We all know the music industry isn’t in a good place right now. Sales are down and artist are not happy. So it made me think? Why don’t the Big 3 (Universal, Warner & Sony) just come together and make their own streaming service with all their music, instead of sharing profits with Spotify and Apple Music? I don’t get it.
Film/TV industries have their own dedicated services like Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, etc. They don’t have a middle man taking a cut like Cable. Obviously, the Big 3 would need to come together to make this happen. Having 1 music service strictly for just 1 of them is a bad idea.
I just think Spotify & Apple are benefitting from this way more than the labels. And with Spotify paying HUGE amounts to the likes of Joe Rogan 😒. It’s kind of a slap in the face of the industry that MADE them this big. Like why is the Talk Tuah podcast getting just as big of bags as the labels & Artist? I know Jay Z tried his own service ran strictly by the artist called Tidal like 10 years ago, but he couldn’t get enough big artist to invest into it long term.
Can someone PLEASE explain to me why the Music Industry allows this?
Actually it the labels who are taking advantages of the streaming services without mentioning profiting from artists they manage. When negotiating deals with streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music, labels often demand large advances. These funds are typically non-recoupable, labels keep this money regardless of how well the music performs on the platform.
All major labels performed very well this year financially. It is really artists themselves who suffers
Ohhh. You know, that makes sense. It felt like a stupid question asking how LABELS would allow themselves to screwed over, but once again, they aren’t the ones getting screwed over.
Fun fact: if you’re an artist on Spotify receiving less than 1000 streams in a year, they won’t even bother paying you. You also need a minimum number of unique listeners. That number is secret.
Spotify is good for those already rich, and bad for those who isn’t.
They also have Joe Rogan and Gwyneth Paltrow on their payroll, and they actively lobby for more relaxed AI legislatiolegislation in the EU.
If you have a subscription, the best thing you van do is to cancel it, get your music from the high seas, and instead donate $12 per month or however much it costs directly to artists you enjoy by buying their music or merch online.
AntennaPod is good for podcasts.
Bandcamp is a good option for directly supporting artists for the time being, especially if you queue up all your purchases for a Bandcamp Friday, where artists/labels receive all the money rather than BC taking their 20% cut.
Not just a good option, but the best option I know of. If you buy an album for $5, that’s equivalent to the earnings for thousands of plays on Spotify. And that would be assuming the artist even gets enough total Spotify plays to qualify for their payout under the new rules.
They are stealing from artists who bring business to the platform, and using the guise of protecting themselves from bot streamers. Oh, and they recently raised the subscription price by 25% in my country. Spotify was the most satisfying subscription to cancel that I have ever cancelled.
They’re also being accused of pushing their own AI-generated slop music so that they have to pay out even less to real artists. Fuck Spotify.
Spotify is pushing AI generated music now!? Do they have no damn shame? These platforms and labels are NOTHING without the artist.
It’s not confirmed afaik, but there is big motive behind it for Spotify to flood listeners with artists they don’t have to pay.
There’s also the apparent problem of third parties uploading AI slop. Spotify is putting in minimum listener requirements to supposedly deal with this, but what it will do instead is it choke out real small artists, and the AI artists will just get botted above the minimum pay threshold. To me, this gives Spotify even more motive than before to dilute all artists on the platform with their own AI music. They already make deals with large labels and podcasters, they don’t care about the other 90% of artists who eat at their bottom line.
“Spotify … anticipates reaching profitability for the full year in 2024, which would mark the company’s first full profitable year since it launched 18 years ago.”
Interesting that they anticipate a full year of profit when there is this “AI problem” plaguing them. How convenient it would be if it turned out to be their own AI artists they don’t have to pay.
"Ek said moving forward, Spotify will be more disciplined about how it spends money. “You should not expect that we’re going to go back to 2021 behavior. We want to be very resourceful,” he said. "
https://www.axios.com/2024/11/13/spotify-projects-first-full-year-of-profitability-ever
This video shows some AI artist profiles and talks about it more:
Da Colinata - Spotify’s MASSIVE Fake AI Scandal
For anyone reading this who’s put off by the prices, I ditched Spotify and started exclusively buying music on Bandcamp. Apart from an initial splurge, I’ve ended up paying less for music each month. And I own that music permanently. And they got paid more. YMMV of course especially if you’re somebody who doesn’t relisten much, but seeing an album on Bandcamp that costs as much as a month’s Spotify subscription shouldn’t put you off.
While that is true, even independent artists who don’t have a label grabbing all the profits still get shafted, earning next to nothing with streams.
You are right
Spotify is the only reason I don’t pirate 99% of my music (the other 1% is still played through it). Would go back to creating my own library