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.

CrowAirbrush ,

I already canceled with the last price increase, because it went from €9,99 to €12,99 for me they don't need to convince me that i made the right decision.

sfunk1x ,

Metallica, Dr Dre, et al were not wrong in suing Napster. We're seeing the fruits of the evolution of that format. I guess at least people aren't downloading "Get Back ft Stevie Wonder - Oasis.wma" anymore, and somebody is making money off of it. Just (mostly) not the artists that make the music.

Low cost, distributed digital distribution is absolutely a thing. Phones have enormous storage anymore, so much so most people could have their entire music collections available on their phones or tablets - not everyone - but most people.

A distributed streaming platform would really be the way to do this and make it cost effective for everybody. An app that could stream from a list of sources (remember playlists? M3U files that could play from multiple Internet locations - yeah, that already exists and has since before 2000) would enable people to stream the music they haven't found yet or are searching for.

Seems like an interesting open source software project, to be honest. Funkwhale is probably a good basis for extension, and could be run by the artists (or provided to then via a simple click to setup platform) for low overhead.

scripthook ,
@scripthook@lemmy.world avatar

Doesn’t make me feel guilty using Soulseek. Artists get next to nothing but I’m refusing to give any money to Spotify. If there was a better way to buy and own music digitally from popular artists I would

lunachocken ,

Bandcamp

scripthook ,
@scripthook@lemmy.world avatar

I mean high end artists not indie

FluminaInMaria ,

What does high end mean?

Spider89 ,

I assume professinol music that's good. Not amuture sounding music.

sgtgig ,

Unironically iTunes

unreasonabro ,

high end artists don't need your money, they're funded already and corporate productions in the first place. So i guess you're in the clear! ;)

Juice ,

Technology is so amazing. It is finally possible to pay artists in exposure

unreasonabro ,

Not that anyone does that either

reverendsteveii ,

https://www.xmanagerapp.com/

Patch your spotify install to get free premium. If they're gonna raise prices and lower what they pay musicians, there's no valid reason not to.

PolarisFx ,
@PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Well this is legit. Thank you

AshMan85 ,

Fuck stopify. If u have any respect/appreciation for music and who created it you should not be using spotify.

filcuk ,

I've tried all the popular alternatives, and not one was better.
Theoretically, buying the songs without DRM felt best, but having enjoyed nearly 6,5K different artists on Spotify so far, that won't really work.
Unfortunately, as an average consumer, that means I'm sticking with Spotify for now.

NikkiDimes ,

I hope their platform soon becomes over inundated with AI slop from Udio and Suno to the point it is unusable and collapses.

SuperSpruce ,

I'm just gonna keep exploiting the 3 month free trial with all my accounts. I still have my own local library as well.

fossilesque ,
@fossilesque@mander.xyz avatar

Google Spotiflyer and Spotube at your convenience.

scaryjelly ,

Because of financial problems i switched from streaming back to my old ipod. Moding this old player was one of the best decisions in my career as music listner.
The best thing about it is that my phone can run low on battery but i am still able to listen to chumbawamba.

Decentrelize your hardware!

Bluefalcon ,

Capitalism!!! USA!! USA!! USA!! 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲
You poor fucks don't deserve music.

timewarp ,
@timewarp@lemmy.world avatar

We don't deserve music for other reasons too... like we don't care what the lyrics are even about as long as it "sounds good."

Bluefalcon ,

What are you talking about?

Thought of calling ya
But you won't pick up
Another fortnight lost in America
Move to Florida
Buy the car you want
But it won't start up
Til you touch, touch, touch me

Those are lyrics written by an actual God.

baseless_discourse ,

I think spotify is swedish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify

Bluefalcon ,

Do you know how strong of a country you have to be to make another live to your standards?

baseless_discourse ,

I think capitalism has already prevailed before America is the dominant force in it.

Churbleyimyam ,

And 99.99999 percent of musicians lament being humiliated and poor.

Stop releasing your music on Spotify. They depend on you for their reputation as having all the music and will give you nothing in return except ever-broadening inequality and ever-narrowing artistic culture. People have mocked boomers for claiming that music is dying but that's exactly what is happening.

BURN ,

Definitely thinking about cancelling with this. I’ve used Spotify as long as I can remember, after finally switching over from pandora radio.

Their shuffle and discovery algorithms suck so much now that it’s nearly impossible to listen to more than 20-30 songs they just keep repeating.

Add on the extra, inserted ads in podcasts, there’s really no reason to continue to use their platform.

Then again, I’m probably going to YT music, which is only marginally better, but since I pay for YT premium already there’s no additional cost

huginn ,

If you find a better place to discover music please lmk (no sarcasm)

Their discovery sucks lately and I hate it.

VieuxQueb ,
@VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca avatar

I like Tidal and rhey pay the most per play to artist's.

NielsBohron ,
@NielsBohron@lemmy.world avatar

I have tons of playlists and saved music on spotify; how is Tidal at importing data from other services? It's not really a deal breaker, but I'm really picky about my music (so I don't really care about "radio" features or curated playlists), so it'd be a real pain in the ass to start from scratch.

VieuxQueb ,
@VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca avatar

They have a feature to import your music from other sites...
https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/ca37e407-71ee-4828-85f7-ba54dc65e16d.png

VieuxQueb ,
@VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca avatar

It does have Spotify in it.

MossyFeathers ,

I thought that was Qobuz. At least I can actually buy music through Qobuz I guess.

Blackmist ,

I wish they had something between "top songs" and "completely random" when listening to a band.

Like, sure, Sweet Child of Mine, Welcome to the Jungle, and Paradise City are great and all, but there's only so often you can listen to them, and the only alternative is to be reminded that Chinese Democracy exists.

Sabin10 ,

YouTube music has something like this. You choose a few artists you like then tune the randomness of what it plays. I have discovered more new artists Ina few months of using it than I have in the decade before that.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/88bf8af2-6c48-4ffb-b16a-c345e71715ff.png

andrew_bidlaw ,
@andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works avatar

Never used it, but I just want to appreciate the design of these three icons: just a speaker radiating sound coming to something resembling a solar system. Simple, yet cool.

lesbian_seagull ,

Where can I find this setting in YT Music? I’ve had them for a while and never knew this existed…

Sabin10 ,

For me it's near the top on the apps homepage. Looks like this

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/3d8d0d7b-a1fe-4a7a-a65f-7b657e445985.png

ElvenMithril ,

haha, so true. On the other hand Chinese Democracy is not that bad ;)

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

Spotify can die in a fire for all I care. Sail the high seas and if you like an artist buy physical releases/merch/tickets.

jumjummy ,

So instead of having the artists make the small per stream income, you suggest they get $0? Buying their releases/merch/tickets is irrelevant to the platform. If anything, the model of these streaming platforms is just further shifting to advertisement for artists to drive people to shows.

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

you suggest they get $0?

They make more from what I suggested than they do from Spotify.

jumjummy ,

Of course they do, but those suggested options are the same for Spotify users too. I’m not seeing the connection here unless you’re saying Spotify users are less likely to buy merch or tickets. Pirate what you want, but trying to spin the argument this way is just disingenuous.

Edit: and to add to this, I would argue that platforms like Spotify and other subscription models are key ways for new people to be introduced to a bad. (Short of having your song blow up on something like Tik Tok of course)

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

Pirate what you want, but trying to spin the argument this way is just disingenuous.

I'm not following you. Spotify is notorious for paying out very little to artists, so therefore they don't deserve my business, fuck 'em.

Instead I like to support the artists directly.

As to your second point, I've never had a problem discovering new music.

jumjummy ,

My point is people saying “Spotify doesn’t pay artists enough so just pirate everything” is disingenuous. Nothing about paying for a platform (Spotify, TIDAL, Apple, YouTube, etc.) precludes you from supporting artists through other means as well.

The second point didn’t imply that this is the o ly way to discover music, but it absolutely is an avenue where many people discover new artists.

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t think you know what disingenuous means.

RaoulDook ,

I still buy everything on CD that I can get from good bands. Nothing beats CD quality and durability. My CDs from 30+ years ago still play just fine except for the few that have too many scratches from abuse.

After I get a new CD I rip it to high quality MP3 and add it to my personal streaming library.

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

I've seen quite a few download codes included with vinyl releases that have 24 bit wav/flac files available. Some will even offer 88.2/96kHz files.

You could argue that the quality difference isn't detectable between those and an MP3 rip of a CD though.

item09 ,

Just cancelled, have been a customer since 2015 or so.

I’ve said many times I would gladly pay more, if it were an elective extra cost that goes 100% to the artists you listen to.

So $11/mo to Spotify, then I could elect to pay another amount of my choosing that gets split up based on what I’m listening to and goes 100% to the artists. I don’t love it but it would be an acceptable solution to me.

A better solution would be for Spotify to be fair and pay artists accordingly from the start… buttttt Capitalism, and Spotify is publicly traded so no chance of that ever happening. I’m out.

zaph ,
@zaph@sh.itjust.works avatar

Tidal is your friend

khannie ,
@khannie@lemmy.world avatar

(Note I'm not super familiar with Tidal)

I had a look earlier in the year and I believe Napster pay very decent artist royalties and offer a Spotify migration service. I will be moving to them after this.

zaph ,
@zaph@sh.itjust.works avatar

This is why I went for Tidal:

Tidal takes a look back at a HiFi Plus subscriber’s top streamed artist at the end of every month, and then allocates the direct payment to that listener's most played artist. Qualified artists who enroll in the Direct Artist Payout program will be able to collect the payouts allocated to them on a monthly basis.

But they recently changed their pricing and I'm no longer paying 20 so I'm not sure if they still do that or not. I have heard good things about napster too.

zelifcam ,
@zelifcam@lemmy.world avatar

The nice thing about Tidal is the attention to detail about the music or album you’re listening to. You get writers, producers and recording musicians for all the tracks. Sometimes additional Artwork.

Apple had the right idea all those years ago when they were selling those enhanced digital albums. Almost felt like purchasing a vinyl or cd and getting all the goodies that come with it. INCLUDING properly crediting the artists. Not sure they do that very well anymore.

pressanykeynow ,

I wish. But it says it's not available in my region. Which is really weird in the current globalized world.

nullPointer ,

I cancelled too. they were resetting my password and forcing me to create a new one once or twice a week. all because i would use spotify on my desktop and my phone.

they only help they would offer was "you password is not secure". yes, my 16character random generated password is not secure. fuck em.

oxlikesmath ,

Just download music from 3rd party sites. Not that hard, don't understand why you are complaining so much.

nobleshift ,
@nobleshift@lemmy.world avatar

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

    •
    EnderMB ,

    I'd love to, but in terms of pure availability I can get almost everything I've ever wanted to listen to, aside from some weird geoblocking or removal of defunct band's back catalogues.

    reverendsteveii ,

    https://www.xmanagerapp.com/

    *Steal Spotify

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