After announcing increased prices, Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year ( www.billboard.com )

When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not this time.

By adding audiobooks into Spotify’s premium tier, the streaming service now claims it qualifies to pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams, given Spotify now has to pay licensing for both books and music from the same price tag — which will only be a dollar higher than when music was the only premium offering. Additionally, Spotify will reclassify its duo and family subscription plans as bundles as well.

KillingTimeItself ,

weekly PSA that spotify is a dumb company who makes no money because they're stupid.

To put it bluntly, between the artists, and the musicians, there is the publisher (the traditional music company) the money pretty much only goes to the publisher, because spotify doesn't want to make money, nor do they want artists to make money. And the artists put their shit on spotify because people believe that spending 15 dollars a month on a service that doesnt pay artists, apparently pays artists.

Go support your local musical artists.

BURN ,

Spotify negotiated shit deals when they were a startup and they’ll basically forever be not profitable because of it.

KillingTimeItself ,

they should've became a publisher, or started one on the side, the profit would be immense if they thought of doing that.

BURN ,

Seriously. They had a completely open market, then essentially signed a perpetual deal where something like 40% of gross income is paid out to the labels. It’s absolutely insane how poorly run they were in the beginning.

If they had become a publisher, distributor and/or a label, they’d be on top of the world now.

KillingTimeItself ,

yeah pretty much. They'd be the single biggest publisher globally, and almost certainly the most profitable.

Grandwolf319 ,

Their strategy was probably the classic startup strategy. Grow at all costs and figure out profitability later. These days it’s rather obvious that this strategy sucks and is doomed to fail (for most cases).

GiveMemes ,

To add to this, buy their merch and physical copies of their albums. Also, go to shows! Lots of small bands would love a bigger crowd and can be seen for cheap or free.

KillingTimeItself ,

exactly this, buy merch, buy albums, give them your money directly if you can. (artists, please just let me give you money, i like your shit, maybe i don't want to buy shit tons of plastic ok?)

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Go support your local musical artists.

I miss X Fest... :(

KillingTimeItself ,

i'm still riding the high of all the older artists from the 90s till now that i've missed out on. We'll see how long that lasts lol.

shikitohno ,

And the artists put their shit on spotify because people believe that spending 15 dollars a month on a service that doesnt pay artists, apparently pays artists.

It's probably more a case of artists acknowledging the fact that streaming services are one of, if not the, primary sources of music discovery and consumption for many these days. Even if they won't make money off it, by not being available on these platforms, they may as well not exist for most people. That's something that only huge, already established names can pull without feeling it.

KillingTimeItself ,

you know what else streams your music? The fucking internet, that shits free! Literally just posting your shit on a torrent will give you tons of traction to work with. Especially if you already have a pretty significant listener base. Plus you also get the benefit of people like me who are significantly more inclined to buy physical releases of media.

Regardless, streaming is a good way of getting people to hear your shit, if you really want to use a streaming service, don't go through a publisher, or at the very least, a mainstream publisher. They tend to fuck you over.

Churbleyimyam , (edited )

What are your thoughts around generating traction with a torrent? I have two friends who are both sitting on their albums and thinking about how best to release them. I hope to release something one day too and refuse to use the likes of spotify on principle.

KillingTimeItself ,

hmm, if you do release them, it would be prudent to release them with related material, throw in a txt file with some additional little trivia facts or tidbits, as well as some links to places to buy your material, or even donate directly to you. Oh also you should probably throw in some interesting stickers or prints or something, things that aren't clothing and CDs can be interesting sometimes.

If you want to do a multi platform release, do an exclusive release on the torrents, i.e. throw in some extra unreleased material, or a second mixing/mastering of a track or something. Throwing something in to make the listeners feel appreciated is always good.

Obviously generate some public attention for it, you're probably only going to attract existing torrent users, but drumming up some sort of conversation around music rights, supporting artists and all that is going to be a good idea. Notably, since you're the artist putting it up, you have the rights over it, so it's perfectly legal. If you want to get really funny you can openly license it, so that way people can torrent it without "technically" breaking the law. Though that's not explicitly required i don't think. Naturally the most obvious way is to title a song "pirate this" or something lmao. "exercise to the user" as us TMC players would say.

yeah im pretty much out of ideas here lol, hopefully that helped.

unreasonabro ,

These are some decent suggestions, I'ma try this with our old albums. aside from tpb what are good options, sitewise, for this? no links just names pls, if you'd be so kind

KillingTimeItself ,

idk much about clearnet trackers, so you'd probably wanna go ask around in the piracy instances (dbzer0 is a prominent one, though it's my root instance, so i'm biased lol) for some information on that. But one very real option that you have is just posting the magnet link in the clearnet, since it's not copyrighted material (well, you own the copyright, and you legally allow it to be distributed as such, so it's not like the government is going to whack you upside the head or anything) Makes it easy to get and disseminate, though you would benefit from having it on trackers obviously. Though one really cool thing, is that trackers are pretty autonomous, so chances are if you release it, and it gets significant enough traffic over the clearnet, or attention from nerds like me it'll probably make its way to trackers organically. I make no guarantees but if you give me a shout i can have a look into spreading it onto i2p as well. (you should probably mention that somewhere in the thing so that way people pick up on it)

Oh and uh one other little thought, you can always put a little tidbit in there like "feel free to send us a few bucks, or share this song with your friends" to promote natural growth of it. There's about as much flexibility to it as you can imagine.

oh and a final note if you aren't familiar, probably worth being careful about tracker IP leeches, they often just nab ips that visit public trackers and yeet them to ISPs on the regular, shouldn't get you in trouble since its your own material, but they don't care, and the ISP will just send you a cease and desist saying "hey don't do this" or in extreme cases, yeeting your ass. Again, check out the piracy instances, they have useful resources for this stuff.

unreasonabro ,

So many pro tips, thanks m8, time to put together some supplementary materials!

KillingTimeItself ,

yeah np, always good to spread some info to people looking to find it.

unreasonabro ,

by the way, you should play Hades II if you're not already. Its end boss is your username ;)

KillingTimeItself ,

the rogue-like? I'm not into rogue-likes myself unfortunately. But that is a very funny spoiler regardless.

shikitohno ,

Sure, but the barrier to entry is significant enough to still deter most people. Even assuming they aren't bothering with port forwarding and seeding, most people seem like they can't be bothered with any pattern of consumption more complicated than finding content on major streaming platforms, and the music streaming services haven't yet gotten annoying enough for most people. They'll take a peek, go "Do I want FLAC, V0 or 320? WTF is an APE?" and bail again.

We can disagree as to whether it should be that way or not, but I'd wager that the reach of streaming services for a new band far exceeds that of uploading a torrent to a random tracker and hoping it takes off. Unless people already know of you to look for your music, you need to hope a huge number of them are just auto-snatching anything new. On private trackers, sure, you'll get a bunch of people who auto-snatch any FLAC upload from the current year, but you're talking about <50,000 users in those cases, and a good chunk of the auto-snatchers are just people looking to build buffer who won't even listen to most of what they snatch. On the other hand, nobody is auto-snatching all the torrents going up on public trackers, they'd run out of space in no time at all.

KillingTimeItself ,

i mean yeah, though nothing stops you from putting it up on both services so, don't come crying to me lol.

Your publisher might but that's because they're a cunt lol. Up to the artist though, personally i'd only release it underground, give it to the people who deserve it. It might take off from there, i'm not going to stop other people from spreading it via clear web mirrors or uploads onto streaming services like youtube or anything.

Churbleyimyam ,

This is all assuming that availability is the top priority for all artists. I think spotify has shown 99.999% of artists that their model of maximum availability at all costs simply doesn't work, either in terms of contacting an audience, making any money or valuing music. It just results in the vast majority of artists being insulted and demoralised and the remainder producing music of a relentlessly narrowing artistic scope. Are you more likely to get around 3500 plays on spotify or get £1 in donations off the back of giving your music away for free? It sounds absurd and that's because it is. Most artists will get the same out having their music on spotify for a year as walking out onto the street with an acoustic guitar for half an hour on a Saturday. At least out on the street you're not propping up a capitalist giant and a tiny 'elite' of ultra commercial music producers. For me spotify and it's ilk have been the final nail in the coffin for integrity and reward in releasing music and I would encourage the 99.999% to boycott it and forge ahead with alternatives. Nothing better will emerge until then and artistic culture will continue to become more and more bleak.

inset ,
@inset@lemmy.today avatar

I always wonder how the hell don't make money, it must be some kind of “smart” accounting.

KillingTimeItself ,

they don't make money because they're a tech company, they pull in VC funding, and then lose money year after year, they don't need to make any money because the model is to get everyone on your platform, and then start making money. (which apparently spotify hasn't figured out yet)

Grandwolf319 ,

Ahhh yes, future enshitification!

KillingTimeItself ,

i'm still trying to figure out how they're going to enshittify, because it's already expensive as shit. And they still make no money, so.

Grandwolf319 ,

Higher prices, worse quality, intrusive recommendations, ad filled basic tier?

It all depends on how much people are willing to put up with.

KillingTimeItself ,

higher prices would be a tough bargain i think, list price is already 15 dollars a month, which i think is pushing it. They already drop songs on the regular, the only way to make it worse would be to have less songs, i.e. even less worth the price. Recommendations are already a thing, but thats a different problem. Ads already exist, and they've already been memed on, though that is a free tier, so.

I can't imagine people putting up with much more, given that for fifteen dollars a month you could buying an entire whole ass album from a band that you like every month.

Grandwolf319 ,

I 100% agree with everything you said. It’s just that I thought people wouldn’t put up with the stuff Netflix has been pulling but I was wrong.

Music is different though…

KillingTimeItself ,

netflix is also added ad supported tiers at lower prices, so chances are they're the primary account holders. That and the fact that they have a couple really good shows still. Netflix is probably nearly bleeding at the edges, or soon to be bleeding at the edges though, they're probably post pandemic high riding a little bit even now.

Though it's also worth noting people are actually starting to pirate media more now due to the breadth of streaming services that exist, it doesn't seem to be just the one service, it seems to be the fact that there are 12 now that's causing it.

kalleboo ,

It's because they are 100% reliant on the record labels, and the record labels know that. So the record labels can charge Spotify whatever they want, because what is Spotify going to do?

That's why Spotify tried to hard to move into Podcasts and now Audio books, so that they are less reliant on the record labels.

Breve ,

The big record labels are shareholders in Spotify so they're happy to get less money in streaming royalties because that's the part they have to share with artists, but the value of their shares they get to keep all for themselves.

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/who-really-owns-spotify-955388/

KillingTimeItself ,

ah of course, schizo economics, how could i forget. "trust me, i will hold shares for you, i promise" Though this still isn't a good position to be in, because now the publishing companies essentially run spotify, so spotify fucked themselves even more lol.

jae , (edited )
@jae@reddthat.com avatar

I feel so bad for artists. They deserve to get paid for their hard work. Unfortunately, it’s been so hard for me to convince friends to move away from these predatory streaming platforms. A lot of people don’t want to lose having an unlimited catalogue at their fingertips.

Maybe I’m going to sound like a boomer here, but I don’t get why people need an unlimited catalogue at all. What’s wrong with paying artists directly to get their vinyls and CDs (or digital album)? What happened to curating your music library? What happened to the days where you’d buy CDs and listen to them over and over again, front to back? What happened to the days where playlists were manually curated for yourself, or even better, for your friends? Some of my fondest memories are music related, of my best friends painstakingly selecting a playlist of songs for me and burning them onto a CD for me to enjoy. What happened to the days where we didn’t need a constant stream of music pushed to us by an impersonal AI? What happened to developing your own unique and interesting personal taste?

I get that these streaming platforms are convenient, but it feels to me that we’re losing the ability to actively listen to music, to truly appreciate it, to understand the labor of love that it was for the artists, all for the sake of convenience. I don’t want music to be convenient, music is a fucking gift. I don’t want to be pushed AI generated recs, or AI generated music.

I’m rambling, lost my train of thought, and probably sound like a Luddite, but I have such strong feelings related to music and just hate these streaming platforms so much. I refuse to use them.

tldr please please please support your favorite artists by buying from them directly

Evotech ,

The music world that er have today cannot be compared.

If we just had CDs 99.99999% of artists would just never be put in a store. There would just not be shelf space.

Say what your will about streaming but the internet has allowed a lot more people to make music and to get heard.

jae ,
@jae@reddthat.com avatar

I realize I kept saying CDs, but I also include buying digital version in what I meant, edited my original post to say that. My main gripe is that we do have these services in which musicians can put their work out there and get paid fairly for it, but people don’t use them. Buying digital album is cheaper than monthly streaming price for Spotify too. These services that people value for convenience are hurting artists. We even have musicians commenting so here.

Emerald ,

There is also so much great music being put out for free officially

Aux ,

What happened to curating your music library?

Nothing. Because that was never really a thing. What you're describing was/is just a hobby. And, like most hobbies, it's small and niche relative to the industry as a whole. Most people were listening to music for free through radio since forever. Then TV was added into the mix. Paying for music, unless it's a concert, is just not really a concept humanity is familiar with.

jae ,
@jae@reddthat.com avatar

I agree that many people listened to music for free via radio but I’m skeptical that it was just a hobby? What about the Zune/iPod days? People went through more efforts to curate a library, no? Whether it was with music downloaded illegally, or actually paid for via iTunes…

Aux ,

It was rarely curated. You just listen to the radio, hear some cool tunes, buy the albums of the artists, the end.

jae ,
@jae@reddthat.com avatar

That's what I meant by curated! Taking the effort to buy some cool songs/albums you liked. Is there a connotation to "curation" that I don't know about?

shikitohno ,

I think curation implies more depth and selectivity to the collection and perhaps a certain amount of active effort to obtain and maintain it. You're talking about hearing a song you like on the radio and clicking "buy," where the sort of person who would talk about their curated library would spend their weekends digging through crates looking for the final LP released on some random record label in 1985 they need to complete their collection of what is, to them, the pinnacle of early house music as released in Yugoslavia prior to the fall of the USSR. Even if it's not as hyper-specific as that example, I would expect them to at least have things meticulously tagged and organized.

jae ,
@jae@reddthat.com avatar

That's fair. But then what is the word for what I am talking of? Just simply "collecting"? But could that also have a connotation of a person who's into collecting music as a hobby, like what you're saying for "curated"?

shikitohno ,

I wouldn't really say it's anything beyond normal consumption, just like I wouldn't say someone who buys a hat or jersey once every few years when they see a sporting event live has a sports memorabilia collection. Sure, technically, any quantity of something united can count as a collection, but I think plenty of purchasing just falls within the normal bounds of average consumption and doesn't rise to the level of meriting a special term for it.

jjjalljs ,

I think people who care about music make some false assumptions about people that kind of don't. It's like the xkcd about quartz: https://xkcd.com/2501/

red ,
@red@sopuli.xyz avatar

I mean, Spotify is a great service for the consumer. One reasonable monthly fee for most of the music in the world.

If a similar video streaming service existed for 40€/month, I'd pay for it in a heartbeat. Now I have a plethora of arr apps and a vpn, and Plex. But it's a hassle sometimes.

We're all aware of the issues it created for the artists, and I'd be willing to double the fee if that money directly went to the artists, but this is where the capitalist model fails, as that won't maximize the profits for shareholders.

If we ever come up with a way to fix the underlying greed models that come with publicly traded companies, that would be great.

As it stands, it is what it is, but I'm glad we have this, instead of a "different Spotify per music publisher".

HauntedCupcake ,

I'd pay 40€ a month for an officially licensed private torrent tracker. If they gave discounts based on the amount seeded I doubt they would even need the stupidly expensive infrastructure.

I don't even have the arr stack because it's cheaper, just because it's more convenient and no one can take it away from me

archomrade ,

Maybe it's because my schema for torrents is dichotomous with licensed uses, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this.

Is the distinction you're making here between your proposed 'licensed private tracker' and something like a subscription-based catalogue (à la Audible) simply the way it's distributed (in this case a centralized vs peer-to-peer)?

I like the idea of distributed media networks, but I really doubt any copyright owner would go for a distribution network that they don't have any level of control over. The idea of an 'officially licensed private torrent tracker' seems incompatible with how that industry works.

I'd happily pay for an unlicensed private torrent tracker, though.

HauntedCupcake , (edited )

Totally agree, they'll never go for that.
I meant licensed as in that the media is being legally distributed. But they wouldn't go for it as it would mean that customers might have an amount of ownership.

The distinction is that the private tracker is legal to run, as you'd be paying the licence holder for the ability to torrent using their private tracker.

I like the Audible idea of "you have X amount of GB a month that you can download, and you can pay more for more GB". It gives the customer a reason to keep paying, and therefore allow the business to exist.

Licence is probably the wrong word as I'm not anywhere near an expert on this

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Spotify is a great service for the consumer. One reasonable monthly fee for most of the music in the world.

Plus ads.

instead of a “different Spotify per music publisher”.

I was perfectly happy with Napster, before it got blown up.

As it stands, I've been leaning on SoundCloud and Bandcamp when I'm hunting for something indie and pirating or going vinyl for anything mainstream.

Spotify's model is doomed to fail over time. Far better to own the media than stream it.

red ,
@red@sopuli.xyz avatar

Not sure about the ads? If you mean when the app notifies you about live gigs etc. then yeah, that's shittification. Luckily it doesn't happen on my desk or car, but I wish it didn't sometimes appear on my phone. That's the one thing that might push me to add music to my video streaming arr stack.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Certain content (podcasts, most notably) insert ads into the feed above and beyond what Spotify Premium ostensibly removes. There's also Spotify's persistent need to blow up your phone with notifications and bloat your in-app screen, but at least some of that you can silence manually.

My wife has Spotify and she's noticed the increased pressure to be always-online, as well. We were on a flight, and she's got her take-off chill music, when she discovered putting the phone in airplane mood before starting up the app caused a bunch of bugs in her selection screen. Which - in the middle of a take-off that she did not enjoy - fucking sucked.

The service is definitely getting worse over time. And when you can keep an enormous library of music locally, the service becomes harder and harder to justify imho.

I'm perfectly happen to send $30/mo to Patreon for a few of my favorite artists. $12/mo for Spotify just feels like money down a well.

red ,
@red@sopuli.xyz avatar

I'm not familiar with the free tier, but if you don't pay anything, I think ads are fine.

Paying and seeing ads is wrong on the other hand.

Sylvartas ,

Spotify's model is doomed to fail over time.

This right here. At the very least, unless they are not beholden to shareholders, it will eventually reach market saturation and will have to cut artists' share, hike prices up, or add more paywalls to keep the line going up

Defectus ,

Is there a median breakdown of the split on Spotify. How much the artist get, the label and Spotify. I get that the split between artists and labels could probably vary a lot. But I get the feeling that Spotify aren't the only one whos beeing greedy

red ,
@red@sopuli.xyz avatar

You'd be correct

General_Effort ,

In 2023, Taylor Swift got $100 million from Spotify. How much should she get?

red ,
@red@sopuli.xyz avatar

Not sure what the relevance of this comment was, considering what I said

Emerald ,

I’m glad we have this, instead of a “different Spotify per music publisher”.

What would be wrong with a model where artists had their own website where they could distribute their music? That's what Faircamp does. Then people could actually download it, rather than use a companies crappy client with DRM.

red ,
@red@sopuli.xyz avatar

I was referring to the sharding that happened with video streaming services. It used to be Netflix had mostly everything, in the start, similar to Spotify. Now there are services per publisher that contain their own catalogues.

Fuck. That.

Emerald ,

So you'd rather a monopoly?

red ,
@red@sopuli.xyz avatar

Spotify isn't the only service currently.

Like I said in my op: it's good service for the consumer. It might not be if enshittification ensues.

But compared to video streaming, it's awesome.

The issue isn't the service model, but the capitalistic shit behind it, that attempts to maximize profits instead of paying artists fairly.

supersquirrel ,

Like I said in my op: it’s good service for the consumer. It might not be if enshittification ensues.

Are you seriously throwing might into this sentence?

I suppose you could say when you throw a ball up in the air it might come back down but that is kind of being disingenuous isn’t it.

Here’s another thought, doesn’t it impact the quality of the service for the consumer if the workers doing the labor to create the substance of the service, the basic thing that gives the service value to customers, are not being rewarded in a sustainable fashion for their time and labor?

Do you really think all your favorite artists are going to keep cranking out music in this environment? More importantly, do you think your favorite artists would have ever been able to invest the time and effort to get big enough to become that 1% of the successful musicians if the environment they began in was as hostile towards musicians earning money as it is now?

The amount of quality recorded music being released is going to plummet as musicians just stop bothering to do it. We will look back on the 2000s-2010s as a golden era where music production tools were distributed and affordable but venture capital hadn’t yet destroyed the ability of up and coming recording artists and audio engineers to actually devote the time and focus to becoming professional.

thesmokingman ,

At least 50% of the bands I’ve seen, toured with, or heard don’t record music to make money. There’s just too much music for it to be dependable income. They do it because they wanna share something neat with their friends. They upload it to sites like Spotify or a decade ago MySpace or a decade before that zines so other people can find cool shit. If they get lucky, that stumble upon nets a shirt sale which actually nets the band some income.

The sweeping generalizations you’re making do not apply. Stop trying to make music about money.

Edit: mailing tapes was a thing a few decades ago. Are you saying I ripped off those folks because I wanted friends on one coast to hear shit friends on the other coast recorded? That’s a really fucking hard DIY tour to build. You’re fucking Skinner saying all us kids are wrong.

supersquirrel ,

…what?

Are you angry at me for saying your friends were still getting underpaid for their labor even back then?

thesmokingman ,

For someone opposed to capitalism, you sure seem to think everything should be a grind mindset.

You’re underpaying all of us for our labor in interacting with you. You’re late on your “pay everyone on the fediverse” invoice. Don’t forget to pay your family for their “putting up with insufferable bullshit” time.

LoreleiSankTheShip ,

If a friend asks me to help with something, I don't removed and moan about my unpaid labour. Fuck that, they're my friends and I wouldn't take the money even if offered. That's just what friends do. The same applies to if I wanted to do something nice for them, like sending them a cool mixtape I made. That's how you build communities! Focusing on payment like you do reduces everything to capitalism but with even less empathy and humanity.

supersquirrel ,

I don’t understand where you are getting the impression that I think money is the point, I never said that.

What I said is the labor of recording musicians being totally eviscerated by capitalism is a tragedy and that I don’t buy the narrative that this was inevitable for one second.

thesmokingman ,

I said multiple times “lots of folks do music for fun.” You said “you’re undervaluing their labor.” That’s why everyone thinks you think money is the point.

You also seem to not understand market saturation. If a fair value for a recording is $20 (just pretend for a minute), consumers are happy to pay $20, and artists sell for $20, why aren’t musicians getting rich? It’s because there are more musicians producing an incredible volume of work than the consumers can completely support. Nowhere in that statement is an attack on the value of that labor just an acknowledgment that there’s too much to consume.

In addition, you seem to fail to understand the difference between value to the artist and value to the consumer. Physical and digital radio provide incredible value to the consumer. They don’t really provide value to the artist unless you have an incredible amount of fame. A very good question to ask is “how do we create a solution that’s good for the consumer and the artist?” I have no idea. Making music about money (like you continue to do) instead of about fun (like a good number of artists who aren’t topping charts do) makes it very difficult to balance what an artist should get paid against what consumers can afford to pay (assuming we remove all middle layers).

supersquirrel ,

Making music about money (like you continue to do) instead of about fun (like a good number of artists who aren’t topping charts do) makes it very difficult to balance what an artist should get paid against what consumers can afford to pay (assuming we remove all middle layers).

I am focusing on money because I think it is wrong the society exploits artists for their labor and then tells itself this is fine to do because artists love what they do.

Making music because money is the worst reason to make music, I don’t dispute that (why would I?) but that means for 99% of extremely talented musicians that they can’t devote very much time outside of day their job that pays the bills to make music. I want musicians to get materially rewarded for the labor of creating recorded music so they can afford to divert time from their day job to do it.

The math is very simple, every dollar less that a musician can realistically get from recording music is a dollar they have to make up elsewhere (especially in an environment where, at least in the US where I live, most people are on an economic knife edge and are one or two disasters away from their life spiraling out of control), and even if the amount of money an average moderately successful musician could realistically make even without a middleman like Spotify taking the lion’s share (to say the least), every dollar more a musician makes from their recording hobby on the side is one step closer to that musician being able to invest real time and energy to their craft (not just the vanishing amount of energy left over after they have paid the bills).

I live in the US, people cannot afford to devote actual energy and time into something unless it is their job or they are young and have a huge amount of extra energy. This is why I keep talking about money, it isn’t because I think musicians should approach music from a cynical money-making perspective, quite the opposite I want to live in a socialized society where housing, healthcare and basic necessities are provided as a baseline, so people can choose to develop their musicianship and audio engineering skills into professional careers without feeling like they are buying scratch tickets for a lottery they are likely never going to win anything from.

thesmokingman ,

You missed the market saturation. Again. You addressed everything except the last part of the sentence there. Music is a lottery, like most jobs, because there are too many people trying to do music. Streaming, radio, labels, exposure, these aren’t the problems at all. The number of people who are good at a thing and enjoy it are.

I follow maybe 30 artists fairly closely. I regularly listen to maybe 200. Across the genres I hit each month (way down from my music heyday), there’s probably 500 in regular rotation. I work in tech and make decent money. I can’t afford to support all of these amazing people. Sharing their music gets them more exposure which might lead to merch sales which is how they actually make money. If I had to sell their music every time I shared it, that would go away. Samplers, mix tapes, music videos, all of that is to drive merch sales. I buy on Bandcamp and still stream, meaning artists are getting more money from my consumption than back in the day when me buying a cassette was the final sale.

Unless you’re going to put some sort of barrier to entry in front of music, this problem does not go away. You’re advocating for the shitty cover band making the same amount of money as the original artist putting blood, sweat, and tears into a long career. That just doesn’t work. And, unfortunately, there are too many killer artists out there for all of them to earn a living doing music. Even if I could support all the artists I love in my country, there are that many or more in other countries.

Not everyone gets to do their dream job. Decent analysis if a bit scathing. My dream as a kid was writing. Turns out that dream was held by a ton of kids like me and none of can survive on that.

QuaternionsRock ,

No, dude… Spotify doesn’t have exclusive streaming rights to its music

Emerald ,

They were talking about how each publisher was making their own streaming service as if the solution would be to have them all under one roof aka a monopoly.

QuaternionsRock ,

I mean, nobody intrinsically cares how many competitors there are, so long as the all content can be retrieved from a single source. Of course that doesn’t mean people wouldn’t care if a single company were to abuse their monopoly e.g. by charging unreasonable rates or forcing ads (looking at you, cable).

It’s worth remembering that monopolies aren’t inherently illegal in the U.S. or anywhere else really; it’s not against the law to have the best product by a mile, nor should it be. Antitrust is illegal, which in this case would be defined by signing exclusive rights for all content and then providing a shitty service.

LoreleiSankTheShip ,

No, the solution would be for every app to be able to licence the music without any exclusivity, making them compete over the features their apps and services have instead of on the music itself. Video streaming is an oligopoly right now, which can be just as bad as a monopoly.

slumberlust ,

The greed isn't inherent in the system, in the humans. We have to fix our self-serving nature first.

EncryptKeeper ,

Oh yes why fix economic system when we can just defeat human nature. Great idea that’ll be much easier.

supersquirrel ,

facepalm we are literally the same species of Homo sapiens we have been for thousands of years, the problem is most certainly inherent in the system and we need to smash the system and make something kinder.

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

"but if we pirate things the singers won't get anything!"

yeah, fuck the music companies and fuck the movie companies. The moral thing to do is to pirate everything you want to watch, read and listen to.

the actors, writers and singers and everyone working behind the scenes are already getting next to nothing for their hard work compared to what the executives at all those corporations are getting for just sitting on their asses.

....sorry I blacked out, what were we talking about?

You should never pirate anything! that would be bad!

itsmect ,
@itsmect@monero.town avatar

God I wish more artists would support direct donations. Yoink the file from wherever and in exchange sneak 10 bucks into the artists pockets.

Grandwolf319 ,

Pirate and go to live shows.

Companies love selling you digital stuff cause they are essentially giving you nothing (as in it doesn’t cost them anything).

bob_lemon ,

I agree that live shows (and buying merch) is the best way to support artists.

But the CDNs required to run a music streaming service are anything but cheap.

Grandwolf319 ,

But the CDNs required to run a music streaming service are anything but cheap.

Yeah, I still think music streaming makes little sense cause usually people listen to songs over and over. Movie streaming makes more sense cause most people watch one title and not watch it again for years or ever.

fuck_u_spez_in_particular ,

Or buy (also) via something like bandcamp, when the artist is on it. They cut only 10% IIRC

Emerald ,

On Bandcamp Friday they take no cut at all. All money goes to artist after payment processor fees. https://isitbandcampfriday.com

supersquirrel ,

Bandcamp is in the rapid process of enshittification, so this is a temporary solution at best at this point :(

Emerald ,

Not really rapid. They were acquired, but I haven't noticed anything happen yet at all in my entire time using Bandcamp that would be "enshittification"

supersquirrel ,

They already fired half the employees who work for Bandcamp, Bandcamp is dead as an entity, just because is still flying through the air based on its own momentum yet and hasn’t coming crashing back to earth doesn’t mean that isn’t what is about to happen.

Bandcamp has always been amazing because it was run not like a massive corporation and those days are over.

ChickenLadyLovesLife ,

go to live shows

Live shows not put on by Ticketmaster! Shit ...

TheFeatureCreature ,
@TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world avatar

Please, people, for the love of the gods, stop using Spotify. There are numerous other services that are so much better value for your money and don't treat artists (as much) like trash.

And that being said, try to support your beloved artists directly as much as you can. Buying digital downloads or physical media will give them more money than a lifetime of streaming ever would. Plus you get to keep the higher-quality music even if the platform or artist goes tits-up.

uberdroog ,
@uberdroog@lemmy.world avatar

It's too convenient. Most people just want easy access and don't even think of the downstream impacts. If a song or two goes unavailable, probably won't notice. There is gonna need to be an alternative that is cheap and feature rich along with Spotify missing some steps. It's here for awhile.

TheFeatureCreature ,
@TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world avatar

You are not wrong, but there are other services that are just as convenient and for less money. Spotify knows they are the "default" music streaming platform and they are exploiting that.

uberdroog ,
@uberdroog@lemmy.world avatar

A quick Google puts the top two at Apple and Amazon. So that is a big no for me boss. I am pretty sure the next ones listed are just torrent front ends. I have a life now so no time for that...spotify it is.

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

I use Tidal. It may not be much better than Spotify, but it's better than Spotify.

BakerBagel ,

Audio quality is better and they pay the artists the most of all the major streaing platforms. I've been using Tidal for 2 years and have been very happy with the switch

red_rising ,

What is a better alternative, aside from just buying the media directly?

towerful ,

I'm enjoying Tidal

can ,

Well better than Spotify is a real low bar. I'm on an apple music family plan and I like it but if I weren't I'd probably get tidal. And they actually dropped the price of their high quality tier.

applepie ,

And they actually dropped the price of their high quality tier.

This is what we call competition, kids... i know most people don't understand the concept but it is supposed to make consumer make a change by providing a good deal.

This is the opposite we see nowadays, where they fuck you and say it is fine because "reasons"

can ,

Here's a link with more info

Tidal will no longer keep its high-res, lossless and spatial audio content locked behind a £20/$20-per-month “HiFi Plus” subscription. Instead, it is now moved into a single individual user plan, costing a lower-cost, Spotify-matching £11/$11 per month.

Previously, users paid that price for CD-quality FLAC files, but needed to opt for the pricier plan to unlock 24-bit/192kHz tracks and Dolby Atmos content.

That's now all changed as of 10th April, which saw the new £11/$11 per month plan implemented.

And specifically to your point

This price drop only puts further pressure on Spotify to improve the quality of its catalogue, which is currently capped at 320kbps in its Premium tier, and has no native support for spatial audio tracks.

That alone should be enough to get people considering other options. I'm sure there's more beyond the big three too.

slaacaa ,

I got a few months of Apple Music with some device, was happy to ditch Spotify. Not very good, preferred Spotify’s UI and logic, but still a better alternative, and at least not pushing podcasts in my face (which I have zero interest in). I will never use Spotify again

can ,

That's another big one to me too. I opened Spotify recently and you can plainly see the music is no longer the focus.

ThirdWorldOrder ,

I used Tidal for a year but went back to Apple Music. I don’t understand what people like about Tidal that Apple Music doesn’t offer.

can ,

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/d9c3dbe0-3973-443f-94c7-41daf5560edd.jpeg
Source

They pay the artist more. And I like how they handle interacting with collaborative works.

ThirdWorldOrder ,

It’s really 3 peanuts instead of 4. Streaming just doesn’t provide a lot of money for artists.

can ,

That's true. I still use Bandcamp. But as someone who listens to a lot of rap when I'm on a track and "view artist" I appreciate Tidal allowing me to choose which artist. Apple music defaults to the firs listed artist.

azezeB ,

Could you give me some examples of alternative services? I'm paying spotify right now, but i'll love to ditch it.

towerful ,

I'm enjoying Tidal

Neuromancer49 ,

Thanks for the recommendation, I was worried they would be missing some of my artists but they had 99% of my music. Can't wait to ditch Spotify.

ETA: dear lord the sound quality is so much better. I had no idea what I was missing.

logi ,

Yeah, happily using Tidal as well. Haven't missed any music that wasn't also missing from Spotify, so...

towerful ,

Yeh, it's pretty amazing.
Only thing I miss from Spotify are the user generated playlists, where I can search for something like "liquid drum and bass" and get a bunch of playlists

rtxn ,

Does Tidal have a lightweight Linux client that's kept up-to-date?

Codilingus ,

Tidal on Linux is a crap shoot, which sucks because pipewire is awesome for HiRes music since it can change sample rate on the fly to match a source. Best bet is Firefox and their web player, and using the middle tier "high" that's blue colored, and letting pipewire play @ 44100

fushuan ,

Check this web player wrapper, it allows for high and Max quality

https://github.com/Mastermindzh/tidal-hifi?tab=readme-ov-file#features

Codilingus ,

That runs on chromium, which in Linux is HARD locked to 48000, so every single song will be resampled.

towerful ,

Unfortunately, I've only found a wrapped up web client thing. Using the web page is probably similar.

The wrapped up web client works better than the native client on windows, tho. Not sure on sound quality, I haven't had an issue tho

fushuan ,

If you are talking about Tidal HiFi, the UI might be similar to the web version but apparently itbruns on a modified version of chrome that allows HiFi music? I did test it some months ago and the quality difference is noticeable.

towerful ,

Yeh, the electron wrapped Tidal HiFi for Linux. I just checked the GitHub, and it says it supports High and Max settings thanks to Widevine.
I swapped from Spotify to Tidal on windows and was blown away. Shortly after I started daily-driving Linux. I haven't done an A/B between the Linux electron version and the windows desktop version, but it hasn't annoyed me like Spotify did.

fushuan ,

According to another commenter chromium on Linux is hard capped on quality, so although it's noticeable vs the web version, it's not actual Max quality. I haven't noticed it although my headphones should be able to show the difference (sony MDR 7506, I know, yes, for everything, people say that it doesn't sound nice, I don't care I love it) so idk.

towerful ,

Yeh, that's where I'm at with it.
I've seen comments that chromium does 48khz, and the high quality is 44.1khz, so there's is sample rate conversion happening yada yada yada.
I'm not going to let perfection stand in the way of good.

Hopefully Tidal releases a native Linux client. That would be ideal.
Either way, it's better than Spotify. I'm not bombarded by podcasts, I'm not funding podcasts I wouldn't touch with a 10ft pole, and Tidal pays artists more than both Apple and Spotify.
It ticks enough boxes for me, and I'm super happy with Tidal

fushuan ,

100% agree, it's better than all the other music services in quality on linux just because it (3rd party) offers something that has somewhat better sound quality than the basic video version of any other one, and Spotify being the only other one that has an unendorsed official native client (done by the devs in their spare time without any official support offered) is pointless because their best audio quality is trash.

fushuan ,

Idk what the other two are saying because Tidal HiFi is an unofficial client that let's you reproduce high quality music, being basically the only one that let's you do it on Linux. Yeah it's a web wrapper but with HiFi enabled or whatever, I don't really remember but the default web version doesn't have HiFi and the app does and it's noticeable.

https://github.com/Mastermindzh/tidal-hifi?tab=readme-ov-file#features

gila ,
@gila@lemm.ee avatar

As an Apple hater; Apple Music. Cheaper, good cross-platform frontends, more equitable to artists (though by no means satisfactorily so), has a Wrapped equivalent (though who actually cares). Maybe Spotify added something it doesn't have in the several years since I switched but, I doubt it

Andrenikous ,

Apple Music is on Android?

noodlejetski ,

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=apple+music+android

gila ,
@gila@lemm.ee avatar

Yup

Hayduke ,

It is, but the app is frustrating. It has a mind of its own sometimes and, subjectively, basic UI functionality was an afterthought. Also no support on a galaxy watch.

That said, it sounds great and has a solid catalog (except the DJ Krush/Toshinori Kondo collab, Ki-Oku. Grrrr)

TheFeatureCreature ,
@TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, although keep in mind this will vary by region due to licensing issues.

Deezer is probably Spotify's best direct competitor. They are priced equally (depending on region) and now offer high-res streaming as default instead of a paid extra. They've been expanding with new features such as lyrics, collab playlists, song identification, and they recently improved their recommendation system. They also offer a discount if you buy subs yearly instead of monthly so you can save if you like the platform.

Apple Music is also an option now that Apple has put in some work to make the platform easier to use on non-Apple devices such as the recently added Windows app. It's not as feature-rich as Deezer but if you don't use those added features anyway then it is an option. I personally would phrase it as "has less bloat". If you own any Apple devices already then it will have tighter integration with them.

Tidal is the old favourite of audiophiles and music appreciators. They have been expanding their platform with new features and music and, somewhat recently, have also lowered their prices. High-res streaming is now included in the base sub tier. All of these alternatives pay artists more than Spotify but Tidal has one of the best artist payouts.

Qobuz is similar to Tidal and is a premium platform with a focus on quality. They are a newer service and are still expanding their regions, so I don't have personal experience with them as they only recently opened up to my country. Their price and feature set looks competitive, though, and their UI does look slick. They also have better artist payouts.

Amazon Music apparently has better payouts for artists but Amazon is a shit company so I've never looked into them further. I'll include YouTube Music here as well which has shitty payouts and is a shitty company.

fpslem OP ,

Amazon Music

I invested heavily in the Amazon Music ecosystem, I bought hundreds of albums on there, and the platform is now very nearly unusuable. I cannot even listen to the songs that I paid for without also having to listen to ads. And the Android app now hides the downloads in some hidden folder so I can't even download them and listen to them on another player. It makes me furious.

I've actually gone back to CDs, if you can believe it. It's kind of nice sometimes, especially for full album plays, but I do miss a nice big playlist of my favorite songs from all artists.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

I can believe it. I still have multiple libraries of physical media, and I pretty much never buy anything new that I can't likewise physically own. I might rip and make MP3's or transcode or emulate, or whatever, for convenience, but sometimes it's just nice to be able to stick the disk or cartridge in the machine and have it just work without any of the associated modern ancillary bullshit.

Everything wants to be a service now. I just find that so irritating.

narc0tic_bird ,
@narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee avatar

What's the USP of Deezer over Apple Music now that the latter has lossless streaming as well (and live lyrics for longer)?

ThirdWorldOrder ,

Apple Music also has Dolby atmos and much higher quality audio files compared to Spotify.

The only thing Spotify has on everyone is excellent playlists. I just use SongShift to copy the playlists over.

Tidal is okay but I prefer Apple Music since it has a better UI, cheaper price and is more user friendly for my non-audiophile family members.

zelifcam ,
@zelifcam@lemmy.world avatar

if you use Apple Music and have a desktop/laptop look into Cider 2. Incredible streaming music player.
https://cider.sh/

Salix ,

Just looked into these. It doesn't look like any of these have official Linux apps :(

steal_your_face ,
@steal_your_face@lemmy.ml avatar

Apple Music has a web based player

fushuan ,

Tidal is the only one for me since it's the only one with an unofficial HiFi Linux client, which is a wrapper around the web version but with HiFi enabled.

I'm happy reading that they are decent on pay for artists.

ApollosArrow ,

The interesting thing about Tidal is that is was originally owned by artists (Jay-Z, Beyoncé; Kanye West; Madonna; Jason Aldean; Alicia Keys; Arcade Fire; Coldplay’s Chris Martin; Rihanna; and deadmau5) Who have since sold off a majority share to Block, while Jay-Z kept a board seat and other artists still have shares. Curious if it will last.

red ,
@red@sopuli.xyz avatar

None of these have good app support compared to Spotify, sadly. Not supported by my car, nor my Linux desktop, or home speakers.

Oh and Deezer pays even less to artists than Spotify.

thesystemisdown ,

Oh and Deezer pays even less to artists than Spotify.

I don't think that's accurate. Care to provide your source?

MigratingtoLemmy ,

Qobuz/Tidal/Deezer?

khannie ,
@khannie@lemmy.world avatar

Napster pay decent artist royalties and offer a Spotify migration service for your playlists etc. as well as lossless music.

KoalaUnknown ,

Apple Music and Tidal.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2891237d-d526-40ee-a199-0ae3658e8df7.jpeg

stealth_cookies ,

One of these services needs to release a feature like Spotify Connect, can't switch without a replacement for that.

zelifcam ,
@zelifcam@lemmy.world avatar

Spotify Connect

Unless I’m reading this wrong, is this just Spotify’s solution for listening with friends? If so, that’s far from a Spotify exclusive feature.

Edit: Okay. So it’s their version of Airplay. It’s too bad Apple never opened it up. Streaming to remote devices has works for almost 20 years now in the Apple ecosystem.

stealth_cookies ,

Pretty much, I use one computer to remote control the music on my computer that is hooked up to my headphones or speakers.

Nobody else supports that functionality last I checked.

IcePee ,

While it doesn't have well known artists, indie streaming Resonate prides itself as having the most generous (or at least, close to) payments to artists. To support this, it has an innovative payment model akin to higher purchase. You pay a little for the first listen to a track, but the price increases through subsequent listens. After 9 listens, you own the track outright. The total cost of ownership is around $0.9

classic ,

That's a cool model, at least at first glance

ZeroTwo ,

Thank God for a certain manager. Haven't paid for Spotify in years. Fuck em.

barnaclebutt ,

Ugh, that's disgusting. Which manager so I know to stay away from it?

lemmy_nightmare ,
@lemmy_nightmare@sh.itjust.works avatar

😂

ZeroTwo ,

X gon give it to ya! 😉

Cossty ,

15 hours of audiobooks per month is a joke. That's not even one longer book.

benpetersen ,

And it's not every member of the plan, it's only the primary user. Also the "buy more hours" of an audiobook is such a crappy idea to get us to buy an audiobook, and gosh it's not even all audiobooks it's only the first of the series. Even if you add more hours, you can't listen to the 2nd book. This is half the reason why they had to raise prices. It costs them a bit for those 15 hours and the music lovers and creators are paying the price for their misunderstanding

Cossty ,

I didn't think it could be worse...
I just bought one Dell mini PC and I will turn it into server and I will start self host a lot of my services. Audiobookshelf is going to be one of them

aesthelete ,

They suck ass. Stop paying them money.

supersquirrel ,

Gotta love all my friends who are really into music who happily use Spotify and don’t give a shit it is a weapon of class warfare being used on musicians disguised as a music player!

I basically lost all my drive to make something of my love of creating music seeing how little anyone in my society actually values music or musicians in terms of material support and reward, it is honestly pretty scary how broken music has become.

fpslem OP ,

I really wish there was a better alternative to push my friends to. I do use Bandcamp, so at least I know more of my $$$ are going to the artists and I can take the music with me, but I'm not sure about the platform long-term.

supersquirrel , (edited )

As a musician and composer it really took the life out of my identity as a composer seeing an alternative to bandcamp never really form and then one day waking up to it bought by Epic.

I didn’t cry that day, but I might as well have, it made me extraordinarily sad to see that headline and I imagine there are actually countless talented musicians out there who will never actuate on their creative vision because the environment for music production is at this point, downright hostile towards artists and musicians considering the amount of work music production is.

It takes an obscene amount of work to take a song from something that has promise to being as polished as listeners demand nowadays, and listeners won’t even give your song a chance on actual speakers. You have to twist and warp your music so it sounds good on essentially monophonic phone speakers with shitty frequency coverage or otherwise nobody will give it a try on speakers for actually listening to music. Doesn’t matter though, nobody is going to actually support you for the art you make.

🙃

It seems like https://resonate.coop/ is still around tho which seems like a cool idea (a coop owned streaming service where listeners can stream-to-own a song).

deranger ,

Not sure if this is exactly good news, but Epic Games doesn’t own it anymore, it was sold to Songtradr.

can ,

the largest music licensing platform in the world

Doesn't sound too good to me. Bandcamp used to be where I could get music from smaller artists who couldn't afford clearing samples (as they weren't making money) and I worry a lot of that will be lost.

deranger ,

Still is, for now. I run a small vaporwave tape label via Bandcamp. No significant changes under Epic Games or Songtradr that I’ve noticed. That could change, though.

supersquirrel , (edited )

It will change, I promise you. I am so confident I will literally bet my girlfriend's chihuahua on it.

wikipedia chihuahua

better hope lefties and artists get their shit together you tiny little monster

can ,

Everyone on Lemmy and the fediverse as a whole should be aware of this pattern. I just hope something can fill in before it gets too bad.

I'm keeping an eye on Faircamp.

can ,

That's how it always begins.

But on a more positive note, care to share the label or more about your experience about it? With regards to Bandcamp and more generally.

deranger ,

Sure, https://mysticspools.bandcamp.com/

Most of it is pretty fun- find music, reach out to artist, make a few tapes. We just do small runs of 25-100 tapes depending on how much will sell. The worst part IMO is order fulfillment, you either pay a third party a boatload or you DIY and packing 100 cassettes is a bit of a drag. Coming up with good art if the artist doesn’t already have something is quite difficult. The label is on a short hiatus for that reason, but I think we’ll do some more tapes now that some labels have dried up. There’s waxing and waning periods when it comes to these little micro labels, and I can tell people are feeling the economic squeeze.

The most fun part is mastering to tape and dubbing. I’ve got a Nakamichi Dragon and 3x NAD 6300, and I’ve dubbed probably 500-600 tapes across them all. Dunno what it is about tapes, but I really like em.

supersquirrel ,

🤷‍♂️ not really, none of these corporations are real in any sense that matters other than sucking up actual companies that actually make the world a better place and mining the goodwill out of them until they are cynical, worthless husks that corporations use to fleece consumers into buying products from before they realize their favorite company/brand is dead in everything but name.

ozymandias117 ,

As bad as Epic is, probably worse…

Even though Bandcamp was profitable the new CEO said this after buying it

the financial state of Bandcamp has not been healthy

So they’re probably looking for any way to cut costs.
They fired half of the staff on day 1, including anyone who tried to unionize

LarryTheMatador ,
@LarryTheMatador@sh.itjust.works avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    floofloof ,

    Ah yes, and unsanctioned art will be classified as a form of terrorism.

    Diplomjodler3 ,

    And most people will be perfectly happy to consume that and nothing else ever.

    GregorGizeh ,

    100% where we are headed with this backwards capitalist approach to ai. Make bots churn out art, films, music, anything creative really, so the proles have more time for mindless manual labor

    SexualPolytope ,
    @SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    How about https://qobuz.com ? I've bought some flac files from them.

    best_username_ever ,

    You can't use Qobuz if you're behind a VPN. It makes me sad because I wanted to try this.

    kiku123 ,

    It seems that ampwall.com may come sometime as an alternative to Bandcamp? Time will tell...

    MigratingtoLemmy ,

    Qobuz

    CandleTiger ,

    Is Pandora any better than Spotify at paying artists?

    jennwiththesea , (edited )
    @jennwiththesea@lemmy.world avatar

    I use Napster. I chose it way back when Spotify paid for the Rogan podcast, from a list of platforms that pay artists more. I'm not sure if that's true any longer, but look it up! I've been really happy with their service. (And it's really full circle for me, since I used their original service decades ago.)

    ETA I can't vouch for the accuracy of this site, but it says Napster is still one of the top-paying platforms.
    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f8591cc1-6b36-4cb5-8885-02d757157fa6.png

    pineapplelover ,

    How does this compare to Tidal?

    jennwiththesea ,
    @jennwiththesea@lemmy.world avatar

    According to that site, Napster pays more. Here's the info on TIDAL:

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/089cc4b2-3a07-4c81-add1-c7dd4e4e9a36.png

    Resonosity ,

    I just downloaded Bandcamp, and after searching for my favorite artists, almost none are on the platform aside from 1-2. Did a search on like 20-25. This is why I use Spotify. Maybe if artists started acknowledging Bandcamp as a legitimate alternative to Spotify, then of course I'd listen there. But right now most stuff by my favorite bands are either covers or remixes.

    supersquirrel ,

    Chicken and the egg, be the change you want to be, but also I am not absolutist about using Spotify.

    I just think Spotify and other streaming services are vehicles of class warfare against musicians that also happen to play music. I understand if you like the playing music part!

    Bishma ,
    @Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    All the streamers suck; plus Spotify definitely sucks the most and it has the most subscribers. So I do my best to support artists I love by buying their albums in some physical form (vinyl if possible because it encourages active listening), t-shirts when I need a t-shirt, fan clubs, etc. It's all I can think to do.

    supersquirrel ,

    It’s all I can think to do.

    I think you thought of a lot of good things to do!

    I don’t mean to be overly cynical about people, this is a problem of systems and normalization of things that shouldn’t be normalized primarily, the people are mainly just trying to survive.

    sigh

    SmackemWittadic ,
    @SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world avatar

    I say this a lot to people on Lemmy, but everyone here (including you) is honestly so much nicer and more emotionally intelligent than people on other places on the internet

    supersquirrel ,

    Many of us here might even be toxic in other contexts (I am certainly not perfect at keeping away from being overly negative or argumentative with people), but what matters is which version of someone we invite in the door to our community.

    We can invite in any version of people we want, and I agree in general I think the fediverse invites in the better version of people and it is one of the primary reasons I love this weird, loosely connected blob of non-corporate social media.

    mihies ,

    The thing is, you're buying from their record labels, not directly from artists. And then it depends on their contract how much they actually get. But they are still getting more from it, I guess.

    Bishma ,
    @Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    It helps when the band runs their own label.

    Diplomjodler3 ,

    Soon we'll have AI music generators and most people will be perfectly happy to only ever listen to what those churn out.

    supersquirrel ,

    I mean, we'll see.

    Maybe.

    Maybe we will just look back at the period that is rapidly coming to a close as a golden era of music (and video games for that matter) where the tools became sophisticated, affordable and distributed for music production but venture capital hadn't yet destroyed any last vestiges of the monetary value of musician's labor (audio engineer's included) in recording contexts.

    Of course, I am sure Spotify and other streaming services are coming around to the value of recorded music being unsustainably low, I mean everybody knows it deep down right? That is why they are going to continue to raise their prices. From the perspective of Spotify, the artists that actually do the work of making Spotify a valuable company aren't in principle excluded from their share of the pie when the line starts to go back up and the company has a chance to reverse some of the belt tightening and sacrifices everybody had to make to keep the lights on.... but every single one of these vapid losers believes deep down in their bones that the rules of the game say that it isn't the responsibility of shareholders or upper management of Spotify to just hand the musicians their fare share of the increasing profits, or even alert them to the fact that profits are in fact increasing in the first place. Musicians are not the customers nor the shareholders of Spotify, they are the commodified, interchangeable contractors that aren't much different than the day laborers who hang out outside of most Home Depots in the US looking for handyman work.

    This is like when the English saw that the only crop Irish peasants could afford to grow on the side for subsistence farming to feed their families, potatoes, were getting destroyed by a potato blight, and decided that it would send the wrong message to let those Irish peasants have any of the rest of the crops that Irish farmers were growing to sell to foreign markets to simply pay the English rent for their farms ...... crops that were not significantly impacted by the potato blight because it would make the Irish reliant on handouts and encourage a problematic tendency towards apathy and entitlement stubbornly latent in the Irish population.

    🔥 Burn 🔥 It 🔥 Down 🔥
    (with love)

    jabathekek ,
    @jabathekek@sopuli.xyz avatar

    ...and now here's... Human Music

    reev ,

    It has already started.

    sp3tr4l ,

    In my experience those kinds of people are Ice Spice fans.

    Who think that SSSniperwolf arriving at another person's house live on Insta and doxxing them during a manic episode is 'slay'.

    can ,

    There'd a lot to unpack here

    phoneymouse ,

    Wut

    can ,

    How much do they really care? I'm not usually a quality snob, especially since I frequently use gear of varying quality making it moot, but wouldn't most people who are really into music at least consider the competition that offers higher quality files at similar if not the same price?

    Or are they the type to only have local FLAC with their DAC? Because I like my collection but streaming is still worth the convenience for jumping into a new album.

    supersquirrel , (edited )

    Edit: I didn't really make it clear, my interest in services like Bandcamp wasn't higher quality music, it was that it was run by at least a relatively benign company that seemed to treat artists like actual human beings who artistic labor was inherently valuable. I would buy craft beer/cider/meader even if Budweiser or Coors Light was actually better quality beer, what I care about at the end of the day is my money going to someone or something good

    I have spent a lotttt of time messing around with music production and learning what is pseudo-science (a whole fuckton of it) and what is real science. In all of the ABx testing I have done, read about, and seen demonstrated in person myself a quality MP3 with a decent bitrate encoding (idk 128kps or so?) using a decent algorithm and hell even a sampling rate of 41khz will produce an audio recording that when played back on a hifi audio system and level matched (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, it is well known in mastering and mixing that a louder mix always sounds better at first glance) is indistinguishable from the source .wav file to the human ear (I don't care how super human you claim your ear is).

    People make this silly mistake of thinking that digitization introduces these sharp staircase edges into audio waveforms, which is actually kind of a hilarious misconception (which I completely understand, not trying to insult people's intelligence) because the entire idea of converting a waveform (an analog non-bandwith limited phenomena) into a bandwidth-limited digital waveform is utterly reliant on the idea that the analog reproduction of a digital square wave/stair step function with a voicecoil and diaphragm, physical hardware components with shape, size and crucially mass, must necessarily create a smooth analog waveform because physical hardware components have mass and momentum, they aren't theoretical ideas. It is better to think of a bandwith limited digital waveform as a series of movement commands for an RTS unit in Starcraft 2. The unit will naturally path between discrete points in a way that creates fluid movement, fundamentally it wouldn't make any sense for the unit to just teleport directly to where you click and then teleport directly to where you click next etc....

    I mean let us consider Vinyl records for a second, maybe you like most people have a vague perception they are kind of a hifi audio thing for people that reallllllly care about audio quality and don't want to listen to chopped up and compressed digital audio files using a gasp consumer DAC that came stock in their laptop.

    This quote from an old reddit thread discussing how CDs actually have far better signal-to-noise ratio fidelity than Vinyls (and really all decent quality digital audio files) about sums it up.

    As for quantitative audio quality differences between the two mediums, the CD is superior. CDs operate at a sampling rate of 44.1kHz. These are discrete points, versus the continuous signal produced by a physical vinyl groove. However, the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem explains why a 44.1kHz sampling rate is sufficient for completely reproducing frequencies up to 44.1 / 2 or 22.05 kHz (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem ). True response will actually be lower than 22.05 kHz due to the various anti-aliasing filters involved in the analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion process to prevent frequencies above 22.05 kHz from aliasing down into the audible range (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing#Folding ).

    Furthermore, the CD is recorded with 16 bits of resolution, results in an output with 65,536 discrete voltage 'steps' on the output. This does introduce some quantization noise, because the real signal is 'rounded' up or down to the nearest of the 65,536 steps. This is another area where some people claim vinyl is superior due to the lack of quantization of the output. But in practice, vinyl only has 9-10 bits of resolution (IIRC) due to manufacturing tolerances. To achieve around 16 bits of resolution, the tolerance of production for the groove would have to be on the order of 1/65,536 or ~0.001%. That's not going to happen on those tiny grooves. Also, you have to consider the non-zero inertia of the physical pick-up moving across those tracks, which will introduce a separate set of distortions as it moves around.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1ic9f0/do_vinyls_really_have_a_better_audio_quality_than/

    can ,

    Believe I've gone down a similar path. I agree, but I assumed the layman dedicated music fan would at least be curious.

    And on another note we need more discussion music and audio production around Lemmy.

    thesmokingman ,

    Walk me through this.

    Before Spotify, I’d buy a record (physical or digital) and listen to that. I pay the artist once. After Spotify, I buy a record and listen to it on Spotify. I pay the artist the normal record price and there’s a long tail from stream payouts (unless they don’t reach the payout threshold).

    Before Spotify, if someone heard a song and didn’t buy the record, they didn’t pay the artist. After Spotify, if they still don’t buy a record, the artist now earns from stream payouts.

    Finally, before Spotify, if someone bought a record but stopped buying after Spotify, the artist loses that record purchase. This is definitely bad. Was Spotify the real reason? Would something other than Spotify have pulled them away? What levels of fame are materially affected by this?

    Do artists have to pay to be on Spotify? Is that the issue?

    supersquirrel ,

    the artist now earns from stream payouts.

    Do artists have to pay to be on Spotify? Is that the issue?

    The issue is that artists don't make any actual money on Spotify, they are being forced to put their music on Spotify because that is where you have to put your stuff if you want to be a successful recording musician.

    Meanwhile a couple of years ago the Spotify ceo said in defense of completely destroying any semblance of money making from recording music:

    “There is a narrative fallacy here, combined with the fact that, obviously, some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape, where you can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough,” said Ek.

    https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/08e35e66-b22e-4654-a84b-2eeb5f679330.webp

    https://www.reddit.com/r/musicmarketing/comments/mlemlh/why_youre_9998_likely_to_never_make_real_money/

    Streaming is great, but the structural evisceration of musicians and the value of labor in composing and producing is basically negative at this point given the huge amount of time that must go into a track to get it 100% there and ready for listeners.

    thesmokingman ,

    The thread you linked says what I said.

    I’ve been doing DIY music since I was a kid. The vast majority of bands are never going to make any money ever. Spotify didn’t change that. Streaming didn’t cause that. The reality of every kid with a guitar thinking music is about making money not having fun is what did that.

    supersquirrel ,

    I don’t subscribe to this cynical of a viewpoint, it isn’t inevitable that recording music is not valued labor, it is a cultural choice same as any other.

    I live in the richest country on earth, it is a subjective choice to devalue the labor of musicians and decouple it from the profits of music companies.

    thesmokingman ,

    Who the fuck has a label? Do you know anything about music that isn’t already incredibly corporate? When was the last time you went to a DIY show and bought handmade merch off a band touring in their minivan? Compare that to the last time you bought a record from a label or merch from an online store run through not the band.

    There are more than likely 300+ bands in a 20 to 50 mile radius around you. Do you support all of them as much as you’re pushing people on the internet to support all music? What about the really bad cover bands? Them too?

    Your statements paint a picture that you have no idea what I meant by “levels of fame” because fucking no one makes money off music unless you get lucky. There’s just too much because music is fun.

    supersquirrel ,

    Your statements paint a picture that you have no idea what I meant by “levels of fame” because fucking no one makes money off music unless you get lucky. There’s just too much because music is fun.

    Again I don’t see any quantitative evidence to accept this framing of the status quo as inevitable or reflective of some fundamental tendency of human artists to overproduce art.

    Capitalists have systematically stole the labor of musicians and normalized and absolutely absurd vision of austerity where the only way to make money is by doing things that people don’t want to do. It is absurd, and this ideology is pretty easy to locate the motivation behind, it makes us good compliant factory workers.

    thesmokingman ,

    So you’ve bought every album from every artist you’ve ever listened to? Or, like the rest of us, do you have a limited amount of resources and have made strategic decisions about who to support? Because if you’re not dropping $20 in the tip jar of the next busker you see, you’re a huge fucking hypocrite.

    I have not devalued music at all. You have, multiple times. You’ve also said that music has to be about money which is pretty fucking capitalistic. I’ve highlighted it’s about fun multiple times. You keep advocating for labels and ignore DIY which means you’ve already established a class system in music. You’ve provided no quantitative evidence to show you support any music and seem to hype up record labels whose business is built on licensing.

    Should everyone get paid for all their music? Fuck yeah. Can I afford to pay every band? Fuck no. Did Spotify or streaming or even the fucking radio do that? Nope. Sure fucking didn’t. The market saturation did because music isn’t about money, it’s about fun. If you want it to be your job, good fucking luck. That’s just simple commerce. Not capitalism. If everyone on the commune is just making bead necklaces and there’s only one customer looking to buy one necklace, is that customer fucking all the people on the commune except the person they bought from?

    blanketswithsmallpox ,

    ... Class warfare?

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify

    MilitantAtheist ,

    I love how no one mentions that the great success business Spotify got all their starting music from the mp3 warez scene.

    Early Spotify songs still had the meta data from those files, including misspelled song names and years of issue.

    anon_8675309 ,

    Because don’t most people know their history by now?

    Sanguine_Sasquatch ,

    I would imagine that the vast majority of Spotify's listeners, and even critics, don't care about where they got their initial music from

    RizzRustbolt ,

    Don't use spotifly.

    Give your money to SomaFM instead.

    Churbleyimyam ,

    And Radio Free Fedi.

    Cris_Color ,
    @Cris_Color@lemmy.world avatar

    What is radio free fedi?

    Churbleyimyam ,

    Radio Free Fedi or @RFF is a community internet radio station which plays music from artists on the fediverse. From their own website at https://radiofreefedi.net/ :

    radio free fedi is consent, agency and artist celebrating community radio from the fediverse. We actively and openly present contributing artists' information with the hopes that you will drop-in, discover, and then LEAVE? That's right, RFF has no interest to be an end-point for hyper focused consumption. We also do not have the resource to provide infinite custom streams and we love the community to not do soulless algorithms. We want to foster organic discovery and discourse. We want to generate support for independent artists on the platforms and methods of their choice, no judgement. Support independent and fedi artists!

    I've discovered loads of awesome and unique music on it :)

    Cris_Color ,
    @Cris_Color@lemmy.world avatar

    Dude that sounds rad! Thanks for mentioning them and explaining what they are, I'll have to check that out!

    Churbleyimyam ,

    It fuckin is rad! I love it so much! I mostly listen to the Comfy channel but I've found some wicked stuff on the main channel too. There's usually a link so you can find them on the fedi or buy a track too.
    Maybe it's because of the fediverse/freedom/generosity ethic and I'm in a biased bubble but everything on there is just so genuinely good, even if it's not normally my taste. I've had a bunch of really sweet evenings listening to it and my gf always asks what the track is when I put it on. I kinda want to volunteer for the channel tbh. Check it out and feel free to DM me with what you think! I'm spending more time on Lemmy than Mastodon these days, so I'm not seeing people mention them via hashtags as much. RFF and Pixelfed are basically the best thing about the internet right now imo :)

    jjjalljs ,

    I already commented somewhere else in this thread, but I've been just buying music via bandcamp and I feel pretty good about it. If I buy about one new album a month for $8, it's cheaper than spotify and after a couple years I have a large library of music I own outright.

    This works with my listening habits, which are something like "I have like one new (-to me) album on heavy rotation every couple of weeks". Someone who's more of a "i never listen to the same song twice" extreme wouldn't have as good a time.

    RGB3x3 ,

    This works with my listening habits, which are something like "I have like one new (-to me) album on heavy rotation every couple of weeks"

    I actually kinda do the same thing, so you've got me thinking I should start just buying albums. Build a Jellyfin server so I can still stream music, and just not deal with subscriptions.

    And actually, most of the time I buy records that come with digital downloads anyway. Time to rethink my Tidal subscription.

    viking ,
    @viking@infosec.pub avatar

    Yeah I'm done with spotify.

    Back when it was a fiver, I could get the appeal and had a subscription myself.

    At 11 bucks it comes at the price of a CD per month, every month. I didn't buy that much music annually, ever. So right now we are entering a territory where streaming is exceeding the price of my regular music consumption patterns. I'll go back to buying physical media and torrenting whatever old stuff is no longer available and can't be found on ebay.

    Fuck 'em with a cactus.

    theangryseal ,

    CDs are cheap as fuck now.

    I’d cancel my Spotify but my teenager would drop dead.

    wrekone ,

    That's what's stopping me too. I've tried to convince them that Youtube Music (I'm a holdover from the Play Music days, RIP) is good enough but they won't have it. I miss Songza.

    GarytheSnail ,
    @GarytheSnail@programming.dev avatar

    I typically like to just buy my music but the appeal of spotify, to me, is the algorithm and being able to play random singles and one offs from artists I would probably not ever hear a single thing from otherwise.

    jjjalljs ,

    I like bandcamp a lot more than spotify for finding new music. A lot of it feels less soulless because it is (presumably) written by real people.

    https://daily.bandcamp.com/essential-releases/essential-releases-may-10-2024 - timely
    https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/japanese-acid-folk-list - genre deep dive

    Plus on a given album page, like https://castleratband.bandcamp.com/album/into-the-realm-2 , it has links to "Other people liked this", and the genre tags. It's pretty good for discoverability, though maybe not as smooth as the soulless algorithms of spotify.

    Bandcamp sold to epic and then got sold to some other vultures so they might turn to shit, but until that happens it's a good, profitable, seemingly equitable platform. Artists got a big cut, you got drm-free music. The idea seems solid, if you can avoid the "infinite growth at all costs" and "i'm gonna sell out, fuck you" traps.

    TheLowestStone ,
    @TheLowestStone@lemmy.world avatar

    I use Spotify regularly on my PC without a subscription and an ad blocker running. Does that qualify as fucking them with a cactus?

    viking ,
    @viking@infosec.pub avatar

    I do the same with youtube and adblock, so I guess that qualifies.

    Grandwolf319 ,

    Yeah, people forget that the appeal of Spotify was being able to make a free account and listen to any music. It was okay that it was worse cause it was easy.

    Idk how paying for it became common… maybe cause those free users got too comfortable with it.

    CrayonRosary ,

    I don't subscribe, bit I wouldn't think about it compared to the price of physical media. I would compare it to satellite radio. Or cable radio. (Does Spectrum still do that?)

    All three are paid, ad-free radio, sorta, though streaming services are on-demand.

    set_secret ,

    I fucked off Spotify after the Jo Rogan debacle.

    Viper_NZ ,

    I’ve been with Tidal since. I miss the Spotify recommendation algorithm but that’s it.

    lingh0e ,

    I've been a paying member for almost a decade. I've been training it that entire time with what I do and don't like. I've also been using their suggested playlists for years and further refining what they recommend. So their algorithm is a huge part of it for me. I am constantly finding songs and artists I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise.

    That said, I've been holding my nose while I renewed the service for the past couple of years. I'm willing to part ways for Tidal if it's a comparable service with better benefits to the artists.

    set_secret ,

    Same

    Jarix ,

    i paid for the best tier Tidal for a year and it was a worse experience than spotify. Their catalogue is incomplete compared to spotify

    CoffeeJunkie ,

    Joe Rogan debacle?

    set_secret ,

    There's plenty of info if you google your comment.

    https://www.salon.com/2022/02/07/spotify-joe-rogan-artists-subscribers/

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/arts/joe-rogan-spotify.html

    Etc etc

    Underwaterbob ,

    It's not really just Spotify. I'm a hobbyist music producer. I uploaded my entire catalog through Distrokid about two years ago. Distrokid serves just about every streaming service. It costs $20 a year for the most basic package. I've got ~8 million listens according to Distrokid, and that nets me about $40 US. So, I made my money back. Not bad for 20 years of work. Haha!

    I don't really care about the numbers, like I said, I'm a hobbyist. I make music because I enjoy making music. It would never be my career unless I dropped everything and struck out touring trying to make it in an industry that traditionally chews up and spits out hopefuls. I'm not exactly the age or attractiveness that most people expect in a touring musician, either.

    afox ,

    I appreciate this. Can I have a listen? I also make music... Sometimes.

    Underwaterbob ,

    I release everything as "Underwaterbob" - my username. You can find me just about everywhere. If you don't have a subscription, it's all on YouTube, too: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ_MZ9yX0STsY1l2Ml2zBFw

    I make a wide variety of music.

    UsernameIsTooLon ,

    I'm in a similar boat, but I never feel fully satisfied to release a song (probably cuz I am a hobbyist and I suck lol).

    But regardless, I think there is an element of selling your soul to Hollywood to really make it big, and I just don't have that kind of commitment at this point in my life. I like relaxing and anonymity.

    Underwaterbob ,

    I’m in a similar boat, but I never feel fully satisfied to release a song (probably cuz I am a hobbyist and I suck lol).

    There's never a better time to put yourself out there! I resisted it for twenty years. My most "successful" release is one of my least polished tracks. I recorded it just out of university on a Pentium with a stolen microphone, pirated software, a freebie guitar, and a ZOOM 505. It's got 4 million listens and is responsible for half my income. By comparison, I've released stuff that I think sounds like it was professionally recorded in a studio that no one listens to.

    GreatAlbatross ,
    @GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk avatar

    It's funny like that, isn't it?

    You catch lightning in a bottle in 5 minutes using Reaper, then spend 100x the time on another song that just vanishes.

    Peaches most popular song was a tape recording off the sound desk in a German bar.

    Underwaterbob ,

    Yep.

    Another one of my most popular tracks is an atonal hour-and-twenty-minutes of cubic spline curves, granular synthesis, and other assorted noises I programmed in Csound.

    mPony ,

    not exactly the age or attractiveness that most people expect

    What gets me is that, for the right style of music, age or attractiveness shouldn't matter as much as it does. You should be able to create your art, whatever kind of art it is, and have the art itself be judged on its merits. Instead we've got a bunch of our culture still somehow wrapped up in these veneers of attractiveness. It's kind of maddening, to be honest. If you're in your 50's and making 90's style Acid House or 2000's style Trance it shouldn't matter what you look like. If you're a DJ it shouldn't matter if you look like Shirley Temple or Shirley Manson. And yet here we are.

    8 million listens netting you only 40 bucks really is insane, isn't it? I used to think radio royalties were bad: I remember Sting talking about how every time Roxanne got played on the radio someone somewhere got 3 cents. He didn't say who got the 3 cents, nor did he say how much of that 3 cents went to him. I'm not 100% sure about those numbers ("my memory is muddy, what's this river that I'm in?") but they're a damn sight more impressive than whatever crumbs the streaming companies are paying, somehow a thousand times less than the radio. Spotify's announcement last year that they weren't even going to bother paying for songs with less than 1000 streams per month was a shocker - what stops them from making it 2000, or 10,000?

    Still, being a hobbyist isn't all bad. I've been releasing jazz cover-versions of pop songs for about 2.5 years now, and have netted about 25 bucks so far :) Who knew jazz versions of Toxic or Rusted From The Rain could be so popular?

    HungryJerboa ,

    You could always don a stage persona like Marshmello or Daft Punk. Then nobody cares what you look like under the mask.

    Underwaterbob ,

    If I made 3 cents a stream, I'd have a quarter of a million...

    UnderpantsWeevil ,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m not exactly the age or attractiveness that most people expect in a touring musician, either

    Idk. I was happy to pay to hear Mic Jagger live and he looks like shit.

    Worst case scenario, just become the new Gorillas

    Underwaterbob ,

    Not sure I'd use one of the most iconic sexy lead singers in history as an example. No matter much how much he looks like shit now.

    Sylvartas ,

    I'm not exactly the age or attractiveness that most people expect in a touring musician, either.

    Just start making IDM. Looking weird and/or unattractive seems to be a requirement (and, don't get me wrong, I'm here for it)

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