Thoughts on Taylor Swift?

[Skeeter]

Why does it matter how many people there are? If 1 person streamed an album 200 times, or 200 people streamed an album once each, the artist earns the same.

The artist has already calculated what they consider to be "fair", and that's that they get 1/200th of the value of a sale for every stream.

 

[dowie]

They've not calculated what they consider to be fair, they've stated that it takes 200 streams to get the same revenue as one album

I'm not sure I can put it any simpler than this and I'm going to end up repeating myself but 200 streams generating the same revenue as one album is perhaps 'fair' if people stream an album 200 times on average

if people don't typically play an album that frequently then the artist is losing out vs the revenue he'd have earned had those people paid for a download

 

[dowie]

supposing people who download tracks only play them a total of 50 times on average... well a pricing model whereby you're only earning the same as a download after 200 streams is obviously unfair... number of people behind the streams gives you a better (but still rough) approximation

 

[Skeeter]

I'm not sure I can put it any simpler than this and I'm going to end up repeating myself but 200 streams generating the same revenue as one album is perhaps 'fair' if people stream an album 200 times on average

Only if the number of people streaming = the number of people buying albums.

But it doesn't.

Imagine if 100 people bought 1 album, yet 200 people subscribed to streaming services. You would then only need the streamers to stream each album 100 times each to get to the 200:1 ratio.

Your 'number of people' calculations also requires a number of subscribers to streaming services figure too. Do we have that?

 

[dowie]

Imagine if 100 people bought 1 album, yet 200 people subscribed to streaming services. You would then only need the streamers to stream each album 100 times each to get to the 200:1 ratio.

nope, you're still getting confused re: the ratio

you've got twice as many streamers enjoying the music yet you're proposing that it is fair the artist generates the same revenue from streaming overall as album sales?

you still need the streamers to stream the album 200 times on average and you should expect the artist to earn twice as much from streaming as he does from album sales in that example if you're looking for 'fair' pricing

supposing he sells 2 album downloads and 20,000,000 people stream his album - do you still expect album sales revenue = streaming revenue or does the more extreme example highlight the point?

 

[snowdog]

She wants to sell records, not strictly speaking optical media, I don't think she cares if you download them from iTunes or amazon or google play. She just dislike streaming as I've pointed out above, it does it pay anywhere close.

Is it greedy? Or is it just the same as what every artist has been doing since the concept of LP was invented, and show me one musician who doesn't want to get paid, or one person even.

She is alienating people who just want to listen to her music 1-10 times.

Why is she okay with radio if not with services like spotify ?
I find it hard to believe people are willing to pay for such pop crap, why would you buy a CD of a genre that is boring after 10x ?

And it is greedy for the fact that she gets paid, a lot still (200+ million in 2013?), also for streaming services ( which she dismissed as a ''small tip''), just because the accessibility is wider now, just means more people can easily listen to it legally. I mean, she makes the type of music I wouldn't buy in my whole life, but she would get paid for the plays on spotify...

She is a stuck up elitist greedy bint. For her attitude I refuse to buy anything, and I can't really place myself in people who do. The main problem is her fanbase, which allows her to be powerful like this and continues to buy that pop crap.

That said, I have a strong dislike for the pop music industry in general, people get paid a lot for generic tosh that will be forgotten in 10 years. The there are whole masses of stupid sheep buying that crap on optical media . Don't get me wrong I like pop music, just don't think it deserves this much success and revenue compared to other genres of music.

you still need the streamers to stream the album 200 times on average

Problem ?

I have listened to some great albums about that often, DSOTM, Out of the Blue, Machine Head or Abbey Road for example. The whole point of streaming is basically reach a bigger target audience that otherwise wouldn't pay.

About 3/4rd of the casettes I have are copies of LP's/CD's/Radio/Legit Casettes, music I, or my parents wouldn't have bought in the first place, I now listen to such music via spotify which means the artists may get something out of it anyhow. Around the windows XP era, most of the music I got was borrowed and then ripped to HDD... Music I wouldn't think to buy in the first place. Kazaa and Limewire came very soon after that.

 

[Skeeter]

Can anyone find the total number of tracks streamed on Spitify globally in 2014?

I have found that they have 75m users and 30m unique tracks, but not the total number of global streams. I can only find a UK figure.

 

[dowie]

Problem ?

I have listened to some great albums about that often, DSOTM, Out of the Blue, Machine Head or Abbey Road for example. The whole point of streaming is basically reach a bigger target audience that otherwise wouldn't pay.

About 3/4rd of the casettes I have are copies of LP's/CD's/Radio/Legit Casettes, music I, or my parents wouldn't have bought in the first place, I now listen to such music via spotify which means the artists may get something out of it anyhow. Around the windows XP era, most of the music I got was borrowed and then ripped to HDD... Music I wouldn't think to buy in the first place. Kazaa and Limewire came very soon after that.

no problem there - I've mentioned that too - the other poster wasn't grasping why simply looking at total streams and total album sales isn't informative which is why I've highlighted that the number of people behind those streams is needed if you want to make a very rough comparison

obviously the behaviour of streamers isn't necessarily going to be the same as the behaviour of album purchasers and a more complex model is required - really you want to price a stream based on how often people play downloaded albums, with some time decay function too or simply adding a premium to streams close to release. Number of people responsible for the streams is only a rough approximation - it was merely mentioned to highlight why the previous comparison couldn't be made but seems to have required several further posts to explain.

 

[Skeeter]

Don't you also need the number of people behind the album sales too to do your comparison?

The maths is going to fold in on itself due to the volume of Spofity users though.

Imagine 1 album from 1 artist. In sales they could sell 1m copies. Its pretty safe to assume that means 1m people purchased an album.

For streaming though, we can't assume. So all we know is 75m people between them streamed it X number of times. If X = 1m, then it means that 75m people streamed a few seconds each, or 1 person streamed the album 1m times, or anything in between.

 

[dowie]

well technically yes, but like I said I think a reasonable assumption is 1 person per particular album

you were doing a very rough comparison between total streams and total album sales, there isn't a direct comparison to be made there. You want to look at the number of streams for an album over a period of time and the number of people behind those streams if you want a very rough idea of whether 200:1 is 'fair'

realistically we'd be better off knowing about average plays of a downloaded album and price according to that as the behaviour of streamers can (and likely does) vary - if there are lots of streamers who might play an album a few times but wouldn't have paid to download it then the streaming data with the number of people behind those streams is still a bit dodgy

 

[Raymond Lin]

She is alienating people who just want to listen to her music 1-10 times.

Why is she okay with radio if not with services like spotify ?
I find it hard to believe people are willing to pay for such pop crap, why would you buy a CD of a genre that is boring after 10x ?

And it is greedy for the fact that she gets paid, a lot still (200+ million in 2013?), also for streaming services ( which she dismissed as a ''small tip''), just because the accessibility is wider now, just means more people can easily listen to it legally. I mean, she makes the type of music I wouldn't buy in my whole life, but she would get paid for the plays on spotify...

She is a stuck up elitist greedy bint. For her attitude I refuse to buy anything, and I can't really place myself in people who do. The main problem is her fanbase, which allows her to be powerful like this and continues to buy that pop crap.

That said, I have a strong dislike for the pop music industry in general, people get paid a lot for generic tosh that will be forgotten in 10 years. The there are whole masses of stupid sheep buying that crap on optical media . Don't get me wrong I like pop music, just don't think it deserves this much success and revenue compared to other genres of music.
Problem ?

I have listened to some great albums about that often, DSOTM, Out of the Blue, Machine Head or Abbey Road for example. The whole point of streaming is basically reach a bigger target audience that otherwise wouldn't pay.

About 3/4rd of the casettes I have are copies of LP's/CD's/Radio/Legit Casettes, music I, or my parents wouldn't have bought in the first place, I now listen to such music via spotify which means the artists may get something out of it anyhow. Around the windows XP era, most of the music I got was borrowed and then ripped to HDD... Music I wouldn't think to buy in the first place. Kazaa and Limewire came very soon after that.

The very fact that rant is bias from the get go, it is pointless to even reply to the topic at hand.

 

[Skeeter]

Do we know how much money per stream an artist gets, compared to how much per download?

 

[Raymond Lin]

Do we know how much money per stream an artist gets, compared to how much per download?

Bearing in mind in both instances Swift gets more than most artists as her father has a stake in the record company as he invested $100,000 into it from day 1. The terms of her cut from sale would likely to be more favourable than a typical artist on a major label.

 

[Skeeter]

Sorry I mean't gross revenue before the Record Labels get their grubby mits on it, as that will obviously be different for each artist.

i.e. is there a fixed amount of the 79p per track on iTunes that goes to the artist, and a fixed amount per stream on Spotify, for example?

 

[Skeeter]

Ok, man maths coming up.

Spotify distributed $1bn in royalties last year. It streamed 7bn hours of music.

So at an average of 3 minutes per track, thats 140bn streamed tracks in 2014. So $1bn / 140bn = $0.00714 per streamed track, or 0.7 cent (around 0.44p) per streamed track.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

She is alienating people who just want to listen to her music 1-10 times.

Why is she okay with radio if not with services like spotify ?
I find it hard to believe people are willing to pay for such pop crap, why would you buy a CD of a genre that is boring after 10x ?

And it is greedy for the fact that she gets paid, a lot still (200+ million in 2013?), also for streaming services ( which she dismissed as a ''small tip''), just because the accessibility is wider now, just means more people can easily listen to it legally. I mean, she makes the type of music I wouldn't buy in my whole life, but she would get paid for the plays on spotify...

She is a stuck up elitist greedy bint. For her attitude I refuse to buy anything, and I can't really place myself in people who do. The main problem is her fanbase, which allows her to be powerful like this and continues to buy that pop crap.

I really don't get why you are having a go at her
She has now just changed the goal posts so that ALL artists will now get paid during this 3 month trial period.
How can that be a bad thing?
Or perhaps you haven't properly read what she was doing and why she complained.
Good on her and I expect Deep Purple, The (remaining) Beatles, Pink Floyd and ELO will be thanking her.

 

[Xordium]

I really don't get why you are having a go at her
She has now just changed the goal posts so that ALL artists will now get paid during this 3 month trial period.
How can that be a bad thing?
Or perhaps you haven't properly read what she was doing and why she complained.
Good on her and I expect Deep Purple, The (remaining) Beatles, Pink Floyd and ELO will be thanking her.

I think it's not really just to do with this thing it's to do with the inconsistency in how she treats others, her claims she is doing it all for the little guys etc when she is then stiffing said little guys.

Also her rejection of usage on Spotify gives a bad impression when she herself does the very things she claims to be against on Youtube.

I agree it was extremely ill thought by Apple but she is the one eulogising Apple not us - we know their farts don't smell of roses and they use sweatshops to make overpriced stuff. Well some of us do.

Raymond may know better than me as he knows her stuff well but has she spoken out about the 70% cut the publishers take from the artists when let's face it's Spotify who are taking the publishers role - they are promoting, they are distributing etc. I don't know maybe she has attacked that dynamic too. But if she ignores one but not the other when she has vested interests then it looks not so good.

But Apple backtracking that is a good thing, yes.

 

[Glaucus]

Ok, man maths coming up.

Spotify distributed $1bn in royalties last year. It streamed 7bn hours of music.

So at an average of 3 minutes per track, thats 140bn streamed tracks in 2014. So $1bn / 140bn = $0.00714 per streamed track, or 0.7 cent (around 0.44p) per streamed track.

So about 180 streams per downloaded song, so over the lifetime off the artist, streaming probably earns them more. As most people will listen to a sing more than that over the years, rather than pay 79p once off and that's it.

Instant vs long term, but then again they probably prefer the instant and invest it, or blow it on drugs.

 

[Raymond Lin]

So about 180 streams per downloaded song, so over the lifetime off the artist, streaming probably earns them more. As most people will listen to a sing more than that over the years, rather than pay 79p once off and that's it.

Instant vs long term, but then again they probably prefer the instant and invest it, or blow it on drugs.

That is assuming you will stream that 180 times.

Think of all those one hit wonders, in the chart for 2 weeks and disappear forever or songs that define that summer and never heard of again.

 

[snowdog]

I really don't get why you are having a go at her
She has now just changed the goal posts so that ALL artists will now get paid during this 3 month trial period.
How can that be a bad thing?
Or perhaps you haven't properly read what she was doing and why she complained.
Good on her and I expect Deep Purple, The (remaining) Beatles, Pink Floyd and ELO will be thanking her.

I believe in ''try before you buy''. Fair enough it's still possible thanks to Youtube and piracy. She boycots Spotify which annoys me greatly, as streaming services are the way forward, I'd be willing to pay more than the tenner per month easily for Spotify to support good artists. The apple thing is just another example. She's the perfect example of pushing consumers more in the direction of piracy.

That is assuming you will stream that 180 times.

Think of all those one hit wonders, in the chart for 2 weeks and disappear forever or songs that define that summer and never heard of again.

Erm ? This is since 2008, and only on my pc&phone, let alone youtube views and grooveshark, etc :

Enough one hit wonders in that list.

A real one hit wonder will be popular for many years to come, just see the Youtube views on summer hits like the Ketchup song, Macarena, and all that other stuff.