On 7/19/2022 at 3:13 PM, iococoi said:

https://dadadrummer.substack.com/p/what-is-a-stream-anyway

Responding to an old post, but I have to say I was shocked to read that artists actually make as much as 12% on physical sales now!  Historically you were lucky if you got 5%, with a few exceptions like the Rolling Stones who actually had negotiating power.

Also, I didn't catch who wrote that until after I finished it.  Damon used to come into the record shop where I worked in my 20s, seemed like a nice guy. This is not at all the sort of thing I'd expect him to write. He seemed like more of a "music is the universal language that will unite all societies and bring world peace" hippie (that's an almost exact quote from the one time I saw him play live), but I guess he's actually a business hippie.

His posts in the comments are at least as good as the article, too.

I'm at a real moral crossroads here.  I've never had a Spotify account, but I just found out about Youtube deleting all of Grant MacDonald's videos with no explanation a little while ago, and as far as I can tell a lot of his work is only available on Spotify right now.

Sure, there are about 350 versions of Ram Ranch on archive.org but he has at least 1000 other songs.  EDIT: I didn't see the second column in the playlist, it's actually 500 versions of Ram Ranch.  So maybe 1/3 of his catalog, but the Ram Ranch cycle alone has over 700 songs so this really doesn't cut it.

EDIT 2: I forgot about soundcloud, crisis averted.

EDIT 3: crisis reinstated, it only has a few of his pre-Ram Ranch tracks.

He's no JustinRPG but he's got a sound.

(And yeah, I know he uses a lot of slurs, that just kind of comes with the territory as this stuff goes; forget it, Jake, it's Ram Ranch)

  On 4/13/2023 at 2:33 PM, TubularCorporation said:

I'm at a real moral crossroads here.  I've never had a Spotify account, but I just found out about Youtube deleting all of Grant MacDonald's videos with no explanation a little while ago, and as far as I can tell a lot of his work is only available on Spotify right now.

 

Sure, there are about 350 versions of Ram Ranch on archive.org but he has at least 1000 other songs.  EDIT: I didn't see the second column in the playlist, it's actually 500 versions of Ram Ranch.  So maybe 1/3 of his catalog, but the Ram Ranch cycle alone has over 700 songs so this really doesn't cut it.

EDIT 2: I forgot about soundcloud, crisis averted.

EDIT 3: crisis reinstated, it only has a few of his pre-Ram Ranch tracks.

He's no JustinRPG but he's got a sound.

(And yeah, I know he uses a lot of slurs, that just kind of comes with the territory as this stuff goes; forget it, Jake, it's Ram Ranch)

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i'd never heard of this genius. thank you for brightening my day! just in time for the weekend too!

  On 4/13/2023 at 6:23 PM, ignatius said:

i'd never heard of this genius. thank you for brightening my day! just in time for the weekend too!

I'm not fcking around about the slurs, though, watch out.

this is pretty hilarious. it's a longer article than what i quoted down below. it involves royalties for seriusXM etc. 

Spotify Looked to Ban White Noise Podcasts to Become More Profitable

An internal document shows that white noise podcasts account for 3 million daily consumption hours on the platform

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-08-17/white-noise-podcasters-are-costing-spotify-38-million-a-year#xj4y7vzkg

As I wrote last year  , these podcasters, whose shows entail playing various noises like crashing waves or bird sounds on repeat, could make at least $18,000 a month through advertisements that Spotify placed in the programming. I posited in that story that some algorithmic magic seemed to be pushing people to this content, and now, over a year later, documentation from Spotify confirms as much.

As of January, according to an internal document Bloomberg viewed, white noise and ambient podcasts accounted for 3 million daily consumption hours on the platform, inadvertently boosted by Spotify’s own algorithmic push for “talk” content (versus music). 

Once Spotify realized how much attention was going to white noise podcasts, the company considered removing these shows from the talk feed and prohibiting future uploads while redirecting the audience towards comparable programming that was more economical for Spotify — doing so, according to the document, would boost Spotify’s annual gross profit by €35 million, or $38 million.

“The proposal in question did not come to fruition — we continue to have white noise podcasts on our platform,” a Spotify spokesperson responded via email.

They also stop paying royalties to small artists that have below 200 streams per year: 

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/25/23932312/spotify-royalties-swift-deezer-universal-white-noise

  Quote

 

SPOTIFY PLANS CHANGES TO MODEL: REPORT
Spotify is planning to make "significant changes" to its royalties-payout model in Q1 2024. Per a report in Music Business Worldwide, the streaming giant intends to move $1b in royalty payments to "legitimate" artists and rightsholders over the next five years.

According to MBW, Spotify has been discussing the details with various rightsholders in recent weeks. The publication's sources say the company will continue its pro rata royalty system (Streamshare) but with the following changes:

• Introducing a threshold of minimum annual streams before a track starts generating royalties on Spotify. This is expected to de-monetize a portion of tracks that previously absorbed 0.5% of the service’s royalty pool. Each track on Spotify will have to reach a minimum number of annual streams before it starts generating royalties.
• Financially penalizing distributors of music—labels included—when fraudulent activity is detected on tracks they’ve uploaded to Spotify. Whenever Spotify detects a track with a play-count boosted by what it identifies as streaming fraud, it will remove said track from its catalog, just as it does today. But beginning in Q1 2024, it will fine the distributor.
• Introducing a minimum duration of play time that each non-music "noise" track must reach to generate royalties. Spotify is planning to significantly elongate the minimum unit of time each track of "non-music audio content" must meet before a payout is triggered.
• With these changes, Spotify's focus will be to "combat drains on the royalty pool—all of which are currently stopping money from getting to working artists," as one of MBW's sources noted.

It seems that Spotify's approach aligns with the "artist-centric" methodology being touted by UMG and Deezer. Stay tuned for updates.

 

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https://hitsdailydouble.com/news&id=338154&title=REPORT%3A-SPOTIFY-PLANS-CHANGES-TO-MODEL-TO-BEAT-THE-NOISE

  On 10/26/2023 at 1:51 PM, o00o said:

Spotify is planning to significantly elongate the minimum unit of time each track of "non-music audio content" must meet before a payout is triggered.

unfortunately this is going to wipe out royalties for most of the stuff we listen to

  On 10/26/2023 at 2:49 PM, exitonly said:

unfortunately this is going to wipe out royalties for most of the stuff we listen to

yeah its just some artificial garbage they made up to save money on the back of the indie scene 

the elephant in the room is tiktok which is currently building a spotify alternative 

  On 8/19/2023 at 5:48 AM, ignatius said:

As of January, according to an internal document Bloomberg viewed, white noise and ambient podcasts accounted for 3 million daily consumption hours on the platform

If someone was really smart, they'd create a white noise station and an army of bot listeners....

also, spotify recently confirmed any songs w/fewer than 1000 streams a month will not be paid royalties. 

Spotify & Other Weapons Of Destruction , by Steve Hulse 

it's good.. she needs the money... 

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-spotify-earnings-2023-1234908348/

Taylor Swift’s Single Year Earnings on Spotify to Top $100 Million

Fuck streaming, i started listening to tapes again, bought several decks and reel to reels.

Handling music on tape takes effort, the effort assigns worth to the music in your brain. Streams are effortless, the music feels compared to pre stream, worthless.

The human brain is a weird device.

  On 12/6/2023 at 2:34 AM, ignatius said:

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This is why late-stage capitalism is so shitty; and the incentives underlying this is also why the wealth gap is increasing so rapidly.

I guess these people that just listen to Spotify would never buy these records in the first place 

  On 12/6/2023 at 2:34 AM, ignatius said:

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  Quote

Spotify slashes staff to move faster into AI – and Wall Street loves it

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/10/tech/spotify-betting-on-ai-podcasts/index.html

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Their Songs Were Stolen by Phantom Artists. They Couldn’t Get Them Back.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/13/business/music-streaming-fraud-spotify.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU0.Hd0F.uoYt2XsxwMmP

talk about scam

all from this discussion

https://mas.to/@qburns/111750626989274421

  Quote

The Caretaker is uploading all of his music to streaming services.

The iconoclastic UK artist broke the news on Facebook on Monday, December 14th, citing the need to claim intellectual property of his work as the main reason behind the decision. Until now, none of his work has been available to stream.

https://ra.co/news/79953

streaming is stupid