On 4/10/2024 at 7:37 AM, iococoi said:

One big shitshow over there in streaming-land...g

https://variety.com/2024/music/news/spotify-artists-streaming-fraud-1235965379/

wow. his story made it to variety. glad it's gotten more attention 

I hate that Spotify playlists are the only semi-effective thing I've found for getting my music to a wider audience in my 20+ years of trying.  The idea of making money through streaming or selling CDs/vinyl/etc. has not been part of what I've considered possible for most of that time.  So while I recognize Spotify is evil, I also recognize that it's the only platform that's been all that useful for me as a relatively unknown artist. 

  On 4/15/2024 at 10:05 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

I hate that Spotify playlists are the only semi-effective thing I've found for getting my music to a wider audience in my 20+ years of trying.  The idea of making money through streaming or selling CDs/vinyl/etc. has not been part of what I've considered possible for most of that time.  So while I recognize Spotify is evil, I also recognize that it's the only platform that's been all that useful for me as a relatively unknown artist. 

i never got _any_ traction on streaming services. had stuff up since the beginning. so like 10 years or something.. made like $200. lol. and then took it all down. then tried again and got even less traction that the first time. bandcamp been decent though.

it's not a service i've ever used other than netflix/youtube for video. never have i streamed a piece of music.  shrug. some people do alright on streaming services though.. not many.. but some make a few dollars even with the shitty conditions and all the scams and shit. 

if i had ever made any real money from it i'd put my stuff on there and leave there but i don't see the purpose of it. a handful of listeners.. and spotify constantly mixing up my albums with artists or the same name etc.. and me having to tell them to fix it etc.. ugh. annoying.  

it is what it is. 

  On 4/15/2024 at 10:33 PM, ignatius said:

i never got _any_ traction on streaming services. had stuff up since the beginning. so like 10 years or something.

did you get on any playlists? that’s what Zephyr mentioned specifically and i’ve heard that before from others…getting on those popular playlists is super important supposedly for triggering the algorithms

  On 4/15/2024 at 11:05 PM, auxien said:

did you get on any playlists? that’s what Zephyr mentioned specifically and i’ve heard that before from others…getting on those popular playlists is super important supposedly for triggering the algorithms

i don't think so. i wouldn't even know how to look. it's all water under the bridge now though.  i only got a few complaints the first time i took my stuff off streaming services and zero complaints more recently when i took my stuff down. 

  On 4/15/2024 at 10:33 PM, ignatius said:

i never got _any_ traction on streaming services. had stuff up since the beginning. so like 10 years or something.. made like $200. lol. and then took it all down. then tried again and got even less traction that the first time. bandcamp been decent though.

it's not a service i've ever used other than netflix/youtube for video. never have i streamed a piece of music.  shrug. some people do alright on streaming services though.. not many.. but some make a few dollars even with the shitty conditions and all the scams and shit. 

if i had ever made any real money from it i'd put my stuff on there and leave there but i don't see the purpose of it. a handful of listeners.. and spotify constantly mixing up my albums with artists or the same name etc.. and me having to tell them to fix it etc.. ugh. annoying.  

it is what it is. 

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I haven't made any money from streaming, but I don't care about that at all.  Only thing I care about is people hearing it.  There's a site called submithub where you can pitch songs to various playlists.  You have to pay for credits, and then use those credits to submit (amounts to anywhere from $1-$4 a submission-ish).  For my most recent album, released late February, I've had songs make it onto 27 different playlists, and as a result about half of the songs have 100-300 streams so far.  Previous album had a couple songs that did reasonably well.  One has over 3000 streams, another over 6000.  That's substantially more listens than all my songs put together from past releases, where I might get 15 album downloads from bandcamp and a comparable amount of streams.  So as much as I hate to say it, I can't help but be grateful for Spotify.  I'd feel differently if I were actually successful in music and had a shot at making money from these platforms.

Wasn't it always the case, that bands even fairly big ones made little money from record sales, even back in the day when record companies were charging £13 for a CD. Pretty sure it was, apart from maybe a few exceptions (U2 springs to mind) Pretty sure there was even a UK government enquiry into it. Wasn't it the reason why George Michael and Prince both rebelled against their record companies because they made hardly any money from record sales because of the original contracts they signed as youngsters? I remember Don Henley saying he made a few thousand dollars from one of his biggest multi million selling solo hits because David Geffen personally screwed him over on some contract technicality. I think sometimes people are looking back with rose tinted glasses and think that everyone back in the day before streaming made a mint by being in fairly well known band. What I'm saying is that it's mostly been the case that musicians have been ripped off by the music industry. Spotify isn't new in that respect. 

I haven't read this thread in its entirely so maybe there is something I'm missing, but just thinking out loud really. 

Did you guys watch the Milli Vanilli docu?

I quite like watching band documentaries if there is a good story to tell, even if the music sucks. UB40 would be a classic example. Back in the early 90's they were fucking huge (they were quite popular in the 80's) but they were selling out football stadiums in the early 90's. They get home after some huge world tour. Where's the money? There isn't any! The record industry since day one of the blues artists has been the devils work. And the cunt who runs Spotify is the latest shadowy character making deals at The Crossroads. 

  On 4/16/2024 at 7:23 PM, beerwolf said:

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classic prince story in case you've not seen it. here it is in 4 parts. 

there's a documentary about the "We are the world" recording and ho wit was organized etc. i guess lionel ritchie did the whole thing?? i haven't watched it but apparently it's full of gems about all the heavy hitters involved. lot's of hilarious stuff and awesome stuff. they recorded it around the grammy's because everyone was there for that so they made it happen after the grammy's at like 3am or something.. i'll have to watch it eventually. sounds like a laugh. 

"when did white mike die?"

But spotify started up in 2006, and wasn't launched in the US until 2011...it's still a shitty business though.

  On 5/7/2024 at 4:31 AM, chenGOD said:

But spotify started up in 2006, and wasn't launched in the US until 2011...it's still a shitty business though.

punching holes in every conspiracy!

interview about all the shenanigans. Ai, sucking up royalties etc.. 

All the Steve Albini albums went back up on Spotify when the new Shellac album was released, and the final one is killer.  It may well be his/their finest hour.  The vocals are uncharacteristically quite present in the mix, and it's a good thing too because the lyrics are great.  Final song is just perfect.

Also, the decision to put it all back up was made before he passed, in case anyone was wondering.

  On 5/22/2024 at 6:19 AM, Zephyr_Nova said:

Also, the decision to put it all back up was made before he passed, in case anyone was wondering.

so if i decide to put my stuff back on streaming services i might have a heart attack and die? 

  On 5/22/2024 at 6:22 AM, ignatius said:

so if i decide to put my stuff back on streaming services i might have a heart attack and die? 

I suppose that is the takeaway from all this.  Anyone seen or heard from Neil Young lately?

Daniel Ek recently dropped this bit of wisdom, aptly causing quite a backlash:

Deadmau5:

  Quote

“Incorrect. The cost of creating content was 25+ years of my life and much of those proceeds going to your company, you complete fucking idiot.”

Deadmau5/Zimmerman also said he'd likely be pulling his music from the platform. 

Or more succinctly by Primal Scream's bassist:

cunt

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It’s been reported that, in the last 12 months, Spotify founder Daniel Ek he has earned more from the platform than any artist has ever.

Drake, Ed Sheeran, Billie Eilish, even Taylor Swift can’t beat the $345 million that Ek has made in the last year. Essentially, it feel like every musician on Planet Earth (or at least those that are on Spotify) is working for him.

 

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https://www.musicradar.com/news/daniel-ek-spotify-earnings

I keep getting fakes and AI bullshit pushed on me. Fuck this cruel world.

Also, off with his head.

Musician charged with $10M streaming royalties fraud using AI and bots (Bleeping Computer).

  Quote

By manipulating streaming data, Smith fraudulently collected more than $10 million in royalty payments after his bots streamed hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs billions of times. In a February 2024 email, he boasted that his songs generated "over 4 billion streams and $12 million in royalties since 2019."

  On 9/5/2024 at 11:34 PM, dcom said:

Musician charged with $10M streaming royalties fraud using AI and bots (Bleeping Computer).

 

isn't this what others do just on a much bigger scale? seems like lot's of other people do something similar to this on a smaller scale and stay under the radar.  there's a bunch of scams i've read about in recent years for generating plays and scamming streaming services.. i think spotify does this to themselves don't they? so they can fold some of the royalty payments back into their revenue streams? 

fckn fraud everywhere. what a joke. 

reminder.. spotify are absolute cunts. 

Spotify Rakes in $499M Profit After Lowering Artist Royalties Using Bundling Strategy

https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/11/spotify-reports-499m-operating-profit/