previous income? Remember that songs become old, and people have a tendency to move on to the next band fairly quick, since there’s so much new music there.
10.000 people just paid 6 dollars each to have music available, and band X + the 11 other bands in this equation get paid (in all): 10440 dollars.
This is in case the artists have submitted their music themselves to Spotify. If the record label did it, you can remove 50% (at least) of the income for the artist – another kick in the groin for the bands.
Winners:
1 Spotify!!! (by a loooong run).
2 Consumers – finally you’re allowed to get music that cheap, legally, without anybody being able to call you a thief.
Losers:
1 Record labels – the sale of CD’s drop….once more.
2 The whole under-industry (manufacturers, distributors, music stores, cover artists, managements, etc etc).
3 Bands!!!! Once again, the bands get fucked in the A**, and everyone’s whining and crying out, when your Jag panzer, Pure Reason Revolution, etc etc bands put a stop to the folly that is continuing making music at own expense. Well, get used to it, coz a lot more bands are turning the key within the next few years – also the ones you never thought would be gone.
Don’t even try to tell me that all this digital crap like file sharing, streaming, a.o. has helped small artists gain ground and exposure so they can sell lots more (that’s what we call a paradox, isn’t it)….I have the numbers right here, and TRUST ME – they are depressing, seen from my point of view.
The Duke Of Copenhagen
dcowboys311
Member
I thought it was a given that everybody was on board with the thought that the old model of the music industry was dead. That said, you can't expect new models to have the same benefits as the old one. Income sources are changing. That's just how things work. It's kinda like if I were in the mail industry back in the day taking a few days to deliver letters by horseback and all of a sudden these newfangled 'cars' came along and took all my business. Yeah -- I'm not going to make money! I'm not needed and other people have taken my job and made it better for the end users.
Music didn't start as a product to be sold. It started as art. Along the way it became commercialized. That's not to say everybody involved in the music industry is doing it for money -- that would be the dumbest thing I've ever said, and I've said a lot of dumb things. But to compare past methods to current ways and expect them to be similar is rather shortsighted in my humble opinion.
Music didn't start as a product to be sold. It started as art. Along the way it became commercialized. That's not to say everybody involved in the music industry is doing it for money -- that would be the dumbest thing I've ever said, and I've said a lot of dumb things. But to compare past methods to current ways and expect them to be similar is rather shortsighted in my humble opinion.
Pelata
FINAL SIGN
I think that MetalSucks blog said it best...you have to be prepared to make less money...the model is correcting itself.
skyrefuge
Member
Don't worry about how the streams are distributed among different bands for a moment. Just look at total revenue. In the US, it costs $5/month for the basic service, and $10/month for the mobile service. But we'll stick with your $6/month figure as an average of the two tiers. That's $72/year. At the peak of the music industry, Americans paid $71 per year per person for recorded music. A rough average over the last 40 years is more like $50.
The point is that "purchasing" your music through Spotify is really not that cheap, and if everyone could be convinced to start paying for Spotify it wouldn't be the destroyer of the industry, it would be the savior.
Your "great band" would be making plenty of money, because there would be a million people streaming 10 of their tracks every day, not only 10,000. Spotify would definitely not be any sort of threat if only 10,000 people were using it!
Now, regarding whether people stream *your* band enough to make enough money to live off of, well that's just reflecting that your band is in competition with millions of other bands out there for listeners' time and money, and doesn't have anything to do with Spotify. It's the job of marketers to get people to form a critical mass around a small set of artists while leaving the rest to starve, just as it's always been.
When you write it this way, it makes it seem like Spotify got paid $60,000 in subscriptions, and only paid out $10,400 to bands. But that's not how it works. Reports say that about 15% of Spotify listeners are paying customers, while 85% listen for free. But streams by those "freeloaders" still result in payouts to artists, so Spotify pays out way more than $10,400 in that month. In fact, word is that Spotify currently pays out *more* to artists than it takes in. Of course that can't last forever or Spotify won't stay in business, but the point is that they are far from "winners" in this at the moment.
No, actually the $0.00029 figure you used in your calculations already assumes that this is via a record label, and that the artist only gets a 15% cut. The same source puts Spotify's payout to the label at $0.0016.
Neil
How would a band that normally sell 10.000 copies suddenly get 1 million fans that all stream their tracks every day? I don't get it, but maybe you can enlighten me. You must know about some promotional tools that I'd like to get my fingers on.. I am forced to believe that since the band normally sell 10K, they have approx 10K fans? Not 1 million...
L
I am forced to believe that since the band normally sell 10K, they have approx 10K fans? Not 1 million...L
It has nothing to do with shortsightedness. I am trying to explain things from the music business/band pow. It's all about chopping more and more pieces off the pie, making sure in the end that bands go down.
L
Artizan
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- Dec 5, 2009
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I can see this company offering CD track/album sales in the future...possibly a discounted album price if you are a monthly/yearly subscriber. Yes, there will be legal garbage to sort through before this could materialize, but it could happen.
How about offering an IPO (stock) from this company and providing each artist on there with free shares of stock? (I fantasize here)
We need a radical game changer, and I agree with Lars' statement, but I DO use Spotify. I have also purchased eight new CD's because of new albums I previewed there.
How about offering an IPO (stock) from this company and providing each artist on there with free shares of stock? (I fantasize here)
We need a radical game changer, and I agree with Lars' statement, but I DO use Spotify. I have also purchased eight new CD's because of new albums I previewed there.
What I love about Spotify is going back and listening to many of albums that I don't have on CD yet....It's fun to take a trip down memory late ...
The payout is the only reason I really worry about the survival of Spotify...I mean, face it, the payouts are laughable. They really need to try and increase those numbers in the future. I think for big name bands that get millions of plays on spotify, it will work out really well, but I'm more worried about the smaller labels that MIGHT think that people who would normally buy CDs are instead just listening to them on Spotify...
Then of course the labels would lose money, but I have no clue on what % of people would actually do that.
With me, I have no plans to replace my album collection with CDs, because I have way too many, so they aren't losing money from me, as I wouldn't be buying the CD in the first place, although I did buy it once, just in a different format (Album)
...The payout is the only reason I really worry about the survival of Spotify...I mean, face it, the payouts are laughable. They really need to try and increase those numbers in the future. I think for big name bands that get millions of plays on spotify, it will work out really well, but I'm more worried about the smaller labels that MIGHT think that people who would normally buy CDs are instead just listening to them on Spotify...
Then of course the labels would lose money, but I have no clue on what % of people would actually do that.
With me, I have no plans to replace my album collection with CDs, because I have way too many, so they aren't losing money from me, as I wouldn't be buying the CD in the first place, although I did buy it once, just in a different format (Album)
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Also guys, response number 2 from CM:
http://www.metalsucks.net/2011/08/10/century-media-responds-again-the-spotify-debate-rages-on/
http://www.metalsucks.net/2011/08/10/century-media-responds-again-the-spotify-debate-rages-on/
skyrefuge
Member
Hmm, good question. First let's compare apples to apples. If we're using $0.00029 from that graphic as the artist revenue (which is calculated as 15% of the label revenue), then we should also use the 15%-of-label-revenue figure for CDs, which, according to the graphic would be $0.30 per CD. That corresponds to $3000 in artist revenue for 10,000 CDs sold, not $15,000.
Second thing is that people don't listen to a CD for a month and then stop. They can listen to it for the rest of their lives at no additional charge. So let's see how many streams it takes to match that $3000. At $0.00029, that's about a million streams, and with 10,000 listeners, if we assume 10 tracks per CD, that's equivalent to listening to an album about 100 times over your lifetime.
That actually sounds pretty reasonable. In other words, if someone listens to an album on Spotify 100 times, the artist will get the same amount of money he would have gotten if they bought the CD and listened to it 100 times over their lifetime. There are probably a lot of CDs that people never listen to 100 times, so the artist "loses" money with Spotify in that case, but on the other hand, if some obsessed fan listens to an album 1000 times over their life, with a CD, the artist will never get more than that original $0.30, but with Spotify he'll get $3.00. Additionally, Spotify allows artists to get money from people who listen to a song or album occasionally but, in the absence of Spotify, wouldn't have cared enough to buy the CD. So surely 10,000 CD-listeners would translate into something more than 10,000 Spotify-listeners (though yeah, not anywhere near a million).
So the main difference between Spotify and CDs is that for CDs, artist/label revenue is more front-loaded, whereas with Spotify, revenue is much more spread-out over time. Admittedly, that makes it more difficult for an individual artist to pay this month's bills, but surely this regular, predictable income stream (contrasted with the completely unpredictable nature of hit-making) is one thing that makes Spotify very attractive to the corporations that run record labels.
Neil
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