Support musicians - forget about Spotify?

[Izzy HaveMercy]

A discussion that is ongoing in my country now Spotty is finally avaiable for us...

The profit of these services, bringing 'your music to the masses', for the artist proper... is nihil. Free advertising? Yeah right while the digital music providers earn on the back of the artist.

Thus becoming the 'new' record companies.



To support the music you like as much as possible: buy your cd's / vinyls / cassettes from either the artist directly, or from the (mostly small) label in the underground music industry.

This way you a) enable the artist to make more music and/or b) enable the label to give other projects a chance to join 'the business' and c) make SURE your financial support goes there where it belongs.

Music downloads only make a select few a bit "extra select". so if you can't live without digital format: buy the CD and rip it for your device yourself.

thank you for reading.

sincerely yours,

IZ, just an artist.

[lazarus corporation]

Buying directly from the artist is always my preferred option.

[markfiend]

buy the CD and rip it for your device yourself.

My preferred modus operandi these days.

Although I sometimes buy a CD and then download the mp3s if I can't be arsed ripping it myself

[DocSommer]

Internet and buying music files.. I still don't see the connection

make SURE your financial support goes there where it belongs.

concert tickets and taper gears

[Bartek]

i prefer physical format and if it as option (financial) i like to buy music directly from artists, esp. that now most of the band selling CD via their websites. and the rip.

But generally i'm not surprised that spotify or last.fm don;t get decent profit for artists.

[lazarus corporation]

That said, while I don't use Spotify (or last.fm or Rhapsody) I tend to view them as analogous to the radio (where artists get $0.00 regardless of how many times their tracks are played).

[GC]

That said, while I don't use Spotify (or last.fm or Rhapsody) I tend to view them as analogous to the radio (where artists get $0.00 regardless of how many times their tracks are played).

Is that true, I was always under the impression that radio stations had to pay quite a bit.......but I'm probably wrong

[Bartek]

Wow, that's amazing even in my so uncivilized country radio stations had to pay royalties for playing songs. Same with video clips. But that's not big money for artists.

[lazarus corporation]

The music industry has lobbied governments to impose a royalties payments system, but prior to that (pre 1995 in the US), radio stations didn't have to pay royalties. In fact, record labels used to pay radio stations huge amounts of cash to pay tracks they wanted to promote.

But that was in the golden age of radio (60s, 70s, 80s). As radio started to become irrelevant there was no margin or record companies to pay radio stations, and the situation reversed.

[Bertran De Born]

That said, while I don't use Spotify (or last.fm or Rhapsody) I tend to view them as analogous to the radio (where artists get $0.00 regardless of how many times their tracks are played).

Sorry for this Lazarus, but that's absolutely wrong. radio stations pay for the music they play. But that is secondary master use.

[lazarus corporation]

That said, while I don't use Spotify (or last.fm or Rhapsody) I tend to view them as analogous to the radio (where artists get $0.00 regardless of how many times their tracks are played).

Sorry for this Lazarus, but that's absolutely wrong. radio stations pay for the music they play. But that is secondary master use.

They do nowadays, but as mentioned above, when radio was the prime way that people discovered new music (60s, 70s, 80s), it was the record companies who were paying vast amounts of money to DJs to bribe them into playing particular records.

[Being645]

Buying directly from the artist is always my preferred option.

So is mine.

Anyway, in Germany we have GEMA ... want it or not ... ...

[Bertran De Born]

That said, while I don't use Spotify (or last.fm or Rhapsody) I tend to view them as analogous to the radio (where artists get $0.00 regardless of how many times their tracks are played).

Sorry for this Lazarus, but that's absolutely wrong. radio stations pay for the music they play. But that is secondary master use.

They do nowadays, but as mentioned above, when radio was the prime way that people discovered new music (60s, 70s, 80s), it was the record companies who were paying vast amounts of money to DJs to bribe them into playing particular records.

They still do this even now!

[lazarus corporation]

Putting the past aside, out of interest I'd like to know how many radio plays a musician would need to reach minimum wage - just to know where that fits on the graphic. I found one article that details it but the equation is far too baffling for me at this time in the morning.

Exact amounts aside, I think my theory of Spotify being analogous to Radio still stands - it's a way to discover new music, rather than to "own" music.

If the Sisters released a new album (haha!) how many of us would be content to listen to it on Spotify, and how many would be ordering it up on CD (all the different limited release versions, boxed sets etc)? This obviously ties in with Kevin Kelly's now famous 1000 True Fans article.

What we (artists) have to do is to find ways to be discovered by our audience, and then make it easy for that audience to connect directly with us (i.e. to come direct to us to buy CDs etc).

[DocSommer]

Time has totally changed. It was a bit more special to know somebody of your frieds who's participating in a band back then. Today it feels more special NOT to know somebody who's in a band. It has also become more easy and cheap to produce more or less decent sounding recordings at home (actually it's not really a matter of the budget giving the right skills). That fact and the internet/social networks make things more attractive to start making music as a hobby and maybe got more into it over the time (including growing expectations).

If you start from scratch and expect to cover your costs I'd say it's a bit naive and too optimistic prediction these days, because you can't pay out the numer of a few thousands video hits/facebook likers/whatever into a serious amount of money. And it's also unlikely that a high percentage of these virtual fans is willing to pay for anything directly.

[Chairman Bux]

There's no money in being a rock star anymore.

Only fame. And drugs.

Services such as Spotify get your music in front of casual fans (hardcore fans already own your music on every format available, right?), and while the revenue from streaming and downloadable media might not translate into meaningful cash sums, they do contribute to the 'fame' part of the equation, keeping your band alive and potentially getting new you infront of a new audience and getting new/casual listeners to your live shows.

In theory.

The important part here is that there's no money in being a rock star anymore. Regardless of the mechanism used to sell your music.

[lazarus corporation]

The important part here is that there's no money in being a rock star anymore. Regardless of the mechanism used to sell your music.

Indeed:

But I have a take on that – people only made money out of records for a very, very small time. When The Rolling Stones started out, we didn’t make any money out of records because record companies wouldn’t pay you! They didn’t pay anyone!

Then, there was a small period from 1970 to 1997, where people did get paid, and they got paid very handsomely and everyone made money. But now that period has gone.

So if you look at the history of recorded music from 1900 to now, there was a 25 year period where artists did very well, but the rest of the time they didn’t.

[DocSommer]

there's no money in being a rock star anymore.

Well, that depends how you define "rock star" - it's not that every musician must live from hand-to-mouth, especially the ones who are successfull not just within the virtual world. There's plenty chances to make money, like touring, advertising/promotion deals and whatever contracts comes along - maybe . Of course that's probably only suitable for a 0.x percentage of the musicians out there^^

[timsinister]

...whilst at the same time there seems to be lots of money made from being a cookie-cutter 'pop/rap' artist.

Assuming you don't get signed to Sico or something.

[Quiff Boy]

...whilst at the same time there seems to be lots of money made from being a cookie-cutter 'pop/rap' artist.

ahem

I left my heart in Tokyo
Down by the river don't you know

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvjML3-66SA

oh dear

[markfiend]

If you sign to Sico you deserve everything you get.

[markfiend]

If you sign to Sico you deserve everything you get.

...or to be more accurate, all of the nothing that you get

[Obviousman]

To be honest, for me personally I see it more replacing my internet sourced 'evaluation copies'. At least this way there goes something to the artist, even if it's only a little amount.

And my record buying habit is still bad enough to compensate for that and for musicians not to have to worry

[ribbons69]

Internet and buying music files.. I still don't see the connection

make SURE your financial support goes there where it belongs.

concert tickets and taper gears

Concert tickets and merch.
The £100 I spent on a hoody/3 shirts and assorted bits and bobs at the Roundhouse should keep Von in fags for a couple of weeks at least.

[Ahráyeph]

I don't really care about whether or not I'm making money off Spotify. I already knew it's not going to do me any favours before it became available here. If it earns me a few cents on the Euro, sweet. I could perhaps buy one Duvel more per annum. I say that with great hesitation, of course.

What works a lot better for me is the whole Bandcamp deal : they take 15% of your earnings, meaning that the money for every 15th download goes to them. I feel that's rather fair and a fair percentage to boot. Out of every 100 Euros I make with my music, I'm sure to receive 85 (minus the 'handling' costs that PayPal charges, which I feel are rather overblown percentage wise, but unless an alternative secure internet payment system is being implemented, PayPal has the monopoly and we'll have to live with it).

In that light, the news I read yesterday about Google + announcing an online music store that musicians and bands could buy into, where Google would take 30% off the revenue, made me rather pissed. Granted, it's still less than iTunes skims off after a digital download, but to depend on the familiarity of their brand name to take double of what Bandcamp - which of course is know less than Google with the unsuspecting audience - is charging seems to be admitting to daylight robbery. And what are they going to do if I post links to my Bandcamp songs on the Ahráyeph Google + page? Block them? Sounds to me like a good enough reason to take 'em to court if that happens.

Oh, and IZ, those low percentages of Spotify aren't that surprising. The percentage you'd get from SABAM for a track being played on Belgian national radio (can't speak for, say, the U.K., but I'm assuming it would be similar), are equally low. Whatever may have changed over the decades, it's still the musicians who get ripped off. That hasn't changed...