Thoughts on Taylor Swift?

Skeeter · 25 Jun 2015 at 10:59

Raymond, who said this quote you mentioned earlier?

She did good. But it won't matter! Streaming is, as it stands, going to kill all income from recording sales for independent artists.

If I sell 2,000 downloads I can make a living. If 2,000 people stream my album 10 times each, I make about £6.

I need 200 streams of a song to pay for one lost download of the song.

It's pretty scary for guys like me.

I've been doing some man maths based on the 2014 BPI figures here (https://www.bpi.co.uk/home/british-artists-dominate-music-sales-as-streaming-doubles-in-2014.aspx) and its pretty interesting.

So that artist complains they need a 200:1 ratio of streams to album sales to make comparative money. Ok.

The Official Chart Company consider a stream to be one one-hundredth of a track sale, and then 1 track to be one tenth of an album sale. So streaming 1 track is considered one one-thousandth of an album.

In 2014 they record 14.8m 'Album Equivalent Sales' from Streaming, which using the x1000 formula means 14.8bn tracks streamed.

The combined Physical and Digital album sales total 86.9m.

So there were 14,800,000,000 streams, and 86,900,000 album sales, which is a ratio of... 170:1.

So when an artist cries saying they need a 200:1 ratio of streams to album sales, and then you discover the market is already at 170:1 (at the end of 2014), and with massive acceleration in streaming (almost doubling year on year) meaning we are probably well beyond 200:1 already, you have to wonder why we should care?

Edit: ok, so they said singles, not albums. Reworking the figures the 14.8m AES for Streaming mean the same 14.8bn streamed tracks, compared to 15.6m AES for Singles which is 156m singles sales (using the x10 formula for albums to singles). This gives a ratio of 94:1 at the end of 2014. This is less good, but if the trend of 90%+ increases in streaming and 14% decreases in singles sales continues, the ratio will still be well over 200:1 come the end of 2015.

If I were an artist I'd be jumping on the streaming wave rather than fighting it. Its clearly the future.

dowie · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:19

eh?

that is a meaningless comparison unless you include the number of people responsible for those streams

i think it is reasonable to assume approx one person per album/track sale

but you can't necessarily assume 170 streams per person

how many people were responsible for those streams?

If people do stream an album an average of 200 or so times then it is indeed reasonable, if the number is significantly lower then perhaps it isn't so much. Given that some of these models have previously relied on just advertising I don't think skepticism about whether they're getting similar levels of compensation from streaming is unwarranted on the part of the artists.

Diddums x · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:22

When you guys are done crunching numbers, can we get some hot pics please?

Skeeter · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:26

That depends, do the streaming companies pay based on the number of streams of a track, or on the number of customers of their service?

It opens an interesting point though, and that's that streaming is long running revenue, while track sales are one off. If you buy an album the artist gets paid once. If you stream it again and again over years and years, the artist gets paid again and again, don't they?

So the comparison needs to be lifetime physical sales vs lifetime streaming of an album, which is more complicated (without a time machine

)

But regardless, the "Omg streaming earns me tiny amounts per stream" argument is countered by the volume of streams being enormous, and growing, rapidly so.

D3K · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:29

Taylor Swift is by far the best female solo pop artist out there at the minute.

Her songs are catchy, fun, and the lyrics are always succinct (although sometimes a little basic). She's hot as hell and appears to be getting hotter by the day. She has values and isn't brain dead.

I would hazard guess her toilet business doesn't stink, and her lady bits taste of strawberries.

note* as someone who loves minimal techno I am comparing her only to the pop world and not other more refined genres

dowie · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:33

Skeeter said:
That depends, do the streaming companies pay based on the number of streams of a track, or on the number of customers of their service?

number of streams AFAIK

But regardless, the "Omg streaming earns me tiny amounts per stream" argument is countered by the volume of streams being enormous, and growing, rapidly so.

not necessarily, you need some more data before you can get an idea of that either way namely how many people make up those streams

what you really need to do is be able to model how many plays an average album gets over its lifetime, you might also adjust the payment model for streams to pay a premium near the release and add some time decay perhaps, people obviously will use streaming differently and indeed stream albums a few times that they might not buy. But we do at least need to know how many people were responsible for those x billion streams before you can even make a rough comparison or comment on whether it may be a fair price or not.

Skeeter · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:36

The "number of people" point is irrelivent if the artist is paid by streams rather than users, though?

If 1 person streams a track 100 times the artist earns the same as 100 people streaming the track 1 time.

dowie · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:42

Skeeter said:
The "number of people" point is irrelivent if the artist is paid by streams rather than users, though?

If 1 person streams a track 100 times the artist earns the same as 100 people streaming the track 1 time.

but you're commenting on whether the price they're getting paid is fair relative to album sales so yes it is relevant if you want to make a rough comparison, you don't know how many people made up those billions of streams you're comparing but you can reasonably assume that one person was behind each album sale.

Skeeter · 25 Jun 2015 at 11:45

dowie said:
but you're commenting on whether the price they're getting paid is fair relative to album sales so yes it is relevant if you want to make a rough comparison

No it's not?

Streaming earning is paid based on number of streams.
Album sales earning is paid based on number of albums sold.

The number of people is irrelivent in both cases. I agree that 1 album probably equals one person, while 1 stream doesn't, but it has absolutely no impact on the artists earning from each format.

Raymond Lin · 25 Jun 2015 at 12:07

That quote is from a guy on The Fretboard forum, a guitar forum.

As for this maths, I am not an artist so I can't guess, I do know my habit that even as a big fan of Taylor, I don't listen to every track on her record but by buying the album, she has earn money from them. If I stream them, she wouldn't have got paid for those tracks. From her point of view, it is more profitable selling albums. Also, it would take a while for me to play the same track 100 times, even once a day would take 3 months.

dowie · 25 Jun 2015 at 12:39

Skeeter said:
No it's not?

Streaming earning is paid based on number of streams.
Album sales earning is paid based on number of albums sold.

The number of people is irrelivent in both cases. I agree that 1 album probably equals one person, while 1 stream doesn't, but it has absolutely no impact on the artists earning from each format.

you're talking about price, how can you even know roughly what a fair price is without that bit of data?

you've made a comparison earlier:

So there were 14,800,000,000 streams, and 86,900,000 album sales, which is a ratio of... 170:1.

but without knowing how many people were responsible for those streams how can you really state whether the pricing per stream is fair - the ratio you're quoting is meaningless unless perhaps there were say equal numbers of people on either side - if you at least have some idea of how many people were responsible for the streams then you can make a better comparison.

example

artist x released his album 5 years ago, over that time he gets the following

100,000 album sales 20,000,000 streams

lets assume that there were 100,000 people behind those 20,000,000 streams - well OK that is 200 to 1 and he's getting the same revenue per person from streaming as he is from album sales...

supposing however streaming is super popular these days, a lot of the people who would have otherwise been buying albums are streaming instead and actually there are 200,000 people behind those streams of the album.... well he's getting 100 plays vs 1 album sale there there and might not be getting fair value.

obviously it can get far more complicated than this and you'll have people wouldn't have bought the album maybe playing it a few times

but the point is you need an idea of how often an album is played on average before you can even start to figure out if the price per stream is a fair one, number of people behind the streams gives you a bit more colour on that at least (very roughly). What you certainly can't do is make a direct comparison between number of streams and number of album sales without any notion of the number of people behind those streams, if streaming is massively popular relative to album sales then it could easily represent a reduction in revenue.

you really need an idea of the average number of times people play albums in general and derive a pricing model from that, you'd likely add a premium for streams nearer release too

Skeeter · 25 Jun 2015 at 12:59

I've confused as to what your trying to say? The 'number of plays' per person is irrelevant to what I was saying.

My point was, in that quote from Raymond, the artist was complaining they needed 200:1 streams to download ratio to earn the same. I looked at the numbers and showed that at the end of 2014 the average was 94:1, and by the end of 2015 its likely to be over 200:1, which then poses the question of "what is the artist complaining about?".

Presumably that means that when streaming gets above a 200:1 ratio over downloads, the artist is better off?

I've not (and neither has the artist) at any point looked at the number of people behind those numbers. I think were probably talking about different things?

I'll have a look at 'gained streams' figures vs 'lost download' figures and get back to you, one sec...

Edit:. Right...

From 2013 to 2014 singles tracks sales dropped from 182m to 156m, a drop of 26m or 14.2%.
Over the same period streaming rose from 7.5bn to 14.8bn, an increase of 7.3bn or 97.6%.

So that means 7,300,000,000 'gained' streams and 26,000,000 'lost' downloads, which is a ratio of 280:1.

So when that artist complained they needed 200 streams for every lost download, the figures suggest the industry average is already at 280 streams for every lost download. So again, what are they complaining about?

dowie · 25 Jun 2015 at 13:06

Skeeter said:
I've confused as to what your trying to say? The 'number of plays' per person is irrelevant to what I was saying.

My point was, in that quote from Raymond, the artist was complaining they needed 200:1 streams to download ratio to earn the same. I looked at the numbers and showed that at the end of 2014 the average was 94:1, and by the end of 2015 its likely to be over 200:1, which then poses the question of "what is the artist complaining about?".

Presumably that means that when streaming gets above a 200:1 ratio over downloads, the artist is better off?

I've not (and neither has the artist) at any point looked at the number of people behind those numbers. I think were probably talking about different things?

no we're talking about the same thing... point is 200:1 is fair pricing if people stream an album 200 times on average

you're comparing number of album sales vs number of streams which doesn't tell you anything unless you know how many people are responsible for those streams

ref: 'lost downloads' that doesn't matter per say, people who would have otherwise have purchased albums in CD format also stream these days, you can't necessarily get the data on how many people didn't buy an CD album for example

Raymond Lin · 25 Jun 2015 at 13:08

dowie said:
no we're talking about the same thing... point is 200:1 is fair pricing if people stream an album 200 times on average

you're comparing number of album sales vs number of streams which doesn't tell you anything unless you know how many people are responsible for those streams

And I doubt everyone who buys an album will play it 200 times.

Even if they do, they bound to skip a few tracks. I certainly skip about half the tracks on 1989. That means by streaming, I would have to play the others 400 times each.

Skeeter · 25 Jun 2015 at 13:11

See my edit regarding the 'lost downloads' bit.

I still don't understand your position. Neither the me, or the artist quote from Raymond I am analysing, mentions the number of people.

ebilcake · 25 Jun 2015 at 13:24

She's hot, in an odd kind of way.

Some of her music is okay.

Skeeter · 25 Jun 2015 at 13:27

Ok let me swap this round and see if I can explain myself better.

That artist said he needed 200 streams to cover 1 lost download. So if we image the download earned him 79p, then that means he's earning 0.395p per stream.

The industry average shows that for every lost download between 2013 and 2014 there were 280 new streams. So that means that for every 79p the artist lost from losing a download, he actually got 110.6p (0.395 x 280) from streaming.

Using the figures stated by the artist, combined with the BPI official figres of the industry, he is better off with streaming than he would be without.

Make sense?

(I know 79p is nowhere near what they earn, I justed used a number for reference).

dowie · 25 Jun 2015 at 13:28

Skeeter said:
See my edit regarding the 'lost downloads' bit.

I still don't understand your position. Neither the me, or the artist quote from Raymond I am analysing, mentions the number of people.

you mention the number of plays you need for a streaming to generate the same revenue as buying an album 200:1

how can you judge whether that is fair unless you know how many times people will, on average, stream an album?

you were comparing the wrong data - the comparison you made between total streams and total album sales is meaningless unless you know how many people were behind those streams

if people stream an album 200 times on average then compensating artists in that ratio is fair, but you need to get an idea of the number of people behind the streams in order to take a rough look at that

dowie · 25 Jun 2015 at 13:32

lost downloads might provide some data but there are more flaws there - how many people are switching from buying CDs to streaming or simply from pirating to streaming etc.. the better comparison is as above - simply how many times do people stream an album on average, that is all you really need to figure out if the pricing of 200 streams to one album purchase is 'fair'

dowie · 25 Jun 2015 at 13:36

Raymond Lin said:
And I doubt everyone who buys an album will play it 200 times.

Even if they do, they bound to skip a few tracks. I certainly skip about half the tracks on 1989. That means by streaming, I would have to play the others 400 times each.

true, though it is possible, the artist might well be fairly compensated and not realize how often people are streaming their albums on average - point I was making is that without the data we just don't know

though yes there are other bits that make it more complex, popular tracks that are also singles getting streamed more often, putting a premium on streams closer to release etc..