80% of Artists on Spotify won't get paid anything.

[glowrak guy]

Comments, where are these calculations or assumptions are mislead? Or feel free to show your own calculations which present situation for big masses.

https://virpp.com/hello/music-streaming ... musicians/

The streaming per song rate at Spotify is around .003cents per stream. And less at Youtube, and even less at Pandora.
For CDs, getting into the local music scene with quality self-created CD's, nets you everything, minus the cost of blanks,
labels, ink, and jewel-cases. You can mention where/how these are available at your music hosting page, or a private website.

Cheery business cards with readable links can be handed out to people who you deal with, and friendly strangers.
Self-promotion all adds up little by little for those with good music and friendly demeanor. Promoting solid
charities and helping beginners is also a good investment.
Mi dos centavos

[tavasti]

Comments, where are these calculations or assumptions are mislead? Or feel free to show your own calculations which present situation for big masses.

https://virpp.com/hello/music-streaming ... musicians/

The streaming per song rate at Spotify is around .003cents per stream. And less at Youtube, and even less at Pandora.

Not that low, but 0.003$/stream. Updated my calculations to that.

For CDs, getting into the local music scene with quality self-created CD's, nets you everything, minus the cost of blanks,
labels, ink, and jewel-cases. You can mention where/how these are available at your music hosting page, or a private website.

Cheery business cards with readable links can be handed out to people who you deal with, and friendly strangers.
Self-promotion all adds up little by little for those with good music and friendly demeanor. Promoting solid
charities and helping beginners is also a good investment.

That is not mainstream, so totally different scope than I was pointing out.

Someone doing it, any estimate for hour salary of that promotion work? And for me, cost of that would be also something more than zero. Spend one hour at the car to get to city, pay for gas and parking for going to local music store.

Mi dos centavos

Ei mitään hajua mistä sä puhut, koita kirjoittaa vaikka lontooksi?

[merlyn]

@glowrak guy You seem to have a short memory. Have you forgotten 2008? Total market failure. What a great system. [slow clap].

Do you not think if you're going to be a self-appointed advocate for 'the free market' (actually you mean the corruption and monopolies of the US) you should know some basic economics? If you did, I don't think you would see the system as so great.

[glowrak guy]

2008 was obviously temporary. Here's what some music industry pundits thought:

https://variety.com/2008/music/markets- ... 117996023/

1978-79-80 was actually worse for individual workers. I had to move and change careers, but life happens. The current batch of entitled snowflakes cry "BooHooHooo, save me gubbamint, save me with taxpayer money!" From their place in the fast-food drive-thru line...watching the hits on toktik

The 50 USA states each handled 2008 and any other major downturns with varying policies, per their elected representatives, and with varying degrees of success, as did individual families. The current mess is of more concern, and when corrupt reps are elected, I don't expect successful policies. Corrupt oligarchs, elected and otherwise, are increasing in numbers, and capability. The city I live in has entered the death spiral, but the gated communities with private security, are still full. It looks like I'm gonna move soon. When moving 50 miles out, in any direction, the atmosphere found back in a corrupt, immoral, and dangerous city, is easily forgotten.

For people who refuse to engage in sound personal fiscal behavior, as I listed in part, above, it could be a long cold winter around here.
Cheers

[merlyn]

No, it wasn't a blip. In 2008 we saw a structural weakness in the US system. We'd seen this before in 2000 with the dot com boom and bust. Alan Greenspan (then chairman of the Federal Reserve) hid the weakness exposed by the dot com bubble in the housing market.

For the true scale of the horror of 2008 there's a book Griftopia. There's a lot of people should be in jail over what happened. They're not, and they're very rich.

Seems strange to me that you're opposed to giving individuals taxpayer's money, but you're OK with the trillion dollars that went to banks in 2008.

[ForrestH]

I'm told that's all OK because the banks paid back the loans from the public with the interest they made from loans to the public of the money they were loaned by the public.

[glowrak guy]

No, it wasn't a blip. In 2008 we saw a structural weakness in the US system. We'd seen this before in 2000 with the dot com boom and bust. Alan Greenspan (then chairman of the Federal Reserve) hid the weakness exposed by the dot com bubble in the housing market.

For the true scale of the horror of 2008 there's a book Griftopia. There's a lot of people should be in jail over what happened. They're not, and they're very rich.

Seems strange to me that you're opposed to giving individuals taxpayer's money, but you're OK with the trillion dollars that went to banks in 2008.

Please don't put words in my mouth with shallow assumptions. I fully agree there are many people, rich and poor, that should be in jail, if laws
and sentences were fair. Hoardes of Judges are partisans, unwilling to follow the law. And I have no issue with taxpayer money being wisely used, to help the helpless. But 'welfare' fraud, whether for oligarch-style corporate conmen, or personal for lazy lying deadbeats, needs to stop, and be prosecuted. USA is like the Titanic, but with even worse captains, and in even more dangerous waters.

[merlyn]

The disgraceful event that occured between the dot com crash and 2008 was the Enron scandal. Is it really a scandal? Or just business as usual?

The two scumbags from hell that were behind it were Jeff Skilling and Kenneth Lay, who were arrested. Lay died before the trial. Skilling was found guilty, sentenced to twenty four years in prison and fined forty five million dollars.

Kind of weird that none of the architects of 2008 were even arrested. Or is it? Did Skilling's fate give business crooks the fear and they lobbied accordingly? Certainly what the criminals behind 2008 did was far worse, yet they got away with it.

[tavasti]

Looks like nobody having any corrections or objection, so I got facts right?

For claim 'spotify does not pay enough for artists' here is some calculations. Assuming claim is about how things were better earlier, so lets compare to CD sale. At least my understanding is that digital album or song sale has never been big thing, and there is reasons for this: copying plain mp3 files is too easy so labels don't want to do it, and with DRM most people don't want to buy, so there is no solution for it. So I feel physical album or streaming are only options that have ever been mainstream.

If artist is performer, producer and writer, they will get 13.3% from physical album (source: https://bandzoogle.com/blog/record-sale ... e-money-go ) and looks like CDs cost now like 20€. So artist would get 2.66€/cd. Sure, this is optimistic scenario where artist is also producer in case of releasing with label, but used this to maximize income for artist.

Average spotify user listens 120 minutes/day (source: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/spotify-statistics/ ) and lets assume average song lenght is 5 minutes (most likely less), meaning 24 songs streamed every day, 8760 annually. With 0.3 cents/song, that would mean 26€. and if talking about indipendent artist self releasing, they would get 90%, meaning 23.65€.

Combining those numbers, to give same income to artists that would mean average spotify user would buy 8.9 CDs annually. And for our 5 person household that would be 44 CDs every year. And I have to say that is not realism at least for our household.

In reality, CD sales per person are much less. And in spotify at least I listen much marginal artists which would never get any CD sold for me. So only who will get less money is big artists (and their labels!) which album I might potentially buy?

Comments, where are these calculations or assumptions are mislead? Or feel free to show your own calculations which present situation for big masses.

Edit: updated numbers to 0.3c/stream calculations

[Largos]

Looks like nobody having any corrections or objection, so I got facts right?

Facts for who? No one is talking about what they are earning from spotify, so what's the point in caring about these hypothetical figures? That CD figure is talking about major label splits, unless you're going to on a major label, it's irrelevant. As are major labels nowadays, unless you are a youngster pedalling autotuned ring tone music.

I asked you before how you know people like your music and you said that you can see repeat plays on the Spotify dashboard. Considering how easy communication over the internet is with people around the world, I don't see how a play counter really cuts it for interaction. Social Media/YouTube just seems better than Spotify for that.

So I don't get why people waste time and money putting their stuff on Spotify, it offers people little to no money and nothing much of anything else.

[novalix]

The average spotify user does not listen to the songs of independent artists.
The average spotify user listens to (recommended) playlists, podcasts and Drake.
Therefore: The average spotify user listens to back catalog, top 40 and ghost artist content provided by the big corps and spotify itself.

When you look at the bottom line:

1. Big Content is making more money than ever before alongside producing almost nothing new except for the few flagship artists.
2. Your 500 monthly listeners do not pay for a forum party on the seychelles, i guess.

[glowrak guy]

So I don't get why people waste time and money putting their stuff on Spotify, it offers people little to no money and nothing much of anything else.

Rick Beato has queried many industry insiders, recording stars, and lower tier artists, and his findings show that success is helped by the artist's active and readily available presence and content on ALL the big media platforms, combined with a good website. The listeners who share their recommended discoveries to social medias, seed the machines of personal advertisement, and artist recognition. Slow growth, but that is how it works.

Singer-songwriter-youtubist Mary Spender has some good video insights on the process.

So existing on any one of these media 'giants' is insufficient by itself, but they play an important role in the cross-referencing of the collective.

I don't use Spotify to listen to other peoples music, if I do, my page quickly get's very cluttered. I do use it as a cheap way for friends, family,
and new aquaintences to try my music. There are still 5 major media players I'm not yet part of, and that might change if I can hire some grandchildren to ride herd on them.
Cheers

[glowrak guy]

The average spotify user does not listen to the songs of independent artists.
The average spotify user listens to (recommended) playlists, podcasts and Drake.
Therefore: The average spotify user listens to back catalog, top 40 and ghost artist content provided by the big corps and spotify itself.

When you look at the bottom line:

1. Big Content is making more money than ever before alongside producing almost nothing new except for the few flagship artists.
2. Your 500 monthly listeners do not pay for a forum party on the seychelles, i guess.

That is an accurate and succinct description of the status quo. As mentioned above, the 'unknowns' or 'little knowns'
don't benefit a lot from any single media outlet, so choosing to dive into all or the the majority of them,
is an option, given the fundamental of having good music/video content.

There is a great book called 'The Proximity Principal', targeting career choice and advancement, being enhanced by
personal interaction with the inside people influential in the hiring process. This also applies to how we promote our music.
One business I frequent will put my music on the PA when I mention a new release. Gotta start somewhere.
And then everywhere, if willing to do the work
Cheers

[tavasti]

Facts for who? No one is talking about what they are earning from spotify, so what's the point in caring about these hypothetical figures?

Facts about mainstream ways to consume music. My point was 'Are artists in average doing better with spotify or with cd sales', and that does not need asking anybody how they feel, it is about statistics and numbers. And if we would ask somebody, what would it tell? Tells about how does they feel, nothing about facts.

I asked you before how you know people like your music and you said that you can see repeat plays on the Spotify dashboard. Considering how easy communication over the internet is with people around the world, I don't see how a play counter really cuts it for interaction. Social Media/YouTube just seems better than Spotify for that.

So I don't get why people waste time and money putting their stuff on Spotify, it offers people little to no money and nothing much of anything else.

Looks like you don't even read my answers to you. I said: From spotify statistics, how many times people have saved my song to their own playlists.

And yeah, I have not wasted money nor time to put my music to Spotify. That is much easier than making decent video to youtube, but I am doing that also.

The average spotify user does not listen to the songs of independent artists.
The average spotify user listens to (recommended) playlists, podcasts and Drake.
Therefore: The average spotify user listens to back catalog, top 40 and ghost artist content provided by the big corps and spotify itself.

When you look at the bottom line:

1. Big Content is making more money than ever before alongside producing almost nothing new except for the few flagship artists.

Do you have any real numbers to support your claim? For example numbers like how big deal of total music market sales was for top 500 artists before spotify vs how much it is in spotify. I have source for my numbers, you don't have numbers or source, just a claim.

1. Your 500 monthly listeners do not pay for a forum party on the seychelles, i guess.

1) I am pretty sure that in music never with 500 listeners (listening one song at least 30s) would give much profits, regardless where you distribute your music.
2) Seychelles are too hot for me, and nearly flat without mountains. I am not person who would spend time lie on beach, I prefer beeing active. And introvert hates big parties, so not my thing.

[glowrak guy]

A million listens spread over a year at Spotify, would bring in about $250.00 a month. That number of listens,
if some are cross-referenced to other major platforms, could generate some fan momentum. If more content, of equal
or better quality is continually added, and views increase, before long, one might be able to buy a Mac, Montage keyboard,
or PRS guitar etc

Your question, 'Are artists in average doing better with spotify or with cd sales', does not recognize that increasing
one's success mostly requires both of those, and also using a significant number of Spotify competitors, and then having
availability of content at the big shops, like Apple and Amazon, as well as direct sales from a personal business website.
Which adds more costs to potentally generate future sales of CDs and maybe some fan merch products.
Cheers