Streaming Music Is Ripping You Off

Streaming Music Is Ripping You Off(medium.com)

42 points by fordh 10 years ago | 8 comments

tired_man 10 years ago |

That was a very interesting explanation on how streaming royalties are generated and distributed.

I think that the Silent September idea is good. I'd thought that the groups I streamed got a fair distribution of royalties. Now I see that I was completely mistaken on that count.

Perhaps it's better to download everything and send money directly to the groups :-)

dimlyaware 10 years ago |

While the system is definitely a better solution, you also have to look at it from a database performance level. I would prefer the above, and to be honest my knowledge of databases is not strong enough to say that the below makes it impossible or difficult to implement but something that needs to be taken into account.

Spotify currently has a database that tracks the number 'Plays' each artist gets. They then roll that up into a combined number that gives them their royalty payout for the year. Have lets say 100,000 artists, that is 100,000 records accessed when they run their end of year report. On the user level (lets say you have a million users) you now need to keep track of the number of clicks per artist per user. Most likely through having each user have its own click counter table that has a record for each artist they listened to (probably through a foreign key) and then the number of clicks for that artist. When the end of the year report rolls around instead of simply looking at 100,000 records. You are now accessing 1 million records times the average number of artists a user listens too and then running calculations to figure out how much each artist gets by the user. I'm sure there is better database design then the above mentioned but you still run into a more power intensive process to calculate it.

Not something I think will completely stop companies like spotify from switching to this model but something worth considering...

danielki 10 years ago | |

Spotify already tracks user listening history. I can see a "Recently Played Artists" section on my profile, and I assume they're using some of it to generate the user-specific "Discover Weekly" recommended music playlists.

jsf666 10 years ago |

Why should I care as a consumer? The musicians aren't 5 year old children and should know for what they're signing. I pay the subscription and get the product, you really don't have anything more interesting to do than trying to find problems where there ain't none?

akshat_h 10 years ago | |

The same paying model would be used for consumers, but with subscriber share model presented in the article, the author argues would be a more equitable distribution for the artists. It seems simple in theory, but I would like to see some actual numbers of the users. I am not sure if the infographics in the article are based on real world numbers, or some assumptions.

rmah 10 years ago |

While I understand the point of the author, I don't really see why paying per play is unfair. It seems to me that artists who creates a song that I love enough to play it 100 times in a year should get more than a song by a random artist listened to just once.

benbristow 10 years ago |

When people criticise streaming services because it's 'not giving the artists enough money' it sometimes annoys me a little.

What would you prefer?

- A service where people are able to freely access a huge music library from all their devices for a minimal subscription fee.

- Having to buy albums one by one, where one album is more than a whole month of a streaming package.

Streaming stopped me pirating music. I have no reason to do so (other than the odd MP3 file for video editing/DJ practice etc.) any more.

Services like Spotify/Apple Music need to also take a cut for server management, developers and management staff etc.

Also the record industry takes massive cuts so the artist doesn't seem to see much of it at all, even with normal albums.

joshstrange 10 years ago | |

So you either didn't read the article or you are choosing to ignore the alternative proposed which I've felt is the better way to do this for some time. Each subscriber's $10 -> $7 (After streaming service fees) is divvied up between the artists they listen to in a given month. I fail to see how this causes any issues at all and does not result in having to buy albums one by one and gives you access to a huge music library for a minimal fee.