If Spotify makes scraps for artists, then maybe this is what ultimately happens. On Tuesday, deadmau5 released his latest album, with availability limited to download stores and physical retailers only. The release, >album title goes here<, is nowhere to be found on Spotify, and available only as limited preview snippets on Rdio.
Spotify later confirmed that deadmau5 is withholding the album for ‘a few weeks’ from Spotify and other streaming services, specifically in the US (it is available in Europe and other territories including Australia). That confirms an earlier source that also pointed to a delay of a few weeks across various streaming and subscription services.
All of which sounds like a classic windowing move, though a far smaller delay than those created by Coldplay and Adele. And, potentially part of a broader pattern of windowing by high-level artists, based on superior payouts from physical and download configurations.
Others, most notably The Black Keys, are withholding their latest content indefinitely from Spotify. But that is based on a deeper disagreement with Spotify’s payout structure and general philosophy, not simply a desire to maximize earnings immediately after an album release.
Which means for now, iTunes is getting the red carpet treatment, Beatport is a preferred retailer, and Amazon MP3 also has it. The reason: those guys simply pay better.
The plot thickens when the piracy side is factored into the equation. Leaked tracks were apparently available prior to release, mostly in a lower quality (according to one superfan, but see more in comments below). Post-release, availability will likely switch to the immediate availability of pristine copies on protocols like BitTorrent. Against that reality, Spotify claims to be the best defense against piracy, though others, including Grizzly Bear, say there’s little difference between the two.
It’s one thing to be against piracy and wAnting your music to be purchased, because the customer is screwing the artist. But denying us Spotify users the music even though we’re basically legal, paying customers is the artist screwing us instead of the companies. How do they expect us to not pirate their stuff if they just slapped us in the face? I’d gladly pay double my spotify price if they had some sort of reform to make everyone happy
Who cares. The artist is more important than the consumer.
You’re missing the point. Nobody gives a shit that you’re paying Spotify. It’s what Spotify pays artists…which is pennies compared to what they’re normally paid…that is the problem.
Spotify pays the same 70% royalty rate to the labels as iTunes and has yet to turn a profit.
nope
You obviously know nothing about the music industry or even spotify for that matter.. do your research before you blah out uselses wrong information
Just to get the facts straight:
Artists get .006 per Spotify stream.
That’s why everybody leaves Spotify these days…
Maybe you can explain to me how they can pay more per stream?
That’s their problem.
Pay, or go away.
When everyone is named ‘Visitor,’ these conversations get a little weird. Why not install Disqus, DMN?
Yeah, it feels a little 50-cats-named-sam-silly at first.
But when you think about it, it could be a new and interesting way of debating.
This way, you can focus on arguments instead of personas.
which is still more then they get when people just turrent the album.
This is why piracy exists.
“I’d gladly pay double my spotify price if they had some sort of reform to make everyone happy”
Now we’re talking. Musicians need to get in the game and decide who “they” want to work with. At the end of the day, listeners will listen to the online services who have the artists they want to listen to AND will pay more for it.
It doesn’t have to be a fire sale scenario, which focusses on fast growth strategies so companies like Spotify can cash out early with an IPO.
If you’re an artist you have the power of choice. If your new and trying to be heard then it may be worth taking the hit initially. If you’ve got some chops like The Black Keys you have the power to make a difference. Minimum wage isn’t going to cut it for them and their sales are not suffering.
Sometimes walking away from a deal is the smart thing to do.
Will Buckley, founder, FarePlay
10 bucks a month should be enough. Give Free users the option to download the album for $5 and let Premium users stream it
“Leaked tracks were apparently available prior to release, mostly in a lower quality (according to one superfan)”
Superfan? Maybe, but most likely an internet noob, as the full album hit the blogs about a week ago, in FLAC.
Never mind Grooveshark as well…
Good thing Grooveshark honors the windowing period too. Oh wait.
Idiots.
Money > No Money
From my perspective it’s pretty bad that you can’t get everything from one legal source within a reasonable budget. If that gap on Spotify is your favorite artist that’s a big problem for you.
I can understand they withold it from non-paying customers on Spotify etc., but those who pay for streaming should get it. Theoretically Spotify says that if only 10% of users pay for streaming, they can cut a good slack for a label. Maybe it’s up to their label.
I believe it is spotify that is not letting artists release only on “premium” service.
I think it is only a matter of time before they change that policy.
Wait, what?
I am listening to deadmau5’s newest album on Spotify RIGHT NOW. It’s streaming. No problems at all.
I am in Finland, though. Maybe this is US only?
Right. US is windowed, other countries have it according to Spotify.
I’m not sure what the country-by-country breakdown is for other streaming services, though it looks like a US-specific window.
/paul
I’m listening to the new deadmau5 album on Spotify too. And I’m sitting in a Panera in Massachusetts.
Not sure why that would be, but probably an error or bug.
Or, if you’ve downloaded the tracks, you may just be listening to your own collection.
Or, perhaps you have an overseas account?
/paul
Actually, I take that back. Just found it.
Guess there was a change of heart.
/paul
I can’t find it on free spotify.
Has spotify changed policy?
I thought Adele wanted premium subscriber release only and they wouldn’t go for it.
Yeah, it’s gone now, except for a few tracks. But it was there yesterday.
I talked to Spotify, they say it was an error.
/paul
Spotify are theives – effectively stealing from musicians. How? Look at these links:
1) Apparently Spotify is valued at 4 billion dollars
2) Spotify’s CEO has a net worth of $310 million dollars
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120429worth
3) In order for a musician to be paid the equivilant of minimum wage, they must sell/stream 4.5 million streams PER MONTH!!!!!!!!
CONCLUSION:
Spotify is making billions of dollars – millions for individuals within the company, and they cannot even bother to pay minimum wage to an artist streaming 4.5 million plays per month??? How many artists could even hope to get that many streams? Basically? NOBODY. In my opinion, Spotify are theives.
Both Spotify and Pandora are absolutely bleeding money paying the rates that the record companies demand. If the labels are not properly sharing this revenue with artists then how is that Spotify’s problem?
well, clearly Spotify has a problem. Some artists apparently don’t trust them. Some high profile artists. Regardless of the root cause, Spotify has a problem.
Yes momo is correct.
Spotify can get in bed with the major labels and the relationship will work in the short term.
However, if spotify doesn’t change it’s image (whether real or perceived) of being a lapdog for labels who don’t pay their artists, then spotify has a real long term problem.
IMO opinion those few artists who are lucky to have the financial resources or are not signed to a draconian recording contract are opting to window or not stream through spotify at all. It will take a few years but, eventually other artists will take notice and follow their example.
Hahahahahaha!!!
And this is why no one listens to the artists. Valuation does not equal revenue! It’s not even close!
I have little respect for artists who won’t stream their music.
That’s nuts, you have to be a masochist to stream your music.
Streaming is a complete failure that will go away as soon as artists find out how easy it is to sue the pirates.
Streaming is not going anywhere. It’s a dramatically more satisfying way to listen to and enjoy music. It makes discovery easier as well and allows users to give money to artists and labels that they never would have paid for otherwise. There’s no hassle of managing a library or worrying about where tracks are stored, and you have access to essentially everything no matter where you are. It’s the future. Deal with it. Years from now you will look back on this comment and feel tremendously embarrassed. You’re like a man on horseback making fun of a car. Just give it some time 🙂
Pirate sites are shut down by the minute, new laws pop up all over the globe, and artists are learning from the porn industry how easy it is to make the pirates pay.
The pirate ship is sinking, and fast.
When it’s gone, artists won’t have one single reason left to use Spotify ever again.
What world do you live in?
Still in denial, eh?
Organized crime sites are shut down all the time. How many was it last year? 84?
The Pirate Decade is over, my friend. Get used to it.
84 music sites were shut down? I think you better check your numbers. Regardless I bet more than 10 times more sites went online.
I would agree with you only there is a significant amount of evidence proving otherwise. Sure torrents “may” have dropped, but illegal streams or downloads from file lockers has exploded. A lot of people have also started moving to using VPNs for their downloads, making them harder to detect and bypassing these laws. In fact I have not seen a single antipiracy law prove to be effective.
More fun:
http://torrentfreak.com/prq-police-raid-takes-down-dozens-of-file-sharing-sites-121001/
Even in a magical world with no piracy (which will never happen) streaming would still be an easier, more enjoyable, and more hassle-free way to listen to music compared to ala carte downloads.
When people come over to my house for a party, or when we are in my car, and I can immediately play ANYTHING that anyone wants it feels like insane magic to them. So many of my friends are now Spotify Premium subscribers, and like me they are going to spend $120 on music this year for the first time EVER.
Legitimate services like Spotify, Pandora, MOG, Rdio et al will be the death of piracy, not draconian laws. Even if I didn’t care about the artists (and I do!) $10 a month (or even $20, which I would happily pay) is still WAAAAY better than paying for some sketchy file lockers or VPN services. Piracy is a waste of time. For the time first the legitimate route via streaming handily beats any illegal alternatives.
I have nothing but respect for people like you, but that doesn’t change the fact that most artists hate Spotify.
Lots of labels and people are leaving. I even saw that the owner of gearslutz.com – the web’s biggest forum for musicians – had to remove a Spotify ad because people were asking:
“Why is there a Spotify ad on GS when they are putting us out of business?”
I sincerely don’t want you to lose your $120, but Spotify’s days are numbered and one of these days you may be thinking about the 120+ great songs you could’ve bought on iTunes instead…
You’re right; I should check my numbers.
Here goes:
In 2011, BREIN shut down 383 BitTorrent sites, 83 streaming sites, 71 lockers and 52 Usenet indexers, according to the crybabies over at @ torrentfreak.com:
http://torrentfreak.com/swedish-piracy-crackdown-2-torrent-site-calls-it-quits-120223/
And here’s a bit more whining:
http://torrentfreak.com/cheggit-long-standing-adult-bittorrent-site-calls-it-quits-120130/
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-crackdown-police-raid-private-tracker-others-shut-down-120225/
http://torrentfreak.com/worlds-oldest-bittorrent-site-shuts-down-120605/
http://torrentfreak.com/cyberlocker-ecosystem-shocked-as-big-players-take-drastic-action-120123/
As for Pirate Laws: Hadopi was so successful that the US copied parts of the idea and now initiates 6 strikes.
Plus, we have a growing number of artists who, inspired by the porn industry, are beginning to sue the thieves.
As for VPN’s: They are for torrent freaks and child pornographers who don’t have lives. Nobody cares about them.
The purpose of the initiatives we see all over the globe is to stop *ordinary* people from stealing.
And it works.
Ordinary people don’t want embarrassing phone calls, mails, fines. Ordinary people have family and friends and neighbours and they don’t want everybody to know that they are common thieves who steal what you and I pay for.
Nice. And how many more went online or simply moved overseas? How many shutdown simply because they didn’t want to operate anymore? Websites come and go on a daily basis. And considering downloading music and movies is legal in the Netherlands, I’d say they wasted their time.
Our 6 strikes will do essentially nothing. Most ISPs have already come out and said they will not cut off users. They will attempt to educate them and nothing else. My ISP is not even participating. It’s a waste of time and money for service providers. It may not even happen. It was supposed to be put in place months ago and not a single provider has it working.
Hadopi is “supposedly” working. Yet the only evidence they have is the file sharing has declined slightly in France. They have absolutely no evidence that it is a direct corelation to Hadopi. Spotify has just as much evidence that they are the reason for a decline in priacy.
Apparently you have no knowledge regarding VPNs. They are actually for businesses to replace dedicted lines and connect road warriors for millions of people. They also work very nicely for connecting pirates to their desired content. There are hundreds of VPNs for this purpose.
Ordinary people don’t care. You can walk up to random people and ask if they steal music. More likely than not they will tell you the truth. People don’t care. To them stealing music is not a crime.
Yes people will tell you the truth, and they will include one or more tired rationalizations of why it’s ok to steal music.
Also, I want to see how skinny the comments will get
I heard it’s on Muve Music.
Spotify is not a ‘defense’ against piracy, and I don’t know why any artist would use them.
The only sensible way to deal with illegal downloads is to sue the pirates.
We need is capital punishment for piracy (like it used to be). Hang ’em all.
No, that would be a terrible waste of resources.
What you need to do is to see pirates as a source of income.
Suing pirates is a Gentleman Sport – and The New Business Model.
His loss, really. I’m a Spotify Premium subscriber spending far more money on music than I ever have before in my life. I read about the album and wanted to give it a listen. When I saw it wasn’t available I gave up and listened to some of the other new stuff that came out today.
Comparing per-stream payouts to downloads is totally apples and oranges anyway. Who listens to a song or album that they absolutely love only once? I’ve played the new Two Door Cinema Club album at least twenty times so far (and several of the tracks are in heavy rotation in playlists that I stream in my apartment during parties). I’m going to listen to it a lot more over the next several years.
Shady downloads are now a total waste of time as far I’m concerned. Streaming is so much faster, easier, and better–and it’s legal. So deadmau5 has nothing to worry about, piracy-wise, from people like me. But will I remember to check out the album again whenever this ill-advised “windowing” period ends? Will other people? We’ll see.
Problem with streaming is you don’t own your copy. Lets say Spotify goes out of business “in the next several years”. You have nothing to show for the money you’ve spent, as opposed to say, Amazon, where you at least have a file.
I like streaming for movies, as I rarely watch a movie more then a few times, but I still like to listen to music I bought 20 years ago.
That is a problem. But only for consumers. Artists are blind to this fact. They only see what they get per song and think it should be the same as iTunes. Other industries can only dream of this kind of business model. Make people for your product, forever.
Agree.
Artists always compare oranges and apples.
This is certainly a misunderstanding of the difference between a play/stream and a download.
This is one of the reasons why I created my blog, sharing some useful information and provide some “education” to the digital music community!
If you read the iTunes and Amazon terms of service you don’t actually own that music either.
Anywhere I am, whenever I want, I listen to music. If I’m on a date with a girl and we’re on the freeway talking about music and she brings up a song that she loves I just hand her my phone and we’re listening to it immediately like we live in some awesome future that a younger me would have never thought possible. I don’t need to worry about whether or not I own it because it feels like I own everything–and I LOVE that. I never have to type in a password and pay a new fee when I give a new album a try; it just starts playing immediately. If it’s a great album then I am going to listen to it a lot, but if I don’t like it then it hasn’t cost me anything extra except time. I don’t need to worry about backing up any of my music. I can see in real-time what all of my friends are listening to and easily share playlists with them. I can use the radio feature to discover new artists.
There is nothing, at any price, that even comes close to this feature set.
If Spotify goes out of business I will simply subscribe to another streaming service. I will happily pay $10 or even $20, adjusted for inflation, for the rest of my life for this level of convenience and instant gratification.
“I’m a Spotify Premium subscriber spending far more money on music than I ever have before in my life.”
While I am against spotify for their shady practices (poor pay rates and front loaded deals with labels)and subsequently this whole babe in the woods routine, what really irks me is how it has empowered dilletante music fans to believe that they are real and dedicated to artists. If you have spent more money on Spotify premium this year than any other year in your life through traditional means (what is that about 120/ year?) than you aren’t a “musicfreek0210” or whatever… you’re just a dilletante who has no business considering themselves a real fan of these artists. That you feel justified in THINKING you sent the money toward the artist, you are only self-exceptionalizing to the point where you may perhaps enable other real music fans to believe that spotify is a legitimate source of income for artists. I feel like most real music fans will tell you — Spotify is merely supplementary to an actual interest in seeing music artists grow.
So are you saying Champion doesn’t have a right to gripe about windowing because he is fooling himself and others by believing that he is supporting artists by subscribing to spotify?
Wow, there are a lot of assumptions here.
I go to around fifteen concerts per year. I buy tickets and t-shirts and posters. I haven’t, historically, spent very much on the music itself–probably one or two albums per year since iTunes went DRM-free. Prior to that I was too young to have much money to buy CDs. So I’m going from $30 a year to $120 a year. That’s a 4x increase.
Why are you trying to belittle me or say that I’m not a true fan? What’s with the ad hominem attacks?
(I’m guessing it’s just US spotify, I’m in Australia where it’s avalible on spotify)
I’ve been listening to it no stop on spotify since it came out (exaggeration). It might be a test to see the difference in sales in different regions. Will there be less people buying copies it if it’s avalible on legal streaming services.
I guess this only applies to people using Spotify in the US, because this album has been available for me (using EU Spotify) for a couple days already, and it’s still available.
Yes, Spotify has confirmed that the album is available in countries outside of the US. And, that availability in the US will happen after a few weeks time.
/paul
No, iTunes does not “take” 30% of the royalties.
Most of this “share” are taxes (VAT), mechanical rights, transaction fees…
Apple/iTunes gets around 1% revenue only.
(which is still enough for making money when you’re the biggest music seller worldwide).
If only he would have withheld all of his albums from all markets and distribution channels forever. To dream.
I don’t think deadmau5 is that compassionate.
Do I have to remind you all that a “good” record deal used to pay the artist a 10% royalty rate. And that was after “breakage”. Breakage BTW is still in some artist contracts 🙂 So actually in terms of money earned Spotify is probably not so far away from a good old fashioned record contract.
Why talk about the bad old days?
Today, we bypass the labels and get 70%!
Compare THAT to Spotify…
Aaah yes 70%. How Grand! But 70% of what? Next to nothing?
Without a label rep promoting your music and only armed with a few thousand fake Twitter fans you really are on your own. Literally. Rejoice at the altar of music streaming for the chance (albeit microscopic) of being heard at all.
A few thousands Twitter fans?
Try a few millions YouTubers.
It has never been this easy to gather a crowd.
Meh, if you don’t want my money, I don’t want your music.
And it starts (or has been starting)…
Again you’re comparing streaming with downloads
“those guys simply pay better.”
No they pay the same percentage, around 70% of net PPD (Published Price to Dealer).
It’s just that a stream is not valued the same as a download, which is completely normal (as there’s no ownership involved with a stream).
Dead who?
Exactly
reverse-windowing…
Spotify is like external cancer to music industry Vevo/YouTube team is an internal cancer. Unless free tune id and lirics id and rds displays get converted to instant purchases @ $.29 or instant stream @$.05 we will continue this stagnant free load situation. Worse this mud will become a life and 100 billion /yr of goodwill will never go over 30 billion again.
Most of those ID guys (but Shazam) are meeting in San Francisco to deliberate on what? They are just part of to rich corporations or startups so there is no need to sale anything! It is nice that they do not play golf like GM old brass but they must play or smoke something to give away for free to blood of the industry.
They should meet at the farm market in Kazachstan and learn how guys make money on tomatos or apples!
I find the amount of “do what I want or F%#K you and your music” kind of comments from supposed fans of music very disturbing.
In an artist wants to control their music and decide to stream or not that is an entirely personal decision – the listener on the other end does not have to live with the financial realities of the modern music industry.
To those posting the negative comments – Trying to bully those who’s music you admire is not attractive and shows only your own lack of compassion.
Support is a two way street. If you want your fans to support you, you have to support them even when it hurts you financially.
rubbish – this is the typical mindset of the entitled parasite
None of this matters!
Piracy is always going to exist!
Let’s talk about something else!
Maybe we can use music to change other social issues instead of arguing about how people should get paid!
(Paul, I appreciate all of your writing – this is directed towards the commenters.)
Good, I will just not listen to it.
Not sure who you’ve been talking to. I’m listening to it on Spotify right now.
If I want to listen to the deadmau5 record, I’m not going to switch my subscription to another service. That’s an absurd thought. I have all my playlists on Spotify, I manage my local files through Spotify, I have my library of starred tracks, & I have it synced to a handful of devices.
If I were interested in the record, I’d buy it from amazon & load it into my local Spotify library. If it wasn’t on amazon, I’d download it illegally, & load it into my local Spotify library. Certainly not going anywhere near iTunes, or anywhere that offers any format other than spotify-compatible, drm-free mp3.
Piracy sites have always come & gone. Those numbers don’t mean a thing, it’s been shown time & time again that taking down even huge piracy sites has very little effect on overall piracy traffic. The only thing curbing piracy traffic is more user-friendly, robust, legal streaming services. Anyone who suggests that “once piracy is stamped out, artists will have no use for Spotify” is clearly blind to IRREVERSIBLE CHANGES IN CONSUMER BEHAVIOR & PERCEPTION. Besides, the Pirate Bay has proven to be pretty much unstoppable at this point, & megaupload is on it’s way back, & so is demonoid.
I was thinking about this yesterday when I drove to Wal-Mart to buy a usb drive because the Star Wars fan edits I downloaded wouldn’t fit on my single layer dvds. It ended up being a useless trip because a FAT32 storage device won’t store a file larger than 4gb, & my PS3 won’t read the NTFS format, so I just went to amazon to have some dual layer dvds overnighted. I had actually looked at the 2006 dvds that contained the original theatrical release, & even if I could have found them for a reasonable price, I probably wouldn’t have paid more than $20 for the set, but I had no problem paying twice that for a usb drive & dvd-rs just so I could transfer the files from my laptop to my tv. It’s a perception thing, & it’s way worse with people younger than me. Someone younger than me would probably just plug some speakers into their ipad & watch it there, not paying for anything. The price for content HAS to be rolled into a subscription fee, or into the price of hardware. The modern consumer just doesn’t want to think of consuming media in terms of individual transactions. Gen Y is like a tidal wave, & as they grow older they’re going to continue to wipe out all of those individual transactions. You want to be on the backside of that wave, not the front side.
I agree.
It is like marketing and selling bottled water.
People will pay for convenience and access to a product that they could otherwise get with little effort for free.
The cost of music distribution will need to be bundled into the sale of physical music products or monthly service bills.
I could not help but notice that this album is withheld from Rhapsody on both the musis service and the MP3 store. It is one thing to withhold an album from streaming, it is another to not release it to the store.
Good for Deadmau5!
All you whiney brats complaining about your hard earned 10 dollars a month. Wait it out. It’s only 2 weeks. Wah. If you are in such DIRE need to hear it. Why don’t you go and buy it?
Spotify is worse than download sites, because these guys are turning a profit and stealing artists money. They make a shit ton of money off the damn advertisements ALONE. Then they charge you ass clowns $10 a month on top of it??? and make more money!? Why do you think there are FREE phone games?? ADVERTISING.
And then they offer
.006 per STREAM!? 1000 streams 6 bucks. 10k streams 60 bucks. 100k streams 600.
That’s really nothing. When Spotify is automatically diverting people away from purchasing these artists albums for digital or physical copies. It’s like hey man we are going to pay you for playing your music while reaching in your back pocket and stealing your wallet.
Wise up guys. This generation has no respect for anything anyone does for them anymore. Your favorite artists practically do this shit for pennies and you are enjoying it. Guess what when they don’t have enough money to eat or sleep. You won’t be hearing anything anymore.
“Spotify is worse than download sites, because these guys are turning a profit and stealing artists money.”
Spotify is most definitely not turning a profit. They lost over $50 million last year.
“They make a shit ton of money off the damn advertisements ALONE. Then they charge you ass clowns $10 a month on top of it??? and make more money!?”
Advertising is actually a very small amount of money for Spotify, and it does not even cover the licensing expenses for the free users. In fact 83.5% of their revenue comes from subscriptions according to this very site.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120824spotify
Bad news. What will the world do without some more autotuned electrocrap music?
The funny thing about when artists window their releases from Spotify, I’ll just wait. There is plenty of other music I can listen too. Paid streaming music is inevitialble. I don’t care to pay $10 to download an album for only half the tracks I might like.
Also, when more people start paying for the service, the artists stands to make more money because it is based on percentage of overall revenue.
Do any of you guys honestly think Spotify’s going to survive?
Really?
Exactly how? Artists are leaving 24/7, for chrissake. The latest I heard was The Black Keys who got — wait for it — *$500* from 1m streams. After they left Spotify, they sold 3 times more records…
Yes, Spotify will survive. Their catalog continues to grow at a significantly larger pace than those leaving.
That’s the Black Keys’ own problem. Spotify pays far more than $500 for 1mil plays, with the latest estimates showing between 10 to 20 times more. It is up to the rights holders to decide how the money is distributed, not Spotify. And there are simply not enough Spotify users to impact sales in any significant way in any market other than Sweden. Anyone who argues against this is either misinformed or lying. Especially when it comes to the US market.
Here’s why Spotify’s gonna die:
When acts like Black Keys tells you they sell 3 times more after leaving Spotify, it can’t be ignored by any professional artist.
Yes, huge numbers of hobbyists will still stream their tunes all over the place. And so they should. That’s just awesome.
But leaving Spotify is the most important career move a professional artist can make today.
Well…. I love Deadmau5 and all… but I’m not gonna go buy a physical copy or download it from iTunes bc I dont even have it installed on my machine.
So I pirated it. Oh well. He gets plenty of money from me since I’ve been to his concerts when he’s nearby.
Wish Spotify would work out its problems with the labels.
Then you’re probably being investigated right now.
Swedish authorities took 50 international criminal sites down yesterday according to antipiratbyran, and god knows who’s looking at IP-addresses now…
The free ride is over.
And so is Spotify unless they start to pay artists.
Authorities have been spouting that line since the death of Napster. The number of individuals who have been investigated, tried, and fined for any significant amount is so small, that it has stopped no one from pirating.
I was amoung the pirates before I subscribed to Spotify, and would definitely pay more as well. Same as others here, I have given artists money through concerts and such. And unless I’m mistaken, hasn’t that really been the only way non-superstar artists have made money for a while?
Fortunately, the tide is turning big time now.
Suing pirates is the New Business Model.
Spotify could solve much of their problems if they just upped their payout to a penny per premium stream. This business of a 100th or 10th of a cent Spotify pays out to labels/artists/distributors is RIDICULOUS.
Did you know Spotify charges a MINUMUM of $5,000.00 USD to advertise on Spotify. Now think of all the ads you’ve seen which are played after every other song almost. Each one of those people/companies paid THEM $5k. Add to that all the MILLIONS they make from their PREMIUM members… you’re telling me they can’t afford 1 penny per unique premium stream???
I pay for Spotify premium for several reasons… 2 being:
1) fuck a CD. the reason artists sold so many albums in the ’90s (let’s say, the Smashing Pumpkins, for example) is b/c most kids bought Siamese Dream 5 or 6x in a 4 year span, as it was distributed onto a flimsy, highly prone to get scratched beyond belief, rubbish medium. so as far as I’m concerned, the music industry has been ripping us off for years. it’s one thing to pay $15 to own a piece of music… it’s quite another to rent music recorded to plastic dart tips that break after a week of light use. so you say, “when spotify shuts down, I have nothing to show for it”… I say, “I spent well over $10k on CDs in the ’90s & already have nothing to show for it.” I consider the pirating gone wild of the first decade of this millenium retrobutions on behalf of a consumer who’d been perpetualy burned since the LP went out of fashion sometime in the early ’80s.
2) streaming is the only way I will pay for music until there is a gold standard medium worth owning. if I’d spent another couple thousand dollars on iTunes albums over the past decade @ 128kbps rips… I’d be totally disgusted with the sound quality at this point & have to do what?? purchase them again @ 320kbps rips… which is only good until FLACs become reasonable in price… which is only good until the next great thing comes along??? so you see… even if you “buy” music, you rarely ever own it… just rent it until it’s shelf life expires.
all that said… most people I know support the artists that they actually respect by going to their shows & buying merch… the same way we support our sports teams. we all stream NFL games for cheap right within our cable bills, do we not? yet, they still seam to make a record profit every year, despite giving their art away to the average consumer for damn near free.
to the rest of the music we stream w/o such devotion… we would have never bought your album in the first place… you should be thanking the stars for every $0.00001 you earn.