New music models: do they actually work?
November 24
Image 'borrowed' from www.marriedtothesea.com
It's funny how these things come up - I had been pondering writing something about Spotify, Youtube and the New Music Paradigm shebang, but then a couple of points came up to prod me into actually doing it.
Spotify has long been championed as some kind of saviour - you get all your tunes for free, put up with the odd advert, and relax, safe in the knowledge that you're helping the artists, not like those horrible torrenting pirates. And now that youtube has agreed some kind of licencing deal, ditto there. Result! We can all sleep easy. The replacement for buying music is here.
Or perhaps not. I have to say, having used Spotify that as a consumer experience it's bloody great. Reminds me of the first time I tried Soulseek in fact (have to admit it). Almost anything you want is there - that track you used to love when you were 16, an album you once heard a bit of and had always wanted to check out but never got round to - it's superb. A treasure trove.
But lately I've really started to wonder whether this stuff is all it's cracked up to be, behind the slick marketing, and the 'giving away other people's stuff for free' aspect. It had never occurred to me before, but I recently got a royalty payment from Youtube. My first ever! It was for 1p. Now, I'm not the biggest artist on Youtube by a very long chalk, but I thought that, still, that was perhaps a touch on the stingy side. And I realised I've never received anything at all from Spotify. Again, not to whinge too much - I'm hardly gonna be the biggest artist on there either.
So then I saw this article - in the comments of which it's claimed that a band who got 6 million plays on Youtube received about 50 quid each, and that an artist with 30 million album sales behind them have yet to receive a penny from Spotify.... and we've all been bombarded by this news that Lady Gaga, probably one of the biggest artists on the site, received about £100 for five months worth of plays. Lets not forget that despite paying such small amounts, Spotify are still complaining about high royalty fees and requesting them to be reduced further. They've also had to delay their US launch, because no-one over there believes they will pay royalties, they've closed open registration so that only people with invites can join, and they're estimated to be losing millions per month.
So. Spotify are blazing through cash, yet can only find 200 quid a year to pay their most popular artists. Is it a complete crock? Well, it's 20% owned by the major labels, and the two founders (Swedish) own most of the stock via investment vehicles in the tax haven of Cyprus. Oh, and Spotify itself is officially based in that other tax haven of Luxembourg. Pretty advanced for a little dotcom startup by a couple of music enthusiasts, huh? Oh yes - and it's had (at least) 71 million in funding so far. I don't know where that's gone, but it's certainly not to the people who wrote the music on which the whole thing is based. Something seems a bit fishy.
Youtube looks to be almost as bad, with the new deal they've struck handing even more power to the major labels and less to the indies.
So, do I have a point to all this?
Well, it's not that we should all try and turn back the clock to stop the digital madness. I can see which way the wind is blowing, and they're great for the user. However, it's becoming very clear that even though they might be technically legal, they certainly don't help the artists any great amount, and are no substitute for just buying the mp3 or CD or vinyl. So keep using them - or even, stop using them and go back to torrenting for all the difference it'll make - but don't forget to support the artists you like by buying their stuff, buying a T-shirt, going to the shows and so on. It's still much needed!
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Posted by bassmusic
