Treatment of artists by streaming services (payment of musicians)

I believe this is so as they have less subscribers, so must pay higher royalties. Therefore, paying less doesn’t equate to less $$$ for the artist. The royalty modelling isn’t particularly clear cut and is multi faceted. I’m not an expert here, but have done some reading on the matter.

Hope that helps a little. :sunglasses:

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I think we really need to re-assess our seemingly narrow view of success in the performance arts. I have friends and relatives who would never have sold large volumes of physical media because their genres would never get the large scale radio play that translates to record sales. My mate in a punk band tours and sells merchandise. My cousin who is a bedroom rapper (a slightly uncharitable description but he doesn’t perform live) has a clothing line sold world wide via FB and Instagram. I think we really need to make a distinction between the indignation of famous people who feel they are ‘giving their music away‘ via streaming services and grass roots performers who are not expecting much more than the exposure that allows them to do other things.
If a performer interests you, find their web page. Buy a CD or a tee shirt direct from them. I have music bought direct from the likes of Gregory Porter to name just one, bought before he was the corporate darling he is now. And the first time I heard him it was via a CD bought at a small gig he did in my local live music venue.

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Spot on @TuliaNonTroppo. That’ pretty much me, bar the food growing :wink:, and I suspect something similar may apply to quite a few Roon users. My music buying, both physical media and downloads, didn’t go up very much at all when I started paying for Spotify (in 2012 I think). But it massively increased - after many years of slumber with only the rare trip to an independent record store in town - when I first subscribed to Qobuz and soon after starting with Roon nearly 4 years ago. It makes some sense I guess, with Qobuz providing an easy path too purchase / download, and Roon providing an integrated view to streaming, a small but treasured ripped legacy collection and new purchases, including many from Bandcamp.

My gut feeling though is that this model won’t last. Both purchase and download may have had their time, so hopefully the streaming ecosystems will evolve to allow a fairer share to go to artists. Surely it is in the industry’s interest to nurture a healthy and prospering artist community?

Fascinating topic, could I substitute anything “immoral” with the word “amoral”?

One could argue any system that exploits unfairly and without fair equity is immoral, especially as markets are man-made, and as we now know are skewed by insider dealing, cabals, oligopolies, price fixing and corruption. The marketing mechanism of $6 which the consumer pays for whatever is the tip of the iceberg, because underneath that is a whole supply chain the end of which is the exploited resource provider. eg coffee, clothes etc

To answer the question in my humble opinion - streaming services use a contractual system where the balance of power is completely one sided. Sadly streaming services are not the only example of this so let’s get this in context, however it seems however that the contractual relationship used by streaming services is thus immoral.

As a hypocrite I do subscribe to Tidal, but to give something back to the artist I always buy the music I like either as a high-res file or as a CD or very expensive vinyl!

Nice question, makes a change from the”I could design a better interface” brigade :wink:

Yours humbly
H

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Wrong! The artists are paid. Granted, probably not as much as they should be, but they still get paid, Some streaming services pay more than others. And, is streaming different than listening to the radio?? Radio was the first type of streaming. The difference is that today’s services allow you to decide what and how to listen. With radio, it was all controlled by the DJ and the program director.

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There are far too many artists now, way too many releases every week, the sheer amount of new published music is just plain crazy! We likely wouldn’t know of or be able to hear any of these if it wasn’t for streaming, or unless they were local to us and performed live or had belonged to narrow niche we followed avidly.

Many will disappear without trace, a few will make it big, some will make a decent living or maybe even a very good one touring and playing to their virtually created fans. The label model still exists of course, and that’s how most of the future big names will be made - it works, and it’s not always exploitative.

Funny thing is, I really miss physical media, something to hang a memory on rather than a picture of cover art on an iDevice. Something to hold in your hand, leave on the coffee table to remember to listen again and again as your latest purchase. Something to cherish in years to come when you dig it out and the memories come flooding back.

But alas there is no such media anymore, why would I buy an analogue record of a digital file, or a cheap looking bit of plastic in a jewel case. Now if someone came up with a new analogue media, one that didn’t wear out with every play or hiss or pop or crackle in the background… hmm… yes, I still long for that.

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My Bandcamp collection (some recent adds are pre-releases)

This. The best haven’t got any better; the long tail of dross and wannabes is longer; the cream (usually) rises to the top. Streaming revenues aren’t fair, but the model changed quite some time ago and there is still a limited overall “pot” of consumer spend on music. Raise prices too much and piracy increases; it’s a delicate balance.

There is one thing I don’t like. If I streaming nothing but small artists all day every day for a month, 99% of my subscription still goes to Drake and Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj, etc.

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May be true in some genres, but not in the creative music (mostly contemporary jazz) I follow. There are more highly skilled (arguably better skilled) and creative musicians performing and recording than ever before. According to Roon, I have 528 (identified) albums releases in that set of genres in the last 4 years (82 from ECM, 40 from Intakt, 33 from Sunnyside, 23 from Pi Recordings, 16 from Blue Note, …). I listen to some more than others, but I can’t think of a real dud. Before covid, I used to go to 30-40 live shows/year, where I listened to quite a few of those artists. They include relatively well-known artists like Bill Frisell or Brad Mehldau, but also many less known but amazing ones like Miles Okazaki, Kaja Draksler, Christian Sands, Jen Shyu, Fabian Almazan, Allison Miller, James Brandon Lewis, Tomeka Reid, … As far as I’m concerned, it’s a golden age of creative music, which I try to support by attending shows when possible, buying downloads and CDs, subscribing to virtual concert series, and so on.

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What a revealing constatation… :smiley:
Are you sure that all the rest of your “CORPOcration” world is moral?

How many time did I purchase a CD because it was recommended here and there and/or I listened too quickly - and then I did not like it. Each time I wasted 15-20€. Now, with streaming, I can quickly decide what I like and what I do not. I can go through all freshly released Jazz CDs of a month in an evening, either relying on Quobuz‘s new stuff list or by going through a Jazz-Magazin‘s listing. That is awesome. I can really concentrate on what I like. The bad side is, that this or that CD might deserve 10-20 minutes concentration and I may not have that. But, for example, streaming CD number 25 of ECM’s Cathedral Jazz makes me realize that I had enough. That is just me, others have different taste and this is why streaming might be fairer to the artist and the music than the CD business was.

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Well… Cultural appropriation? :grinning:

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Arguably streaming gives some artists further reach than they would ever get playing the small venue circuits.

Also, an £8 CD would give the artist about £1 in royalties and a single play of the same album on TIDAL 10p … so is this widely off? Now what is interesting is the difference between TIDAL payouts and Amazon and Google at the other end of the spectrum.

Finally, CD, vinyl and digital download sales are insignificant when compared to streaming, so I’d say that while you may feel better buying a CD (not from the charity shop of course as this artist gets nothing) or a download you’re probably doing it for your own reasons–having the media–than supporting the artist.

If you want to support musicians go and see them play.


Here are the numbers per stream …

Napster $0.019
Tidal $0.01284
Apple Music $0.00783
Google Play Music $0.00676
Deezer $0.0064
Spotify $0.00437
Amazon $0.00402
Pandora $0.00133
YouTube $0.0.00069 (per view)


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The more popular an artist, the more revenue he/she/they make. As Spotify was mentioned, they pay about .46¢ per stream. If you can get 1M streams (popular tracks easily do that), that’s $4600 dollars. Do that on 20 tracks (not far fetched, for popular groups, that’s $92,000. Tidal pays almost three times that. But the money has never been there for anything but concerts. Record sales, radio play, Muzak, etc. has never supported artists. So, why should streaming support the artists? The purpose of all these services is PROMOTION! They, hopefully, make you want to go out and see the artists. THAT is where the money is. And if you get popular enough, licensing deals.

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And, for the artists’ £1, a lot of that now goes to paying for all the various production costs.

I would hazard a guess that one of the reasons that many artists complain about the minuscule amounts they get from music streaming is that they de-couple it from what they earn from live performances.

When they look out at the audience (well, when we have those) they assume that they would all be there anyway, and therefore any additional money from streaming would be additive - without thinking of the two being linked.

Now, if they could manage to negotiate a better deal from the record company then that might actually help them, but they lost that battle when they signed on to a big label.

Life is not fair. It never has been and never will be. Stop the whining. If you can’t make it as an artist in today’s environment, do something else…

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I dont listen to radio or go to clubs anymore so how am I supposed to hear new music? I still buy music when I really want it. Streaming gives me the uniterrupted experience to appreciate tunes I want to own. Today as an example a few recommondations on the music thread I wanted to try out as I dont own them. If it wasnt for streaming I couldnt have heard them and make the choice to buy. Gone are the days when I bought music blind purely on recommendations or reviews. Now I want to hear it and like it before parting with my cash. I liked the albums I heard today and bought them straight from Bandcamp.

The music industry has never been fair to the artists it makes its money off. Some artists where fortunate to have started at boom times when sales where a big percentage of income. But today its hard for them. Has streaming responsible? No I dont think so, music sales where declining for many years before streaming started. Possibly because there are so many things viaing for your attention these days. Surely artists need to get revenue from which ever way they can as the labels dont give a second thought as long as they get the biggest cut. I dont know for sure but I am sure streaming has massivley reduced music piracy to. It does seem like touring, mechandise, sponsorships etc is where the moneys at these days in music but most of this is out of reach of smaller artists. Its odd how Hollywood seems to give a fair pay to its artists so should the music industry considering they more often have created the whole thing.

My nephew is a small artist and hes never made much even before streaming kicked off. He was reluctant about it due to the crappy revenue, but he now has a larger audience than before as a result. He produces, mixes all his own stuff but still releases through a label as he needs the promoting which hes not good at himself.

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Doesn’t look as if there is any money for the artists in touring or merchandising any more either. But that change seems to have been brought about by piracy rather than streaming.

If the music industry is so unfair to musicians, why are there so many aspiring musicians? Everybody with a cell phone and YouTube account thinks they are the next Taylor Swift (couldn’t bring myself to say “Bieber.”)

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