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.

alienanimals ,

More money for the executives and less for everyone else. People need to start standing up to this shit.

Wiz ,

It would be nice if we had a monetizable platform on the Fediverse for vocal artists and musicians.

ILikeBoobies ,

Napster exists but people just ignore it

andros_rex ,

Spotify seems to be trying to transition to podcasts anyway - it’s harder to get it to recommend music. My guess is that eventually the Spotify and the record labels will have more disagreements about royalties, and that Spotify will pivot more towards podcasting - independent folks who have far less power in negotiations.

Lucidlethargy ,
@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

Stop using this shitty service. There are much better options. I like Tidal, but even Apple music seems decent compared to Spotify.

The audio quality alone should be telling people just how bad spotify is.

Evrala ,

If I still used Apple products I'd still be using Apple Music. Good sound with the ability to upload my own music library to mesh with it seamlessly to cover the gaps of what wasn't available? It was my ideal music streaming service.

Now I'm on Deezer but every streaming service has gaps in their catalog for what I listen to.

Slowly working on getting my own music library together to get rid of streaming services entirely. Plan on using Plex for now, but eventually I'll just move to a phone that has an SD card slot.

Mix of purchases and stuff downloaded and saved from Deezer.

PalmTreeIsBestTree ,

I am okay with YouTube premium with the music app. I am no audiophile so I can have all the gaps filled with music videos and just play the audio.

ehxor ,

Does Tidal pay artists better?

Viper_NZ ,

Two to three times what Spotify pay artists per stream.

ehxor ,

Thanks for including the link!

BigPotato ,

I dunno. Spotify stopped billing me for the family plan I was paying for some years ago and at this point I've got five accounts mooching off of them and I'm using powershell to download gigabytes worth of music off of them...

Like, Spotify is evil but at this point I'm a negative number for them every month. I'm gonna keep on going until they decide to shut off the hose.

Oh, but I do go to concerts and buy records.

BonesOfTheMoon ,

The trouble I've found with Apple music for me is that a lot of the classical stuff that I listen to on YouTube Music (RIP forever GPM you were the best) isn't on Apple, but a lot of other content that isn't anywhere else is there. So you're having to choose between one or the other and their stuff kind of sucks.

lepinkainen , (edited )

No matter what you think about Apple, Apple Music pays multiple times more than Spotify

And Tidal pays multiples more than Apple.

It’s up to you if you want to support artists or not.

TheSealStartedIt ,

Thank you for the information. Not a fan of putting the blame on the consumer here though. Spotify is the asshole here, not the people who want to pay for the music.

vinhill ,

I wouldn't assume a corporation is a moral entity, Spotify's only goal is to maximise profit. Maybe it's a problem of our economic system or regulations around monopolies.

Lifter ,

It's worth noting though, that Spotify has been bleeding money since the start. I know they may be wasting a lot of money on side hustles but still. They're not raking home any money. The only way the founders got rich is by the overinflated stock price.

E: typo

lud ,

I think they actually just started making a profit.

exanime ,

I don't think it's about assuming anything... it's about not burdening the consumer with regulating industry when it is clearly impossible to do so.

OP (of this thread) pitches Apple as an alternative... do you want to help artist a tad while also assisting a multi billion dollar company to continue to squash any possible ownership and right-to-repair chance the consumers has?...

There isn't ONE large corporation that has not shown they would kill people if that made them money... so no, the consumer cannot, in practice,
"vote with their wallet" into forcing any corporation anywhere near an ethics "green ground"

phx ,

Just want to add an extra FU to Google as a consumer and Android user.
Killing off GPlay Music for YT Music was just a nasty nice, especially given that the latter has no mechanism to purchase music and a lot of the content or mixes in from YouTube uploads seems of pretty dubious legitimacy

bob_lemon ,

I switched to Tidal after Spotify announced the price increase. The catalogue is basically identical, the apps are much more intuitive, and the audio quality is higher (they recently rolled their premium FLAC subscription into the basic one).

I had to retrain the algorithm for a bit, but that was not so difficult. There are services that can migrate/convert playlists which might actually work for favourites as well.

Also, it's easy easier to download stuff from Tidal, which is very nice for listening to Audiobooks with a dedicated player.

BonesOfTheMoon ,

Does YouTube music pay its artists? I prefer an Android platform. A lot of the stuff I want isn't on Apple Music for classical is also why.

HEXN3T ,
@HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Really, really long sigh

TIDAL.

fpslem OP ,

😂😂😂

In seriousness, what is the payment to artists like nowadays on TIDAL? Dare I even ask?

HEXN3T , (edited )
@HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

As far as I know, it's $0.025 per stream. Spotify's rate is $0.003. Pretty substantial difference. TIDAL has the highest rate in the streaming industry.

EDIT: If you really want to support artists, go to Qobuz and buy albums. I'm planning to get a Sublime subscription so I can own my music and support artists even more (while not missing out on freedom to play what I want on demand).

Also, fixed the decimals and changed TIDAL to a more accurate average.

gramie ,

I think that you are off by about an order of magnitude. Spotify pays $0.003 per stream, and title apparently pays $0.01 -0.05.

HEXN3T ,
@HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I think this is correct. In cents, this is 0.3¢ and 1-5¢ respectively. Zeroes are too hard for my mushy brain..

TheFrirish ,
@TheFrirish@jlai.lu avatar

that's a lot more evin more than deezer at 0.0064$

AnxiousDuck ,

Is there a (possibly libre) way to maintain a structured music library not tied to a streaming service??

I would happily leave but I fear for my huge library of artists and albums that I have discovered...

Dry_Monk ,

It's not easy, fast, or free, but it is worth it. I currently still have a Spotify account, but I'm weaning myself off. I've been going the Bandcamp + jellyfin route. Buy an album a month (about the price of monthly streaming) and add it to my personal library. Next month, check what I've been listening to most on Spotify and buy that. It's twice as expensive (for now) but I'm supporting artists more directly and have an exit strategy for Spotify. Curious about other's approaches!

UckyBon ,

That's great! Not sure where you live (because shipping), but a lot of artists (I listen to) have limited physical releases on Bandcamp. Sometimes it's worth the extra few bucks. My digital collection is bigger tho.

So I actually do spend more on musicians than only streaming services CEO people. There is of course the ecological aspect of the production of the physical releases, but I don't drive nor eat meat. I'd buy their stuff at a concert too.

I use Slsk for my other needs.

AceSLS ,

That's what I do

Get my Music from different sources (most streaming services can be downloaded from) and then tag them with MusicBrainz Picard. Sorts them neatly, gives them mostly way more metadata than any other streaming service and sometimes I tag them by myself

Currently using Symphony on android because it supports user defined artist metadata seperators (really wish more music apps would have that feature)

On PC I'm using mpc and controll it mostly via cli

AnxiousDuck ,

Yeah, I've come across MusicBrainz projects and they all seem really nice! I was thinking about organizing just the names and not the files, but might as well go that way sooner or later

jae ,
@jae@reddthat.com avatar

Didn’t see it mentioned, but I self host Navidrome. It’s great and open source. I get most my music from Bandcamp, or even rip CDs I check out from the library.

AnxiousDuck ,

Seems nice, thanks! I'd like to give it a try

BonesOfTheMoon ,

The very great and very funny singer Neko Case made a playlist on Spotify and entitled it "PAY FOR IT YOU CHEAP PRICKS!!!!" I howled.

feedum_sneedson ,

dibbidens

noodlejetski , (edited )

I've ditched Spotify last year when their app has suddenly started draining battery on my phone (and also because of them being so eager to give Rogan a platform). I've switched to Deezer, but I've ran into the same issue I've had with Spotify for a while - even if I download a playlist for offline usage, it'll still try to connect to the internet, so if I was somewhere with poor reception, it'd get stuck on a spinning circle for a minute before giving up and showing me the songs I've wanted to play. I ended my Deezer subscription, rebuilt the library on my laptop, and just manually transfer files to my phone. I get instant access to my music with no delays, with music players that offer much better experience and handle shuffle and queues the way I want to, and aren't a glorified Chrome tab on desktop. and if I really like an album, I'll just straight up buy one. I listen to music a fucking lot (two years ago i was in top 0.2% of my country's Spotify users), and according to some screenshots of my Spotify Wrapped, I've played my artists songs for 1200 minutes, which translates to 300-400 plays at best (probably less than that, given that many of their songs are around 6 to 8 minutes long). given that, from what I've found online, 1000 plays gives artists 4 bucks, I could just buy two of their songs on Bandcamp and pirate the rest of their music, and they'll still get more money in a year from me.

I do miss seamless playback switching between devices, though. it was a really nice Spotify feature... when it worked, that is.

mihies , (edited )

ve ran into the same issue I’ve had with Spotify for a while - even if I download a playlist for offline usage, it’ll still try to connect to the internet, so if I was somewhere with poor reception, it’d get stuck on a spinning circle for a minute before giving up and showing me the songs I’ve wanted to play.

That's by design and all streaming apps would do it like that to enforce abuse prevention.
Edit: added word at the end

noodlejetski ,

thing is, it didn't do that in the past, or at least it wouldn't be that noticeable to me. but some time ago Spotify introduced a feature that would automatically add "smart" suggestions to the playlist, and it makes sense it requires network access for that. what doesn't make sense is that it still wants the connection even when I kept that feature disabled.

mihies ,

Probably it wasn't noticeable. Imagine this scenario: somebody would pay a monthly fee, would download "entire" Spotify and then forever listen to it in offline mode. And since it's offline, artists won't get payed as well.

noodlejetski , (edited )

then I dunno, maybe require periodic (e.g. monthly) checks to verify that I've been paying for a subscription, instead of punishing me for having the nerve to try viewing my library while I'm on an elevator?

Senseless ,

So.. is there an alternative to Spotify for music streaming inside the EU that also has a large DB of metal? Ideally a service that gives a bigger share to the artists.

cyrus ,
@cyrus@sopuli.xyz avatar

"Inside the EU" in the sense of "its headquartered in the EU" or in the sense of "available in the EU"?

either way, I've heard lots of people here vouch for Tidal.

Senseless ,

It's available in the EU.
Found a promising service the other day but it wasn't available here.

fushuan , (edited )

Most of them, honestly. Idk where you looked but Tidal, Amazon music, apple music, dezeer or however it's pronounced, all were available in Spain. I stocked with Tidal because of the Linux client but apparently theybalso pay artists the most so yay.

As an edit, you mentioned metal, I listen to lots of mainstream metal bands (powerwolf, system of a dawn, dragonforce, sonar arctica, blind guardian...), some other maybe not so well known ones (tyr, alestorm, korpiklaani), and some local ones that are more rock than metal (vendetta, su ta gar, kaotiko, la polla records).

Senseless ,

Nice, thanks for the answer. They also got a 60 day premium test period for 2 euro, so I'll test it out.

baseless_discourse , (edited )

bandcamp is nice. They give much more to artist, and allow you to download flac. So that you can enjoy your music without worrying about your listening habits feeding the machine.

Our share is 15% on digital items, and 10% on physical goods. Payment processor fees are separate and vary depending on the size of the transaction, but for an average size purchase, amount to an additional 4-7%. The remainder, usually 80-85%, goes directly to the artist or their label, and we pay out daily.

https://bandcamp.com/fair_trade_music_policy

noobnarski ,

I dont know if they have all the metal you want, but maybe Youtube Music. One youtuber has stated that he gets about twice as much per view from YT Music than he does from Spotify.

Snapz ,

"Let's throw away all of our physical media! All digital streaming music, movies and books will be so much better! Everything we want, always available, anywhere!!!"

Somewhat true if you're a seasoned sailor of the high seas, not so much if not...

Kbobabob ,

You don't need to be a "seasoned sailor". It's incredibly easy IMO to get what you want if you're willing to put forth a tiny amount of effort.

militant_spider ,

The seasoning helps to know where it’s safe to put into port though.

madcaesar ,

I'm fighting this fight with phone and sd cards. It's part of the reason they are killing sd card slots to get people to put everything in the cloud.

Sadly most people are morons and are doing exactly that.

Jax ,

Most people do not understand that there are many ways to burn a book.

Grandwolf319 ,

We are entering the golden age of self hosting and I’m gonna go all in!!!

And for those wondering what about artists, two words: live shows

Etterra ,

Sounds about right. I remember when it was the RIAA. This is just more proof that time is a hamster wheel.

unreasonabro , (edited )

Spotify could charge ten times their current price - indeed, should have been, for nearly the entire catalogue of western music? even at $100/mo it would have been a steal - and even so, they wouldn't be paying artists significantly more, or even at a reasonable rate.

The model is the problem. The middleman is the problem. The service itself is the problem. It can never work in a way that pays artists fairly as long as it requires human oversight, administration and intervention, let alone all the wasteful shit like advertising and legal overhead/payola for politicians.

Get an AI to do it right, though... puffpuff, pass

fukurthumz420 ,

thank you. the fact that we aren't rioting to have more automated services that pass the cost benefit on to the people is something i'll never understand. we have the tools to build utopia but they can;t figure out how to make enough money from it.

unreasonabro ,

The problem is, they're all thinking that utopia will have money. Silly noobs

fukurthumz420 ,

exactly

fukurthumz420 ,

the music i get access to for the price i pay is worth far more than the money i don't get for the music i wrote.

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