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

[Largos]

https://youtu.be/aDU6huQJzBQ?si=Hu-NnllSZkUEAaHd&t=243

If you'd rather read https://mixmag.net/read/spotify-reporte ... tists-news

Spotify has announced it will be changing its royalties structure, with reports claiming it will pay less royalties to less-popular artists.

This new structure reportedly introduces a minimum streams per song requirement for artists to gain a payout.

According to Billboard, the streaming service giant will “de-monetize tracks that had previously received 0.5% of Spotify’s royalty pool.”

This will impact artists who don’t gain a significant amount of streams, anyone who is accused of fraudulent activity, and anyone who uploads white noise or nature sounds.

Music Business Worldwide reports that money will be redistributed through Spotify’s Streamshare royalty pot and payout to more popular songs on the platform.

It is unknown how Spotify will determine if a track falls into the category of white noise or nature sounds.

In a statement to Mixmag, Spotify said: “We’re always evaluating how we can best serve artists, and regularly discuss with partners ways to further platform integrity. We do not have any news to share at this time.”

The United Musicians and Allied Workers shared on social media: “Artists have solutions to fix streaming but Spotify isn’t listening. Instead, they propose changes that will enrich the top of the pyramid even more, and make it even more impossible for working musicians to benefit from streaming.”

The Future of Music Coalition added: “This marks a serious shift away from how the service was pitched to the musician community at launch, as a level playing field that treated all tracks the same. Over time, Spotify has shifted further and further away from that pledge.”

The specific changes on how Spotify will measure royalties are currently unclear as the company will need new agreements with most record labels and distributors before introducing the plan.

Billboard claims that major labels will likely sign off on this change as it results in more money.

Spotify is currently in talks with many record labels such as Universal Music Group (UMG), with NME reporting that the UMG CEO announced a “newly expanded agreement” with Spotify which will be “artist-centric” and benefit “real artists with real fanbases.”

The royalty plan will reportedly be implemented early next year.

Due to an upcoming change next year. Big companies have bought into spotify and they want to keep the money for themselves. The whole streaming thing is a con, it's rigged and not in musician's favour.

[tavasti]

https://youtu.be/aDU6huQJzBQ?si=Hu-NnllSZkUEAaHd&t=243

If you'd rather read https://mixmag.net/read/spotify-reporte ... tists-news

This new structure reportedly introduces a minimum streams per song requirement for artists to gain a payout.

According to Billboard, the streaming service giant will “de-monetize tracks that had previously received 0.5% of Spotify’s royalty pool.”

This will impact artists who don’t gain a significant amount of streams, anyone who is accused of fraudulent activity, and anyone who uploads white noise or nature sounds.

Due to an upcoming change next year. Big companies have bought into spotify and they want to keep the money for themselves. The whole streaming thing is a con, it's rigged and not in musician's favour.

If that 0.5% is accurate, then it is not about big labels. 0.5% rise on income is nothing to them, no reason to upset anybody.

It is about spotify themselves: each song uploaded there causes same amount of costs for them. Now they are trying to get rid of some less streamed stuff. And for white noise and other low-effort stuff it is good if they disappear.

Edit: And for marginal artist who will never reach payment limit $50 (at leasti in routenote), it does not really matter. Another thing is that if this will kill free distributors like Routenote...

[Largos]

They pay people hardly anything and now say "you are not earning enough to be worth paying". Keep making excuses for these people though

[tavasti]

They pay people hardly anything and now say "you are not earning enough to be worth paying". Keep making excuses for these people though

Lets take two scenarios:

a) you are signed artist on label, and you release album of 10 tracks.
b) you are indipendent artist, and release your album to spotify

If album purchaser on scenario a listens album 40 times vs same amount of streams in spotify give you same income. If listener continues to listen your physical album, you won't get any more money, in spotify you get. Is it easier to sell album or get 4k listens in spotify? At least I am pretty reluctant to pay for album of unknown artist. Or when I purchased albums, only from names I know. In spotify I listen various, even very small artists.

[Largos]

Is it easier to sell album or get 4k listens in spotify?

You tell me, have you ever done either? I can only tell you that I've bought many albums but I've never streamed a single album even 40 times, let alone 4000.

[tavasti]

Is it easier to sell album or get 4k listens in spotify?

You tell me, have you ever done either? I can only tell you that I've bought many albums but I've never streamed a single album even 40 times, let alone 4000.

Trick is that those streams can come from different people, but nobody can purchase 1/4000 album.

Logic how money comes is much different on album sales and streaming, but I am not so sure which is better. Old world with albums sold in music store was good for big names, but small artists could not get anything. Now you don't need contract with label or money to press your own album, can release all for free. If you make good music, it may get attention and listeners years later. Last spring I had over 500 monthly listeners in spotify with zero production cost, zero publishing cost, zero marketing cost. Latest song was 3 years old. Biggest number of listeners are from US, I live in Finland. With old physical albums, nobody would have heard my music, ever.

[Largos]

Digital Vs Physical distribution is not the argument, streaming is not the only way to distribute music on the internet. It's just the worst. The worst quality and the worst paying. 500 streams round the world but you could have got more money selling a a couple of CDR's at a local gig for the price of a beer each.

[sunrat]

Spotify and most other streaming services are a leech on the music world. At something like 0.003c per play, you will need a lot of plays to just buy a beer. And of course you can't just upload to Spotify, you need a distributor like Distrokid whose basic rate is $22.99 per year. It will take 7,666 plays to cover your Distrokid subscription.
It's just capitalism at work and the little guy gets screwed, as it has always been. Capitalists gotta capitalise.

[tavasti]

Digital Vs Physical distribution is not the argument, streaming is not the only way to distribute music on the internet. It's just the worst. The worst quality and the worst paying. 500 streams round the world but you could have got more money selling a a couple of CDR's at a local gig for the price of a beer each.

Possibly it might be worst for artist, but best for most of the customers. I don't recall hearing someone buying digital albums in last 10 years anymore, and I am not interested to have digital downloads on my disk anymore. Managing what files are on which computer or mobile device, etc, no thanks.

Sure there is people doing it, and even small sales might make more profits than streaming. But potential with streaming is higher: more people will hear your music, and there is (very small) possibility that it will come big hit.

At least for me point is make my music available for wider audience. It does not matter do I earn 0 or 300€ with album (haven't even got my first album made), it is still next to nothing. And other thing is releasing costs: do places where you sell your albums charge something?

Spotify and most other streaming services are a leech on the music world. At something like 0.003c per play, you will need a lot of plays to just buy a beer. And of course you can't just upload to Spotify, you need a distributor like Distrokid whose basic rate is $22.99 per year. It will take 7,666 plays to cover your Distrokid subscription.
It's just capitalism as work and the little guy gets screwed, as it has always been. Capitalists gotta capitalise.

There is free of charge distributors like Routenote, they just take small share of your revenues. Sure it might be that with distrokid you get something more, but I am just not willing to pay for it. My costs for releasing music are zero. (If wanting to use that, and want to thank me with zero cost, use my referal code 2f750c92 on registering)

[Largos]

@tavasti

I don't recall hearing someone buying digital albums in last 10 years anymore, and I am not interested to have digital downloads on my disk anymore.

Bandcamp alone sells millions of digital albums a year and I have bought them myself. Streaming, you get what you pay for, low quality audio.

Sure there is people doing it, and even small sales might make more profits than streaming. But potential with streaming is higher: more people will hear your music, and there is (very small) possibility that it will come big hit.

If you're spending 0 on marketing or anything else, there is 0 chance of you having a big hit on a platform part owned by major labels who spend millions promoting their artists.

At least for me point is make my music available for wider audience

for what purpose?

[tavasti]

Bandcamp alone sells millions of digital albums a year and I have bought them myself. Streaming, you get what you pay for, low quality audio.

Yeah, they have sold 14.2M albums last year. In scope of worldwide not too much, and no wonder I am at least not aware that any of my friends buying albums anymore. And to compare scale, spotify has 551M users monthly, it means something like every spotify user would get one album every 38 years from bandcamp.

If you're spending 0 on marketing or anything else, there is 0 chance of you having a big hit on a platform part owned by major labels who spend millions promoting their artists.

Chance is not 0, check out for Janji: Heroes Tonigh. Song has 181M streams, with zero marketing, no label, anything.

But for real, I don't much disagree with you. And personally, I am sure that my music would not be big hit with any amount of marketing.

At least for me point is make my music available for wider audience

for what purpose?

For people to listen it. If someone likes it, great. If nobody does, so what.

[merlyn]

... 500 streams round the world but you could have got more money selling a a couple of CDR's at a local gig for the price of a beer each.

I think that is a good point. There is more money to be made for musicians if the middle man is cut out. We might hear about the benefits of the free market, but sadly a lot of corporations aren't sticking to the rules as laid out in The Wealth Of Nations, the original book on the subject.

Milking an income stream, like Spotify do, is called 'rent seeking' and is something to be prevented. It's probably illegal in some sense. Worse than Spotify, who are simply hapless middle men, is Universal Music Group. They truly are rent seeking from the back catalogue of music they've bought the rights to. They don't do anything, simply milk their income stream. A crime against humanity, as UMG bought a whole lot of master tapes by the likes of Duke Ellington and classic Motown, which were stored in a warehouse which went on fire, losing all these priceless master tapes. UMG can't be trusted to look after music, simply to squeeze it for all it's worth. UMG have negotiated a special deal with Spotify, which is where most of your £9.99 subscription is going.

[Largos]

Chance is not 0, check out for Janji: Heroes Tonigh. Song has 181M streams, with zero marketing, no label, anything.

But for real, I don't much disagree with you. And personally, I am sure that my music would not be big hit with any amount of marketing.

Had a look. That song is on a label called "NoCopyrightSounds" Their youtube channel has over 30 million subs and their songs have hundreds of millions of views there. Plus it says on his spotify bio that he had a previous song that was used in Chinese tik tok memes.

For people to listen it. If someone likes it, great. If nobody does, so what.

How do you know which it is?

[tavasti]

Chance is not 0, check out for Janji: Heroes Tonigh. Song has 181M streams, with zero marketing, no label, anything.

Had a look. That song is on a label called "NoCopyrightSounds" Their youtube channel has over 30 million subs and their songs have hundreds of millions of views there. Plus it says on his spotify bio that he had a previous song that was used in Chinese tik tok memes.

Sure, tiktok and other videos are why his song got so popular. But there were other people doing those videos, he did not need to do anything.
I think NCS is not much like big labels, but not sure really. At least Alan Walker started there, but then jumped to big label.

For people to listen it. If someone likes it, great. If nobody does, so what.

How do you know which it is?
[/quote]
From spotify statistics, how many times people have saved my song to their own playlists.

[lilith]

I just got 3.50 € via Bandcamp