I’m a big fan of physical products and long ago abandoned ITunes when Apple started telling me which devices I could listen to purchased tunes on and it became clear that their position was that you are essentially ‘borrowing the music” like a lending library and you don’t own it. The Bruce Willis case highlighted this difference. I’ve been aware of Spotify for some time and recently see a lot of social media buzz about Spotify for artists, with artists complaining about the lack of financial return from the platform. Tunecore describes Spotify in this way
“Spotify has over 40 million users worldwide with 10 million of those users paying a monthly subscription fee. Over 3 million of those paying subscribers are in the U.S. alone. Spotify launched in Sweden and Norway in October of 2008, but didn’t launch in the U.S. in July 2011. The population in Sweden is about 10 million people, Norway is 5.1 million, and in the U.S. about 319 million people! Just imagine the amount of money Spotify and other streaming services will generate for artists and labels once streaming becomes the norm in the U.S. and other highly populated countries around the world. We are talking billions of dollars folks! And Spotify is still a relatively small service when compared to YouTube who have 1B users and iTunes who now have about 800 million accounts. As Spotify and other streaming services continue to grow so will its artist payouts.”
Call me naive, but Spotify can only function and prosper with artist support, without content, nobody is going to visit the platform. Artists who sign up for the platform and then complain about the poor financial return, remind me of those people complaining that Facebook ‘should support their music” not appreciating that FB is a business and most artists are “users” and not customers as they are not paying for the service in the first place. Both platforms give the artist “reach” in terms of a potentially bigger audience, but from what I see no real direct financial benefit.
Artists who left or refuse to be on spotify
There are a number of very sucessful artists who refuse to be on Spotify. In 2014, Taylor Swift pulled all of her music off Spotify. “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for,” In 2015 Prince removed all his music from Spotify and Neil Young pulled his music off Spotify and other streaming services because he found the sound quality to be sub-standard.
“I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution,”
I don’t feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It’s bad for my music.”
Neil has championed high resolution audio and is steadily releasing his back catalogue in this way. Personally I’m a fan of high resolution audio that is superior to the quality found on CDs and vastly better than mp3 quality.
Pete Townshend didn’t hold back on his thoughts regarding Spotify for artists
In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Pete Townshend said, “I’m a user of Spotify, so I feel like a complete hypocrite when I say: I think the guy that runs it is probably a f*cking crook.“
In a Guardian article David Byrne commented
“In future, if artists have to rely almost exclusively on the income from these services, they’ll be out of work within a year. Some of us have other sources of income, such as live concerts, and some of us have reached the point where we can play to decent numbers of people because a record label believed in us at some point in the past. I can’t deny that label-support gave me a leg up – though not every successful artist needs it. So, yes, I could conceivably survive, as I don’t rely on the pittance that comes my way from music streaming, as could Yorke and some of the others. But up-and-coming artists don’t have that advantage – some haven’t got to the point where they can make a living on live performances and licensing, so what do they think of these services?“
In researching this article I’m increasingly discovering that many of my favourate artists are not fans of Spotify including Jason Isbell
who in 2014 commented that “streaming services don’t add to my income in any way.”
STOP PRESS
Since writing this, it seems that Taylor Swift , Pete Townesend and Prince are now on Spotify! I’m note sure why they changed their minds but its 1 for big tech 0 for creative artists, in my humble opinion of course
Backlash against Spotify for artists?
I recently read an interesting article in Wired magazine about this very subject, citing Tom Gray
“During lockdown Tom Gray started tweeting with the hashtag #BrokenRecord. A lot. As a working musician (and 1998 Mercury Prize winner with his band, Gomez) and a director at music royalties collection society PRS, he found himself uniquely placed to advocate for change.
The subject of Gray’s ire was the apparent discrepancy between major labels banking upwards of $1 million every hour from streaming, and middle-tier or smaller artists who receive tiny amounts in comparison for their millions of streams. Concert violinist Tasmin Little was paid £12.34 for millions of streams over six months, for example, and anonymous tipsters report similarly meagre payouts. Now, Gray is part of a growing number in the industry advocating for a change to the way payouts from streaming platforms are handled.“
The Wired article points out
T”he biggest beneficiaries of the pro rata model are the major labels, who own the vast majority of recorded music in existence via deals favourable to them. Currently, if you sign with a major label, taking home 30 per cent of the streaming royalties earned by your music is considered about as good as it gets. And streaming, by narrowing how music is consumed, essentially exaggerates and exacerbates the age-old imbalance between the majors and the rest of the industry. For these reasons, Gray’s campaign is ultimately aimed at root-and-branch reform of how the music industry serves musicians – streaming is simply the most visible way into the issue.“
Full article HERE
Other non financial benefits for artists on Spotify or head to pastures new?
The argument for non financial benefits for appearing on Spotify remind me of the “pay to play” argument and “playing for exposure” arguments presented to artists. It reminds me of some niche music festivals that promote the idea of ” Remuneration for playing” rather than a fee for playing. This in my view can be the slippery slope where the artist is always disadvantaged in favour of the business owner. Yes, there is a case for artists starting out to seek new opportunities and seek out new opportunities, but the danger is that there is an increasing perception that music/entertainment has not value and/or should be free.
My own thoughts are that the platform works well for the company, but devalues the artist’s creative content. One artist did have one solution which rather amused me (see below)
Another view on spotify for artists
Here is another view from a professional artist. He also makes some very valid observations about how tough it is for musicians to make music professionally. Two take aways from this excellent clip are that the artist needed to stream 7 miliion streams to make $25,000 and that Spotify is a tech business.
2023 Essential video
Take a look at this essential video