6 ms·

Yeah! Screw you, musicians that want to earn minimum wage! http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/ http://www.informat

by pyrmont 15y ago

Yeah! Screw you, musicians that want to earn minimum wage! http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music...

cageface 15y ago
I hope programmers are so sanguine when their work is "correctly" priced into oblivion. I do think that subscription services are the wave of the future but I don't see how you can argue that Spotify helps artists.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  Not-much-$ is still better than none-$-at-all. It's not exactly the choice of Spotify vs. buy a CD in shop, it's a choice between Spotify and BitTorrent.
  - 12334454 15y ago
    That does not make it the correct price. The correct price pays back the production cost (including paying for the time and creativity of the artist in making up the song) and adds some profit. Get that from volume or high price but low price is not correct price.
    - WettowelReactor 15y ago
      The correct price is what consumers are willing to pay for not what you think your profit margin should be.
      - cageface 15y ago
        Unless you want to see the product disappear from the market, the "correct" price must also compensate the production costs and provide for a little profit for the author. Thanks to digital piracy the price many customers are willing to pay falls far short of that mark. If stealing physical goods was as easy as stealing digital goods you'd see the "correct" price of a car far fall below what it costs to make it too.
        WettowelReactor 15y ago
        Except I have a plethora of buying cars and plenty of dealers willing to take my money. In the digital space a considerable amount of piracy is due to no legally available outlet for purchase of digital goods in a manner commiserate with what users want. Look at the success of iTunes and spotify as filling consumer needs. Besides if the price consumers are willing to pay for your product does not cover its production costs then you have no market (i.e. product)
    - nate_meurer 15y ago
      You appear to be using your own definition. Correct pricing, in an economic sense, is that which an undistorted market will bear, using whatever definition of "undistorted" you like. It's that simple.
      - cabalamat 15y ago
        > using whatever definition of "undistorted" you like My definition includes the absence of violence, threats of violence, or dishonesty. If the only reason people aren't using BitTorrent downloads is threats of violence (which is what threats of internet disconnection are, albeit at several levels removed), then it isn't a free/undistorted market.
    - cabalamat 15y ago
      > The correct price pays back the production cost (including paying for the time and creativity of the artist in making up the song) and adds some profit. So if I wrote a program, say an iPhone app, using lots of time and creativity, but no-one wanted to buy it, do you think I should get paid for it anyway? If so, where would the money come from?
  - chrischen 15y ago
    It is a choice between buy a CD in a shop, itunes, or Spotify. Especially if you pay for spotify, why pay again for the same music?
- tintin 15y ago
  It's all about volume. Some money made on Spotify, some by selling CDs, some by concerts, some by merchandise. And there is ofcourse exposure.
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    Two words: Don McLean. All moneys made off of one song. From 1971. Sonnofabitxch.
    - dlikhten 15y ago
      And we want to prevent that. Just because it benefits ONE guy or one small group, does not mean its a good idea. It just means that one guy will suffer and have to actually work for a living while the rest of us have a chance.
- nate_meurer 15y ago
  In my experience, the software industry is a bit more open to the idea that business models will need to adapt to the realities of the internet age. And yes, many of us are quite sanguine about it.
- cabalamat 15y ago
  > I hope programmers are so sanguine when their work is "correctly" priced into oblivion. On the whole, I think they are. I haven't heard anyone here (or anywhere else) complain that hardly anyone bought their iPhone app that they put a lot of effort into.
  - cageface 15y ago
    I hear programmers constantly lamenting outsourcing, undercutting by cheap contractors on Elance, cheap & shoddy work done by consulting companies etc. Your iPhone analogy is poor because what Spotify is doing is displacing an existing, profitable product with an unprofitable (for the artist) product. Maybe it's inevitable but it's churlish to so smugly call it "correct". I remain skeptical that programmers will be so happy to see their livelihood "disrupted" when and if it happens to the extent it's happened to artists.
svnv 15y ago
Yes, let's blame the people that are trying to solve illegal file-sharing issues. Spotify is competing with free and they offer such a great service that people are willing to pay 10 euros a month for a subscription. Most of my friends use more money on music streaming services now than they ever did back when they where buying cd's, and these are people who have been "pirates" for the last 10 years or so.
mzl 15y ago
That infographic is just wrong, I wish people could stop linking to it all the time. The data it is based on is some small numbers from the first months after Spotify launched, before the revenue strems had actually started. No hard numbers are released, but it is generally acknowledged in Sweden that Spotify is now the largest online income for artists.
- tjogin 15y ago
  Spotify pays more per listen than radio does. If that's not enough money for an artist, then the problem is really that the artist isn't popular enough when people get to decide for themselves what to listen to.
  - m_eiman 15y ago
    Spotify pays more per listen than radio does. Exactly. According to this article[1] (in Swedish) about Lady Gaga making $340 from a million Spotify listens to a single song, the same number of listeners on the radio would have made her $15. [1] http://www.expressen.se/noje/1.1787187/lady-gaga-tjanar-1150-kronor-pa-spotify http://www.expressen.se/noje/1.1787187/lady-gaga-tjanar-1150...
    - ralphc 15y ago
      I clicked on that to bookmark and translate later, and holy-crap-my-eyes-are-bleeding. And I thought some sites in the US were bad with ads. Click at your own risk.
      - m_eiman 15y ago
        Sorry about that, Expressen is one of Sweden's two main tabloids. Here's a rough translation: Lady Gaga had the most popular song on Spotify, with one million listens. Now she gets her money from STIM [Sweden's collecting agency for artists etc]: 1,150 SEK ($170 USD). Lady Gaga's "Poker face" was the most popular song on Spotify during the music service's first five months, according to the first payment of STIM money made on behalf of Spotify, according to STIM's own paper "Stim-nytt". The song was played one million times - which yields 2,300 SEK ($340 USD) that Lady Gaga and songwriter partner Redone share. Dogge [Swedish artist] upset Rapper and songwriter Dogge Doggelito is upset when he hears the sum. - It's sick. We musicians have no rights, you don't get paid any more. Lady Gaga would have made more money driving an unlicensed cab one night at [known place in Stockholm]. "Better than file sharing" Artist and songwriter Alexander Bard [another Swedish artist] doesn't want to comment on the sum without knowning how Lady Gaga's contract with her label looks, but says: - 2,300 is more than zero which she would have gotten from Pirate Bay. It's better than file sharing, says Alexander Bard. The future Both Alexander Bard and Dogge Doggelito believe that Spotify and similar services are the future. - These are teething troubles. I hope that we creators one day in the future will be paid reasonably and fairly, says Dogge Doggelito. "Stim-nytt" compares the sum to if "Poker face" had been played in the radio show "Sommar" that averages a million listeners. Then the STIM payment would have been only 100 SEK ($15 USD).

by pyrmont 15y ago

cageface 15y ago

I hope programmers are so sanguine when their work is "correctly" priced into oblivion. I do think that subscription services are the wave of the future but I don't see how you can argue that Spotify helps artists.

TeMPOraL 15y ago
Not-much-$ is still better than none-$-at-all. It's not exactly the choice of Spotify vs. buy a CD in shop, it's a choice between Spotify and BitTorrent.
- 12334454 15y ago
  That does not make it the correct price. The correct price pays back the production cost (including paying for the time and creativity of the artist in making up the song) and adds some profit. Get that from volume or high price but low price is not correct price.
  - WettowelReactor 15y ago
    The correct price is what consumers are willing to pay for not what you think your profit margin should be.
    - cageface 15y ago
      Unless you want to see the product disappear from the market, the "correct" price must also compensate the production costs and provide for a little profit for the author. Thanks to digital piracy the price many customers are willing to pay falls far short of that mark. If stealing physical goods was as easy as stealing digital goods you'd see the "correct" price of a car far fall below what it costs to make it too.
      - WettowelReactor 15y ago
        Except I have a plethora of buying cars and plenty of dealers willing to take my money. In the digital space a considerable amount of piracy is due to no legally available outlet for purchase of digital goods in a manner commiserate with what users want. Look at the success of iTunes and spotify as filling consumer needs. Besides if the price consumers are willing to pay for your product does not cover its production costs then you have no market (i.e. product)
  - nate_meurer 15y ago
    You appear to be using your own definition. Correct pricing, in an economic sense, is that which an undistorted market will bear, using whatever definition of "undistorted" you like. It's that simple.
    - cabalamat 15y ago
      > using whatever definition of "undistorted" you like My definition includes the absence of violence, threats of violence, or dishonesty. If the only reason people aren't using BitTorrent downloads is threats of violence (which is what threats of internet disconnection are, albeit at several levels removed), then it isn't a free/undistorted market.
  - cabalamat 15y ago
    > The correct price pays back the production cost (including paying for the time and creativity of the artist in making up the song) and adds some profit. So if I wrote a program, say an iPhone app, using lots of time and creativity, but no-one wanted to buy it, do you think I should get paid for it anyway? If so, where would the money come from?
- chrischen 15y ago
  It is a choice between buy a CD in a shop, itunes, or Spotify. Especially if you pay for spotify, why pay again for the same music?
tintin 15y ago
It's all about volume. Some money made on Spotify, some by selling CDs, some by concerts, some by merchandise. And there is ofcourse exposure.
- jsavimbi 15y ago
  Two words: Don McLean. All moneys made off of one song. From 1971. Sonnofabitxch.
  - dlikhten 15y ago
    And we want to prevent that. Just because it benefits ONE guy or one small group, does not mean its a good idea. It just means that one guy will suffer and have to actually work for a living while the rest of us have a chance.
nate_meurer 15y ago
In my experience, the software industry is a bit more open to the idea that business models will need to adapt to the realities of the internet age. And yes, many of us are quite sanguine about it.
cabalamat 15y ago
> I hope programmers are so sanguine when their work is "correctly" priced into oblivion. On the whole, I think they are. I haven't heard anyone here (or anywhere else) complain that hardly anyone bought their iPhone app that they put a lot of effort into.
- cageface 15y ago
  I hear programmers constantly lamenting outsourcing, undercutting by cheap contractors on Elance, cheap & shoddy work done by consulting companies etc. Your iPhone analogy is poor because what Spotify is doing is displacing an existing, profitable product with an unprofitable (for the artist) product. Maybe it's inevitable but it's churlish to so smugly call it "correct". I remain skeptical that programmers will be so happy to see their livelihood "disrupted" when and if it happens to the extent it's happened to artists.

svnv 15y ago

Yes, let's blame the people that are trying to solve illegal file-sharing issues. Spotify is competing with free and they offer such a great service that people are willing to pay 10 euros a month for a subscription. Most of my friends use more money on music streaming services now than they ever did back when they where buying cd's, and these are people who have been "pirates" for the last 10 years or so.

mzl 15y ago

That infographic is just wrong, I wish people could stop linking to it all the time. The data it is based on is some small numbers from the first months after Spotify launched, before the revenue strems had actually started. No hard numbers are released, but it is generally acknowledged in Sweden that Spotify is now the largest online income for artists.

tjogin 15y ago
Spotify pays more per listen than radio does. If that's not enough money for an artist, then the problem is really that the artist isn't popular enough when people get to decide for themselves what to listen to.
- m_eiman 15y ago
  Spotify pays more per listen than radio does. Exactly. According to this article[1] (in Swedish) about Lady Gaga making $340 from a million Spotify listens to a single song, the same number of listeners on the radio would have made her $15. [1] http://www.expressen.se/noje/1.1787187/lady-gaga-tjanar-1150-kronor-pa-spotify http://www.expressen.se/noje/1.1787187/lady-gaga-tjanar-1150...
  - ralphc 15y ago
    I clicked on that to bookmark and translate later, and holy-crap-my-eyes-are-bleeding. And I thought some sites in the US were bad with ads. Click at your own risk.
    - m_eiman 15y ago
      Sorry about that, Expressen is one of Sweden's two main tabloids. Here's a rough translation: Lady Gaga had the most popular song on Spotify, with one million listens. Now she gets her money from STIM [Sweden's collecting agency for artists etc]: 1,150 SEK ($170 USD). Lady Gaga's "Poker face" was the most popular song on Spotify during the music service's first five months, according to the first payment of STIM money made on behalf of Spotify, according to STIM's own paper "Stim-nytt". The song was played one million times - which yields 2,300 SEK ($340 USD) that Lady Gaga and songwriter partner Redone share. Dogge [Swedish artist] upset Rapper and songwriter Dogge Doggelito is upset when he hears the sum. - It's sick. We musicians have no rights, you don't get paid any more. Lady Gaga would have made more money driving an unlicensed cab one night at [known place in Stockholm]. "Better than file sharing" Artist and songwriter Alexander Bard [another Swedish artist] doesn't want to comment on the sum without knowning how Lady Gaga's contract with her label looks, but says: - 2,300 is more than zero which she would have gotten from Pirate Bay. It's better than file sharing, says Alexander Bard. The future Both Alexander Bard and Dogge Doggelito believe that Spotify and similar services are the future. - These are teething troubles. I hope that we creators one day in the future will be paid reasonably and fairly, says Dogge Doggelito. "Stim-nytt" compares the sum to if "Poker face" had been played in the radio show "Sommar" that averages a million listeners. Then the STIM payment would have been only 100 SEK ($15 USD).