don't artists know by now that all we have to do is type their album name in google followed by a .rar and tons of links come up

You can't stick your head in the sand, scream and cry and magically pretend it's 1994 all over again. But myopic shortsightedness has always been the hallmark of dipshit music execs.

Good info there, SomethingMore.

For the record (since there's always someone who asks), I don't work for, or have stock in, any of these companies. I don't care if any of them last more than a couple years; if they can't continue to innovate, they're all doomed. I use Spotify and I think it's better than all the other streaming options, but if something else came along that blew it away, I'd gladly switch.

I just think we're finally at a point where there's actually a reasonable vision for generating income from pirates and keeping the music industry intact (I say intact, because it WON'T ever be like it was in 1994) by trying to give pirates an option that's actually easier than stealing.

I said this in another thread, but I think the "future" of the industry entails three specific ways to consume music. People like me will utilize all three.

1. Streaming subscriptions. Access to as much music as possible. An easy way to check out new and old music alike. This will be what most people end up using, and it may get them to go see a few more concerts each year. It's no different than Netflix or your cable bill. You don't own anything you consume, but you're free to consume it as much as you want.

2. Locker services (iCloud, etc.). Mainly for the music you can't get from a subscription. All the music you've purchased on CDs or MP3s would sit here. Some people will use this exclusively over the subscription option, and that's fine for them.

3. Deluxe physical albums. Tiered and geared towards the bigger fans. So, a band like Nine Inch Nails can do 2500 copies of a $300 set and 10,000 copies of a $75 set (along with the usual $10 CD or download for those who just want the music). Or Lady Gaga can do 10,000 copies of a $75 set only. Whatever makes sense for each artist. Smaller artists can do smaller, cheaper runs. They don't NEED to make a million dollars off of an album release.

Oh, and to top it all off...

Arcade Fire just ADDED all of their music to Spotify!

Yeah, it's going to be an Arcade Fire day for me!

Well played guys. I never understood why they weren't on there considering Arcade Fire is a band who owes their success to the internet and not through radio/TV outlets (radio stations somehow believe Nickelback and Maroon 5 are hipper, but that's another argument).

Regarding the "true fan" debate... depends how and where you listen to all your music. Most of my music listening is on the computer, my ipod is toast and I'm in no rush to replace it, and while I do collect vinyl, I usually only listen in my bedroom. I see no difference between NOT supporting artists you like who are not on Spotify with how I will not buy a movie on DVD if it isn't on Blu-Ray, I'll wait for an inevitable Blu release. And like how Arcade Fire just made their music available, I think its a matter of inevitability before a lot of the stingier artists relent and realize they're just losing potential earning by this.

I'm listening to Arcade Fire now. Good stuff.

SomethingMore

Where do you get your stats for Spotify? I'm curious how beneficial it is, estimated money payout, whatever else. I think it's a fantastic service, especially for trying out new bands before buying, as well as for recommending bands to friends. So many people here aren't even aware of the service, yet, but I think it will take off.

I don't have any official "stats" and I didn't mean for it to come off that way. Any numbers I've used are purely hypothetical, except in the cases where I included a link.

The biggest problem with Spotify (and every other service, really) is that the real numbers are very secret, and are only provided to the content owners. So Spotify gives all the data and money to each respective label, and the labels calculate the royalties and pay them out as required. The only thing that Spotify reps have said (and I can't find a link now...) is that Spotify pays the same royalties per play to everyone based on total revenue (not sure if that's just Premium subscription revenue, or if that includes ad revenue, too). Yes, the majors also get some of Spotify's core revenue (due to being part-owners of the company), but that shouldn't affect the actual royalties paid out.

if iTunes charges $0.99/track, they take $0.29 and the rest ($0.70) goes to the label. Well, each label has a different deal with their artists, so one artist might get $0.10/track while another might get $0.05/track. Some artists might even get $0.50/track if their label isn't too greedy. But if the artist still owes their label money (for cash advances for touring, videos, recording, etc.), then the artist isn't getting any of that royalty payment until those expenses are paid off. "Expenses" in a lot of contracts are not paid from the label's cut, but only from the artist's cut.

The same rules MUST apply to Spotify, albeit on a different scale, which is why I have to make guesses just like everyone else. So after the labels take their majority cut, then the artists are left with less per play. Spotify stated recently that they've paid $150,000,000 to rights-holders in the last 3 years; most of that in the last year, to be sure. That's the equivalent of about 15 million album sales.

When you see people saying "Oh, Spotify only pays me $0.00016/play! Fuck them!" ... it's because their LABEL is only giving them that much.

I'd love to do an experiment.
I'd love to add an "album" to Spotify. 10 1-minute original "songs." I'd want to get a bunch of people to listen to the entire thing a few times a day for an entire month. I'd play it non-stop from my account. I'd need that many plays to get a real handle on how it all works for real. I wouldn't do this for the money (any payments received from Spotify would be used to continue paying for the experiment somehow). I could then use the data to do some serious first-hand calculations. Alas, something like this is likely against Spotify's TOS, and I think every label or aggregator that Spotify deals with likely has an NDA blocking anyone from revealing this kind of data. Still, it's likely the only way to really get a grasp on how the numbers are crunched by everyone else.

It just occurred to me that, even though I have Spotify installed on my work desktop, I have no idea how it actually works. I opened it up, did a search for 'Hank Mobley', selected a song on an album I don't own, and played it. It sounded more like a Lee Morgan track to me - turns out he played trumpet on it. Anyway, is this how it's supposed to work?

As always, any insights are appreciated.

Not sure if serious...

Yes, you search for music you want to listen. Then you listen to it.

wendersfan, try this: Search for a song. When you get a whole list of stuff, click on the Artist of the song you want to hear. That'll pull up that artist's catalog. Then play whatever you want from there, make playlists, etc. etc.

If you do it right, you should end up here for Hank Mobley:
http://open.spotify.com/artist/5cbutZUQE7SUCA6MsEMbBv

I have just a couple thoughts. First, for massively successful bands like Coldplay, not streaming their music won't affect them at all. Not in the short term or long term. For a band like the black keys, it isn't the best long term move.

Here's an article worth reading.
http://musically.com/2012/01/23/ifpi...-up-8-in-2011/

Of note:
The report notes that in Sweden – Spotify’s homeland – subscriptions accounted for 84% of digital music revenues in the first 11 months of 2011.

The debate around streaming royalties is a big issue for the IFPI, given that attention is starting to turn towards the contracts between artists and its member labels, rather than simply focusing on how much streaming services pay out to those labels in the first place.

Coldplay's album is up on Spotify now in case, you know, anyone actually cares anymore: http://open.spotify.com/album/2R7iJz5uaHjLEVnMkloO18

I did. I noticed it was on when I searched the top charts. Added it, listened to it. Not my thing anymore, sadly.

I have mixed feelings about this whole thing, and don't really care to wade into the debate, but just to provide some numbers---as an independent artist, here's what Spotify pays me every time someone streams one of my songs:


$0.00130000

I'm reminded of that old Steve Martin comedy routine:

"I've been playing the market a little bit. I bought cardboard when it was 4 cents a ton....now it's 6 cents a ton. Let's see...I bought 7 tons....so that means I've made..........well...you do the math. And I got this special deal where I only have to keep 4 tons of it at my house."

Do you have any idea if it is a flat rate, or if they have different levels of pay for different artists? I'm not sure how you would know, but I'm curious.

I don't believe they differentiate between artists, but looking at my sales, I see that the rate they pay varies throughout the year (obviously by quite small amounts), so I don't know what forumula they're using, or how often it changes. Last Fm seems to pay about the same. I got a whopping $.06 for a song from Rhapsody, but I'm not familiar with how they work at all--don't even know if it was a stream or what.

It's kind of an interesting time for independent musicians. On the one hand, it's incredibly cool and satisfying for me to just record some songs in my bedroom, get them out there, and have someone from Brazil or Bulgaria leave a comment like "nice song" or "I love that one". On the other hand, if, like me, you're just doing it as a hobby and don't really have the time, money or inclination to do much promotion, then it's pretty unlikely that you're going to make much (or any) money. I can't really speak as to how difficult it is for more professional, full-time artists to make money in this environment.

^ I've seen reports that streams from "free" users are lower than streams from "Unlimited" or "Premium" users. That's all I know. That, and the $/stream is supposedly based off of the % of total revenue each month... supposedly. So the more users there are, the more you (theoretically) get paid per month. Supposedly.

I know $0.0013 is a pittance, but if it's coming from someone who is already a fan (ie: bought an album, t-shirt, concert ticket, etc.), then does it really matter? I think that's an important part of the debate. Obviously, it's not always the case (In fact, I'm sure it's rare), but it's still plausible.

Like I've said before, I own about 800 or so albums. If I'm the only person on the planet listening to those on Spotify, then should the artists pull the albums because of the shitty $/stream?

I didn't buy the latest Puscifer album, but I paid $400 for two tickets for the show on Sunday, and I listened to the album (and previous albums) on Spotify about 20 times, and my wife listened to it about 10 times (generating about $0.48 for the band). Is that really so bad?

For bands I really like, they will make more off me on live shows and merchandise than they would ever "lose" if I didn't buy their album.

I don't think anyone is entitled to "free" music but people also have to think of the market realities.

Ky-Fi: Ten years ago, it would've been prohibitively expensive to set up a streaming site that worked half as well as Last.fm or Spotify. You'd likely be looking at hundreds, if not thousands, in costs. (Unless you ran your own server, could code, etc.)

Now you're doing it for free... and getting paid for it (albeit a small amount). I guess the drive is to get enough people to listen to your music where you then have a realistic chance at grabbing that X% of your fanbase that will donate $10 or go to a show or buy shirts, etc.

(I'm generalizing, of course).

No, you're right. Of course, I have the costs of my musical equipment, computer and software--and my time. But yes, as far as digital distribution, once I have the album or singles done, I just pay CDBaby a one-time fee of $60 or so, and they submit my music to all the major sites, set up my page, samples, pictures, info on all those, and set up all the accounting so that all payments go directly to my account---and that's for perpetuity. It's hard to beat that for ease---but part of the reason that it's so cheap for the musician to do that is because a lot of people are taking their cut.