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Taylor Swift pulls music from Spotify because music shouldn't be free

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P

PHOENIXZERO

Member
Guess I'm one of those weirdos who still greatly prefer physical media.

Stet said:
Because...
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Because Netflix's business model is different, they pay upfront to license content for streaming and mail rental services and how much they pay isn't centered around how many plays something gets. Netflix more akin to a TV syndication model mixed with HBO like premium network thrown in and a little video store aspect as well. It's also typically last in line in the distribution chain with a large gap between say a TV show's last episode of its season airs and when it's added to Netflix, hell even when a season set is released there'll still be a gap in many cases because studios want to sell season sets which they know sales of which will be cannibalized if the show is added to Netflix on the same day. Unlike Spotify where new album releases are regularly added on day one.
 
S

Stet

Banned
PHOENIXZERO said:
Guess I'm one of those weirdos who still greatly prefer physical media.



Because Netflix's business model is different, they pay upfront to license content for streaming and mail rental services and how much they pay isn't centered around how many plays something gets. Netflix more akin to a TV syndication model mixed with HBO like premium network thrown in and a little video store aspect as well. It's also typically last in line in the distribution chain with a large gap between say a TV show's last episode of its season airs and when it's added to Netflix, hell even when a season set is released there'll still be a gap in many cases because studios want to sell season sets which they know sales of which will be cannibalized if the show is added to Netflix on the same day. Unlike Spotify where new album releases are regularly added on day one.
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Which of these details do you think it is that would make Taylor Swift change her mind?
 
L

Lone_Prodigy

Member
META said:
Torrented the album anyway so I could put it on my phone. Listened to it this weekend with the wife and neither of us liked it.

I don't get the hype for this. It's still boring and the songwriting is bleh. With her earnings, the stunt she pulled with this, and the fact that the album wasn't that good--it makes me glad I didn't indulge in the hype and actually buy the damn thing.
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"I pirate because I wouldn't buy it anyway."

Sounds about right.
 
J

jimwhat

Member
I personally like Ed Sheeran's take on this:

This album was streamed 26 million times in the first week on Spotify, and that means 26 million people have heard my album… That means a tenth of them might consider buying a ticket or going to a festival, and that’s enough for me to tour very comfortably…

I know a lot of artists are a bit iffy about it, and to be honest, I did get a royalty cheque from Spotify that was about £4… It’s one of those things, but for me, the more iPods, phones and computers that I’m on, the better, because I just want to play. That’s what I enjoy.
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He seems like he just really enjoys playing music and doesn't worry too much about how much money he makes.
 
P

PHOENIXZERO

Member
Stet said:
Which of these details do you think it is that would make Taylor Swift change her mind?
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Probably a better deal from her record company in terms of a higher streaming payout or Spotify making a direct deal with her, I'm guessing first and foremost its the latter and don't think she'd be the first that's held her music hostage in that manner.
 
S

Stet

Banned
PHOENIXZERO said:
Probably a better deal from her record company in terms of a higher streaming payout or Spotify making a direct deal with her, I'm guessing first and foremost its the latter and don't think she'd be the first that's held her music hostage in that manner.
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Spotify making a direct deal with her or her record company giving her a higher streaming payout don't make music any less "free." They just give her more up-front cash.

That's my problem with her justification. Come out and say you want to cash in more, don't pretend it's a crusade for the artists.
 
S

Syriel

Member
PHOENIXZERO said:
Someone I'm acquainted with who's an indie artist in Australia posted this back in April. Not sure which platform it was from though that was basically the equivalent of her selling an album or two depending on how it was sold.

VgJ3vop.jpg


Streaming is great for previewing, better than piracy but beyond that artists are still getting screwed if no one is actually buying their music.
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Previewing also has the effect of letting people know if they like the album. Previously, the only way to know would be to drop $10-15 on a CD, only to find out that half the time only one or two tracks are good.

Now, with streaming you can listen to an album, and if most of it is crap, just spend the 99 cents on the one or two tracks that you actually like. Artists are seeing less money in that case, but it's not because streaming is ruining the product, it's because people aren't being forced to buy a bundled product.

Petrie said:
Even after I buy an album, if it's convenient I still use Spotify to Stream it at work and such, as I figure I get the same experience but the artist gets a little something extra as well.

I do this every day when I start my day with Anamanaguchi's Endless Fantasy album at work, even though I've owned it for a while now.
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This is another aspect that Swift misses. Some people just rip everything to iCloud or Google Play so they have their own personal streams. Others are too lazy (or not technical enough to do so) and would rather just stream from Spotify (or similar services). For that, streaming is pure profit as incremental revenue.
 
V

Valnen

Member
Misterinenja said:
I really don't get why people are still using Spotify.

It was a nice novelty back in the first beta days and it quickly shat the bed after that. No reason to use the service past the people who wanna make their terrible party playlists carry over to other peoples houses.

Buy albums you like.
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And have all that shit take up my hard drive space? No thanks! Besides, I'm not willing to pay when I don't have to legally do so. Honestly if Spotify was to disappear I'd probably just not listen to music at all, aside from the occasional concert I go to.
 
S

Servbot24

Banned
Wookieomg said:
Um.. Not sure I understand why you're being so defensive and borderline hostile. By all means, take your salary. I'm just saying I disagree with making art solely for income because I don't associate the purpose of creative expression as monetary gain. To each their own man.
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Because you're marginalizing the work of people who are already working against ridiculous odds. That extreme level naiveté is not helping anyone.

Stet said:
That's my problem with her justification. Come out and say you want to cash in more, don't pretend it's a crusade for the artists.
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Every artist deserves the chance to "cash in" (ie make money from their product like every other person in the world does) if their work is good.
 
B

boosh5

Banned
Good for her. Music takes a lot of time and effort to develop and it has value. Just because other revenue sources like touring are available to the largest acts, it doesn't mean the music itself shouldn't have a price tag.
 
G

gutter_trash

Banned
good, I didn't want to stumble on her crappy music anyway by accident.

shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, he

fuckin garbage
 
R

RDreamer

Member
Syriel said:
This is another aspect that Swift misses. Some people just rip everything to iCloud or Google Play so they have their own personal streams. Others are too lazy (or not technical enough to do so) and would rather just stream from Spotify (or similar services). For that, streaming is pure profit as incremental revenue.
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For me I have everything ripped so I can stream it via iTunes match, but last.fm support has always been a bit weird and I prefer the knowledge that it's scrobbling as I listen, so if it's on Spotify, I use that no matter whether I have it or not. Bands get extra money from me.
 
S

Servbot24

Banned
Syriel said:
This is another aspect that Swift misses. Some people just rip everything to iCloud or Google Play so they have their own personal streams. Others are too lazy (or not technical enough to do so) and would rather just stream from Spotify (or similar services). For that, streaming is pure profit as incremental revenue.
Click to expand...

Streaming is potentially a great thing for artists, but not at Spotify's horrific rates.
 
C

catapult37

Member
Who are these people buying CDs when they pay for streaming? When I was pirating, I felt bad about doing something illegal, so I'd sometimes treat it as a preview and buy a CD. But now I only do this for my absolute favorite artists, where I want the CD in the car (no unlimited data here). I don't have that nagging "bad" feeling about streaming, so I just don't do it. I think of the stream as my collection.

And I have to agree, as much as I love Spotify, it just makes me burn through music like crazy. I don't get attached to anything enough to buy it, and if I want to spin it again, I'll just stream it.

Putting myself in the artist's shoes (and as a music lover who wants people to be able to afford to be career musicians), yeah, screw streaming. But that value proposition is too good. Gotta support Taylor's decision here.
 
W

Wookieomg

Member
Servbot24 said:
Because you're marginalizing the work of people who are already working against ridiculous odds. That extreme level naiveté is not helping anyone
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It's not naive to say that I think art should be held to a higher standard than mere fiscal worth. If anything, I'm acknowledging the work that goes into these creations, whether they be film, gaming, music, or art itself. Artists have my utmost respect for they are people utilizing their talents to bring beauty into the world. I really appreciate that. I support that, both financially and through other avenues.

I absolutely think people should get paid for their work. Once again, I was just saying that art - at its core - is something precious, and monetary worth sometimes has the tendency to devalue it. Screaming Meat said it more eloquently than I did earlier in the thread:

Screaming Meat said:
That's not the point I was making. I'm not saying you can't do that, I'm saying you will dramatically increase the likelihood that you will have to compromise your work to earn money to live day to day. When that happens, that's not your Art any more; that's your Art by committee. I've seen it happen far too many times.

If you can do your Art full time without that ever happening then more power to you, but very very few artists will ever find themselves lucky enough to be in that position. In my opinion, it simply isn't worth the risk if you value what you do.
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The Technomancer said:
No offense, but this kind of comes off as naive. Art for passions's sake and nothing else is fantastic when you're twenty. As the son of artists I can tell you though that when you're fifty with kids and a house you're making art because you're passionate about it and also because you need to pay the bills
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Art for passion's sake should be the catalyst for creation, in my humble opinion. Do amazing artists use their talents and make a living for themselves? Sure. Happens all the time. Creating art for a living is freaking awesome and something that I wholly endorse. It's not a foreign concept to me.

I'm not a proponent of art being worth-less or that it should be free. I am simply saying that money can corrupt the nature of art. It doesn't do it to everyone, and it doesn't happen all the time. But when money becomes the crux of artistic creation, it's a slippery slope from works of wonder to works of necessity. I feel like this is becoming slightly off-topic and rather nebulous, so I'll bow out now. Apologies all. :)
 
J

jimwhat

Member
Ken Masters said:
Funny how people think music should be free but have an issue with games or movies being free
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The music is ad supported. Songs are generally 3-4 minutes in length which allows companies like Pandora or Spotify to play ads in between songs.

Games are also free and ad supported, at least in regards to mini/mobile games. Larger games have very few breaks of action and story, and banner ads would only distract from the visuals (which is not a problem with music).

Again, there are ad supported free movies (i.e on Crackle). Just like with larger games, this doesn't happen often since Movies are usually continuous in their story and action, along with banner ads distracting from the visual aspect.
 
G

GameGuru59

Banned
Valnen said:
And have all that shit take up my hard drive space? No thanks! Besides, I'm not willing to pay when I don't have to legally do so. Honestly if Spotify was to disappear I'd probably just not listen to music at all, aside from the occasional concert I go to.
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This. This so much. Music taking up hard drive space is the most annoying thing about it.
 
F

Fusebox

Banned
Misterinenja said:
I really don't get why people are still using Spotify.

It was a nice novelty back in the first beta days and it quickly shat the bed after that. No reason to use the service past the people who wanna make their terrible party playlists carry over to other peoples houses.

Buy albums you like.
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In what way did it shit the bed after beta? What changed?
 
S

Stevetopsy

Member
With Swift gone, maybe a few people will stumble onto a smaller artist to listen to who needs exposure. A musician who, while needing the cash much more than Swift, also has a greater appreciation for the simple joy of others listening, enjoying, and connecting to the music they've made. This is the whole point of even making music.
 
F

Future

Member
Misterinenja said:
I really don't get why people are still using Spotify.

It was a nice novelty back in the first beta days and it quickly shat the bed after that. No reason to use the service past the people who wanna make their terrible party playlists carry over to other peoples houses.

Buy albums you like.
Click to expand...

Pretty out of touch I think. Everyone uses it and they use it because it has tons of content and streams incredibly well. I'll admit it actually does make me buy less albums cuz why bother when I can stream it all the time at work and at home. I only buy things I want to play during commutes so I don't burn my data
 
K

kudoboi

Member
Misterinenja said:
I really don't get why people are still using Spotify.

It was a nice novelty back in the first beta days and it quickly shat the bed after that. No reason to use the service past the people who wanna make their terrible party playlists carry over to other peoples houses.

Buy albums you like.
Click to expand...

i have over 3000 songs on spotify. I am not going to spend $3000 on music. I only pay for songs that are not on spotify (eg: taylor swift's new album)
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
It makes me laugh you guys think Taylor Swift had personal input into this.
 
C

CoolOff

Member
A blog-post from Daniel Ek on the subject:

https://news.spotify.com/se/2014/11/11/2-billion-and-counting/

A billion dollars from the time we started Spotify in 2008 to last year and another billion dollars since then.
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This is a very telling quote imo, the model is still a very new thing that hasn't even begun to plateau yet.

At our current size, payouts for a top artist like Taylor Swift (before she pulled her catalog) are on track to exceed $6 million a year [...] we expect that number to double again in a year.
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In the year she releases her album that might not be a lot relative to income from a million album sales, but if it stays relatively stable for a number of years then it becomes a different thing. The Long Tail and all that.
 
E

EricTheCleric

Member
Now we need to wait for a response from the labels, publishers and collecting societies....

Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists.
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. As I said, we’ve already paid more than $2 billion in royalties to the music industry and if that money is not flowing to the creative community in a timely and transparent way, that’s a big problem.
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this area really needs some investigative journalism and whistleblowers
 
W

WanderingWind

Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
kudoboi said:
i have over 3000 songs on spotify. I am not going to spend $3000 on music. I only pay for songs that are not on spotify (eg: taylor swift's new album)
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And that is why artists are pulling away from things like Spotify. Not saying that as an indictment, mind you, but more of an example for those who seem genuinely confused that people want to get paid for their work.
 
R

RJT

Member
EricTheCleric said:
Now we need to wait for a response from the labels, publishers and collecting societies....

this area really needs some investigative journalism and whistleblowers
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Yup. Spotify has been claiming to make huge payments to the industry, and no one tries to deny that. But artists constantly complain about payments to them.

This shit needs to be more transparent, for both the artists and the fans' sake.
 
G

GravityMan

Member
Taylor's (and her handlers...she obviously didn't do all this by herself) stance is understandable. I've always wondered about the revenue sharing of Spotify and other streaming services.

She can get away with this because she's Taylor Swift...one of the most popular music artists in the industry today. Her fans (not me) are gonna lap up her content no matter what medium it's on. If she only had a fifth of her current popularity, she would gladly put her music on Spotify.
 
R

RedTurbo

Banned
Ken Masters said:
Funny how people think music should be free but have an issue with games or movies being free
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Nothing is free, but if changes to market come about due to technological advancements and makes something not worth it's historical value then I'm not paying a historical value for an item that I no longer use. Music recording, and (audio recordings in general) have the problem in the present day of being a product that is really easy to produce, consume, and transmit for little to no money. Asking me to pay 1990s rates as if even CD burners don't exist is ludicrous.

Technically speaking too on the movie and games end, I don't have to pay MSRP for a game or movie ever especially if I wait.
 
TheContact

TheContact

Member
She's so stupid. Spotify is not a new concept. Rhapsody has existed way longer. She's actually going to lose money, good thing her music sucks
 
K

King Cobra

Banned
Van Owen said:
Head of Swift's label said she got a little under $500k this year, well under Spotify's $6m number.
http://time.com/3581487/taylor-swift-spotify-borchetta/
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I was going to post this, paying less than 500k for one of the biggest artist in our time is just hilarious.

carfo said:
She's so stupid. Spotify is not a new concept. Rhapsody has existed way longer. She's actually going to lose money, good thing her music sucks
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http://www.billboard.com/articles/list/5930326/music-s-top-40-money-makers-2014-the-rich-list

It's a good thing you're not her financial advisor.

I think she made a very smart financial decision and I applaud her for sticking to her guns.
 
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