Spotify responds to Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich criticism(musicweek.com)
musicweek.com
Spotify responds to Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich criticism
http://www.musicweek.com/news/read/spotify-responds-to-thom-yorke-and-nigel-godrich-criticism/055383
14 comments
I subscribed to spotify premium for a year and a half but recently cancelled my subscription and went to a competitor. I feel the UI/UX quality of the desktop version has degraded significantly and they are actually removing features as opposed to adding them.
Basic things like: drag-n-drop sharing with friends, my friends list was replaced with people suggested to follow, still no outbox for songs I sent, no back button on "radio" stations nor a way to see the radio playlist/history, new UI for albums/artists/songs is horrible, Ctrl+F to quickly filter items in current result set was removed for some reason, no fuzzy search capability, etc.
I'm not sure what userbase Spotify is targeting but it's one I am clearly no longer a member.
Basic things like: drag-n-drop sharing with friends, my friends list was replaced with people suggested to follow, still no outbox for songs I sent, no back button on "radio" stations nor a way to see the radio playlist/history, new UI for albums/artists/songs is horrible, Ctrl+F to quickly filter items in current result set was removed for some reason, no fuzzy search capability, etc.
I'm not sure what userbase Spotify is targeting but it's one I am clearly no longer a member.
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I haven't updated Spotify in a bit so I still have Ctrl/Cmd + F functionality. Good to know, I almost lost it!
> Ctrl+F to quickly filter items
Boy am I missing this one, would love to see it back!
Boy am I missing this one, would love to see it back!
Out of curiosity, which competitor did you move to?
It's Google Play for now. Great desktop (when chrome is in --app mode) app, pretty abysmal android app. It's not without its faults either.
I did't mention the competitor because my primary complaint was to raise more awareness about the things Spotify could fix to bring me (and others) back as customers -- Not to drive business to someone else.
I did't mention the competitor because my primary complaint was to raise more awareness about the things Spotify could fix to bring me (and others) back as customers -- Not to drive business to someone else.
Sure, understood. I appreciate the heads up, though - I'm in a similar position, myself.
A bit of a tangent, but I'm also having some issues swallowing the "pay for a license" pill in a lot of respects, e.g. Spotify and Steam (of course, we all do it anyway), so if there's a chance to continue to do that but also own things, or otherwise move away from that ephemeral type of usage, then I'm interested, so always interested to learn more about alternative products.
A bit of a tangent, but I'm also having some issues swallowing the "pay for a license" pill in a lot of respects, e.g. Spotify and Steam (of course, we all do it anyway), so if there's a chance to continue to do that but also own things, or otherwise move away from that ephemeral type of usage, then I'm interested, so always interested to learn more about alternative products.
I think Google Music's Android app is preferable to Spotify's. Spotify was really bad with skipping/popping in the middle of tracks, even when they claimed to have fixed that. And I was experiencing problems with hard crashes and restarts of my phone while running it.
I'm not seeing the advantage of Google Play in desktop mode. What am I missing?
A friend of mine set their Dad up on Spotify instead of listening to music through YouTube.
She said to him that he could listen to anything he wanted using Spotify. The first thing he searched for was The Beatles, one of a number of popular groups that aren't on Spotify, and probably will never be.
I had a similar issue when looking for Jimmy Eat World's cover of Take 'Em As They Come, by Bruce Springsteen. It was released as a bonus track for those that bought their album through iTunes. However, that album is no longer on iTunes, and the track itself cannot be bought anywhere else. My only choice was to find an mp3.
It's these gaps that bring people back to piracy. Anything that someone cannot find on Spotify will be torrented or ripped from elsewhere.
She said to him that he could listen to anything he wanted using Spotify. The first thing he searched for was The Beatles, one of a number of popular groups that aren't on Spotify, and probably will never be.
I had a similar issue when looking for Jimmy Eat World's cover of Take 'Em As They Come, by Bruce Springsteen. It was released as a bonus track for those that bought their album through iTunes. However, that album is no longer on iTunes, and the track itself cannot be bought anywhere else. My only choice was to find an mp3.
It's these gaps that bring people back to piracy. Anything that someone cannot find on Spotify will be torrented or ripped from elsewhere.
One of my biggest fears, as someone who enjoys such wide access to music, is that the number of services will increase to such a large a number and result in such catalog segmentation that I will have to be a member of numerous streaming services to actually listen to what I want.
Maybe this is the what is needed, though? Each major has their own service? Each independent label or groups thereof then do the same? One interesting service I have seen lately is http://drip.fm/ I am really curious as to the success of it so far.
Maybe this is the what is needed, though? Each major has their own service? Each independent label or groups thereof then do the same? One interesting service I have seen lately is http://drip.fm/ I am really curious as to the success of it so far.
>One of my biggest fears, as someone who enjoys such wide access to music, is that the number of services will increase to such a large a number and result in such catalog segmentation that I will have to be a member of numerous streaming services to actually listen to what I want.
As someone who enjoys playing games, it's frustrating to find that my games are fragmented between multiple cloud providers (Steam/Desura/Origin/UPlay), non-cloud middle-men like GoG/Amazon/HumbleStore and no provider at all, in the case of direct downloads from a games site.
It's very frustrating that I have zero perspective of my library as a whole, and frequently lose lesser played titles depending on where in the chain they started.
As someone who enjoys playing games, it's frustrating to find that my games are fragmented between multiple cloud providers (Steam/Desura/Origin/UPlay), non-cloud middle-men like GoG/Amazon/HumbleStore and no provider at all, in the case of direct downloads from a games site.
It's very frustrating that I have zero perspective of my library as a whole, and frequently lose lesser played titles depending on where in the chain they started.
Musician, Spotify user, and Radiohead fan here. Spotify fulfills my dream of working in a record store so I can spend all day discovering music. This argument is behind the scenes paperwork between the service and the content owners. They should figure it out without bothering me the end user. If they can't, then they're both at fault.
Boilerplate response. One would think that they would want to nip this in the but. At least cite some specifics, there are clearly lots out there...
Writing or speaking about streaming music screwing artists? Read these articles first http://musically.com/2013/02/13/streaming-music-screwing-art...
Writing or speaking about streaming music screwing artists? Read these articles first http://musically.com/2013/02/13/streaming-music-screwing-art...
Its kind of the same problem like pirating video games for example.
People dont pirate games they really want to have, they pirate those they wouldnt be buying anyway..most atleast.
For music its the same for me.. I might listen to the Radiohead stuff on spotify (which i pay for). But would i pay for it if they take it away ? No.
People dont pirate games they really want to have, they pirate those they wouldnt be buying anyway..most atleast.
For music its the same for me.. I might listen to the Radiohead stuff on spotify (which i pay for). But would i pay for it if they take it away ? No.
Do you have the data to back up that claim? Last I checked, there aren't any true communist societies out there and the ones closest to communism aren't doing too well...
You're basically making the claim that if people were left to freely choose, they will automatically pay the fair price for things they want?
You're basically making the claim that if people were left to freely choose, they will automatically pay the fair price for things they want?
No i am not. I am making the claim that most people that use something for free would not pay to use it if it wasnt as seen in countless fremium paying user percentages.
It's the same cost/benefit calculation I point out below.
For services like spotify (and I'm specifically referring to the part of the service where you can choose to play a specific song), there is cost to an artist, in lost sales. Meaning, people who would normally buy a cd/track, and who do not since they listen to it on spotify. I think people can agree this cost is not zero - some sales definitely are lost - but they'll argue the magnitude of the cost.
There is also a benefit in terms of discovery. This is the streaming revenue, plus the sales that come from discovery. I think people can agree the benefit is above zero - discovery does happen - but they'll again argue magnitude.
The question is whether the discovery benefit outweighs the cost. There are widely varying opinions on this, and it can really only be answered with data rather than by someone's strong opinion.
It's also tricky question to test because I think the counterfactuals may be impossible. How do you simultaneously test the success of a song on Spotify, and the exact same song not on Spotify? Maybe an artist with two equally popular cds could put one on Spotify and not the other and see what happens for a rough approximation, but I'm not sure. I'd love to hear more thoughts on ways this calculation can be approximately measured.
For services like spotify (and I'm specifically referring to the part of the service where you can choose to play a specific song), there is cost to an artist, in lost sales. Meaning, people who would normally buy a cd/track, and who do not since they listen to it on spotify. I think people can agree this cost is not zero - some sales definitely are lost - but they'll argue the magnitude of the cost.
There is also a benefit in terms of discovery. This is the streaming revenue, plus the sales that come from discovery. I think people can agree the benefit is above zero - discovery does happen - but they'll again argue magnitude.
The question is whether the discovery benefit outweighs the cost. There are widely varying opinions on this, and it can really only be answered with data rather than by someone's strong opinion.
It's also tricky question to test because I think the counterfactuals may be impossible. How do you simultaneously test the success of a song on Spotify, and the exact same song not on Spotify? Maybe an artist with two equally popular cds could put one on Spotify and not the other and see what happens for a rough approximation, but I'm not sure. I'd love to hear more thoughts on ways this calculation can be approximately measured.
Spotify isn't really optimized for discovery. Service like YouTube, music blogs, hypemachine, are much better for this and their UIs aren't designed to replace your music player either, so listening to music on YouTube isn't going to replace buying (or some other way of getting the music file) the song.
What is the inherent value of a listen (as in, of a song)? I assume the music industry has been trying to prop that up but with the democratization of musical content creation that price has to have been driven down. I've heard new music from new bands that I wouldn't have had a chance to in the 90's.
There are so many songs to listen to on Spotify that I can generally find something to listen to nowadays. If some artist I like withholds their catalog that does hurt me initially. I adapt and move on and listen to something else. Their loss.
There are so many songs to listen to on Spotify that I can generally find something to listen to nowadays. If some artist I like withholds their catalog that does hurt me initially. I adapt and move on and listen to something else. Their loss.
It's an ironic fact of history that the easier it has become to be an artist the more entitled these artists feel like.
Everyone else is forced to change their business models to just make a reasonable amount of money but somehow musicians feel like they should be exempt from this phenomena.
The reality is that it has never been easier to make money, just not as many as you used to. The people they should complain to is the record labels not Spotify. They are the ones taking the big cuts without providing any value.
Spotify is fundamentally a radio station with a few fundamental diferences.
So welcome to the digital economy. It's not easy but at least you can make money performing. A luxury most other in this economy don't have.
Everyone else is forced to change their business models to just make a reasonable amount of money but somehow musicians feel like they should be exempt from this phenomena.
The reality is that it has never been easier to make money, just not as many as you used to. The people they should complain to is the record labels not Spotify. They are the ones taking the big cuts without providing any value.
Spotify is fundamentally a radio station with a few fundamental diferences.
So welcome to the digital economy. It's not easy but at least you can make money performing. A luxury most other in this economy don't have.
Nobody is forced to change business models the way artists are forced to change business models. Other business models are obsoleted by market substitutes. But that's not what happens to Radiohead; people don't listen to Radiohead substitutes, but instead effectively coerce Radiohead itself into providing its offering to them for free.
The core leverage Spotify has over artists is, at root, piracy.
The core leverage Spotify has over artists is, at root, piracy.
Then so are radios.
Artists are only forced to do what they did in the beginning, namely performing. They can do that on top of selling for scale.
They have been fortunate enough being one of the first industries that got to take advantage of the scaleability technology has allowed for.
There is no natural born right to make a lot of money from recording once and then reselling the same piece without any additional cost. Thousands of brilliant musicians never got a record deal when the record labels where the gatekeeper, now everyone has a shot.
But everything comes with a price and so does this opportunity.
Artists are only forced to do what they did in the beginning, namely performing. They can do that on top of selling for scale.
They have been fortunate enough being one of the first industries that got to take advantage of the scaleability technology has allowed for.
There is no natural born right to make a lot of money from recording once and then reselling the same piece without any additional cost. Thousands of brilliant musicians never got a record deal when the record labels where the gatekeeper, now everyone has a shot.
But everything comes with a price and so does this opportunity.
No, radios are not analogous; artists can refuse to have their songs played on the radio, but cannot effectively refuse to have their work pirated.
There are no natural born rights to anything. In the state of nature, humans contend not with audio licensing but with not being eaten by bears or having their heads split open by other humans. Past that, everything is a question of the social contract, and in our social contract, you are usually not entitled to consume the fruits of someone else's labor on your own unilaterally defined terms.
The same logic you use to entitle yourself to download music without the artist or owner's permission is the logic I could use to entitle myself to download your application's database.
There are no natural born rights to anything. In the state of nature, humans contend not with audio licensing but with not being eaten by bears or having their heads split open by other humans. Past that, everything is a question of the social contract, and in our social contract, you are usually not entitled to consume the fruits of someone else's labor on your own unilaterally defined terms.
The same logic you use to entitle yourself to download music without the artist or owner's permission is the logic I could use to entitle myself to download your application's database.
Thomas, I honestly don't know how you do it.
Every time the copyright debate comes up, you tirelessly try to inject reason into it. But they're not having it. I simply cannot, for the life of me, understand why people think that it's their RIGHT to copy the works of others. I'm no saint - I love me some isohunt - but I don't have the self-entitled mindset that says "I'm supposed to be able to pirate your stuff, your hard work be damned."
"Oh, well technology has outdated their business model, artists need to get with the times!" Well technology has updated the NSA's surveillance model, but everybody's mad? If ease of copying is a justification for piracy, then ease of data collection is a justification for mass surveillance.
But the HN crowd is unaffected, because they're relying on SaaS to make money. I keep waiting for the day when someone invents a way to reverse engineer webapps, and all and sundry will be able to download $SociaLocalMobileStartuply.com's code, and freely use it to create their own competitor to it. Then we'll see the hypocrisy of these entitled pirates.
You don't have a right to people's stuff. If you did, it'd be your stuff.
Keep up the fight, Thomas. You're a better man than I am.
Every time the copyright debate comes up, you tirelessly try to inject reason into it. But they're not having it. I simply cannot, for the life of me, understand why people think that it's their RIGHT to copy the works of others. I'm no saint - I love me some isohunt - but I don't have the self-entitled mindset that says "I'm supposed to be able to pirate your stuff, your hard work be damned."
"Oh, well technology has outdated their business model, artists need to get with the times!" Well technology has updated the NSA's surveillance model, but everybody's mad? If ease of copying is a justification for piracy, then ease of data collection is a justification for mass surveillance.
But the HN crowd is unaffected, because they're relying on SaaS to make money. I keep waiting for the day when someone invents a way to reverse engineer webapps, and all and sundry will be able to download $SociaLocalMobileStartuply.com's code, and freely use it to create their own competitor to it. Then we'll see the hypocrisy of these entitled pirates.
You don't have a right to people's stuff. If you did, it'd be your stuff.
Keep up the fight, Thomas. You're a better man than I am.
Do you know how much musicians copy from each other?
If you really want to take this logic to it's full extend then be prepared to a much much more diluted payback.
Music has become a commodity business. Deal with it.
If you really want to take this logic to it's full extend then be prepared to a much much more diluted payback.
Music has become a commodity business. Deal with it.
That argument is also stale. Your favorite artists might be Girl Talk and Public Enemy, but Parquet Courts and Neko Case don't do a whole lot of sampling, do they?
Again: the problem is not that music is "becoming a commodity business". IT CLEARLY IS NOT, because consumers don't want "commodity music"; they demand Yeezus, Magna Carta, Hail To The King and Random Access Memories.
A commodity business is one in which prices are driven down by substitutes. But unlawfully downloaded copies of Daft Punk albums aren't a real market substitute for authorized copies of Daft Punk albums.
Instead, music is a market in which middlemen of varying stripes have achieved control over the market sufficient to dominate the returns for recording music in the first place. The middlemen of 2013 are actually worse in some ways than the middlemen of 1990; record labels worked on the VC model and signed artists were often ensured a middle-class standard of living, but today's middlemen are companies like Google that aren't in any way incentivized to compensate artists at all.
Music has been made to seem like a commodity by what is in effect a monopsonistic cartel. But that commodity status is an illusion, not a valid market outcome.
Again: the problem is not that music is "becoming a commodity business". IT CLEARLY IS NOT, because consumers don't want "commodity music"; they demand Yeezus, Magna Carta, Hail To The King and Random Access Memories.
A commodity business is one in which prices are driven down by substitutes. But unlawfully downloaded copies of Daft Punk albums aren't a real market substitute for authorized copies of Daft Punk albums.
Instead, music is a market in which middlemen of varying stripes have achieved control over the market sufficient to dominate the returns for recording music in the first place. The middlemen of 2013 are actually worse in some ways than the middlemen of 1990; record labels worked on the VC model and signed artists were often ensured a middle-class standard of living, but today's middlemen are companies like Google that aren't in any way incentivized to compensate artists at all.
Music has been made to seem like a commodity by what is in effect a monopsonistic cartel. But that commodity status is an illusion, not a valid market outcome.
People choose between the choices they have. If Daft Punk didn't exist people would listen to something else and have the posters up on their wall of someone else.
They wouldn't instead buy a car.
The easier it is to learn and make the music, the more people will make music, the more competition there will be, the harder it is to make money. Music IS the product.
That is by all intents and purposes of this discussion a commodity and the music industry which includes musicians copy each other all the time.
How do you think musicans learn to play music?
Do you think they learn it by purely taking theory and turning it into songs out of the blue or could it be that they learn a lot of songs other have played, transcribe and through that build their own sense of music.
Copying existing music is the way most people learn. By copying others. You don't need samplers for that.
The middlemen in the 90's decided who should get access to their distribution. It is a far cry from the ability for anyone today to put out their own records on their own terms.
The ability for musicians to record a song once and sell it infinitely has nothing to do with being a musician. The copy of your original is NOT the you it's a copy and that is a commoditized business.
They wouldn't instead buy a car.
The easier it is to learn and make the music, the more people will make music, the more competition there will be, the harder it is to make money. Music IS the product.
That is by all intents and purposes of this discussion a commodity and the music industry which includes musicians copy each other all the time.
How do you think musicans learn to play music?
Do you think they learn it by purely taking theory and turning it into songs out of the blue or could it be that they learn a lot of songs other have played, transcribe and through that build their own sense of music.
Copying existing music is the way most people learn. By copying others. You don't need samplers for that.
The middlemen in the 90's decided who should get access to their distribution. It is a far cry from the ability for anyone today to put out their own records on their own terms.
The ability for musicians to record a song once and sell it infinitely has nothing to do with being a musician. The copy of your original is NOT the you it's a copy and that is a commoditized business.
The question isn't whether Daft Punk will or won't exist. It's whether people will pay for authorized copies of Daft Punk, or unlawfully download unauthorized copies.
You keep using this term "commodity" as if it meant "any market where offerings have a low cost". But that's neither a good description of the music market nor a valid characterization of commodities markets, which include pork bellies which are used to make bacon like you might find in a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich as well as gold, silver, and crude oil, which aren't cheap.
A commodity market is one in which good are standardized to the point where one provider's offering is as good as any other's, and so the only determinant of price is cost; commodities markets often feature low prices as a result of competition. But Daft Punk isn't competing with Blaft Smunk and Zaft Tunk for who can offer the cheapest dance album. Music consumers demand Daft Punk and will not accept substitutes.
You comments pretend that what's happening is that music consumers are driving prices down by avoiding artists who don't pay for licensing on consumer-friendly terms. But of course that's not what's happening. Instead, consumers acquire content that isn't licensed at or near "free" by unlawful mechanisms ranging from ad-supported P2P networks to Google's ad-supported Youtube site. P2P networks and Youtube don't reliably remit any payments to artists, and their significant impact on pricing is a market inefficiency; they're free-riders.
What makes music appear to be a commodity market is the coercive impact of technology coupled with the market power of a cartel of specific buyers which makes it untenable for almost any artist to sell music directly to consumers. Music is made cheap by piracy, and cheaper still by the fact that a monopsony effectively controls authorized sales.
I might feel like these were pedantic points, except that you're the one who keeps invoking economics in defense of the status quo, as if there were real economic principles supporting it.
You keep using this term "commodity" as if it meant "any market where offerings have a low cost". But that's neither a good description of the music market nor a valid characterization of commodities markets, which include pork bellies which are used to make bacon like you might find in a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich as well as gold, silver, and crude oil, which aren't cheap.
A commodity market is one in which good are standardized to the point where one provider's offering is as good as any other's, and so the only determinant of price is cost; commodities markets often feature low prices as a result of competition. But Daft Punk isn't competing with Blaft Smunk and Zaft Tunk for who can offer the cheapest dance album. Music consumers demand Daft Punk and will not accept substitutes.
You comments pretend that what's happening is that music consumers are driving prices down by avoiding artists who don't pay for licensing on consumer-friendly terms. But of course that's not what's happening. Instead, consumers acquire content that isn't licensed at or near "free" by unlawful mechanisms ranging from ad-supported P2P networks to Google's ad-supported Youtube site. P2P networks and Youtube don't reliably remit any payments to artists, and their significant impact on pricing is a market inefficiency; they're free-riders.
What makes music appear to be a commodity market is the coercive impact of technology coupled with the market power of a cartel of specific buyers which makes it untenable for almost any artist to sell music directly to consumers. Music is made cheap by piracy, and cheaper still by the fact that a monopsony effectively controls authorized sales.
I might feel like these were pedantic points, except that you're the one who keeps invoking economics in defense of the status quo, as if there were real economic principles supporting it.
Yes it is the question whether or not they exist. People will buy something else. It's not like people walked around saying. "I wish there was a band like Daft Punk."
People like music naturally and depending on what time in history you lived in will like different types of music, but music is the fundamental product that people are buying.
They would buy more or less whatever was available to them, cause that is how music works. Repetition and the more you hear a song the more you will end up liking it.
You can choose to play a game of semantics and not accept the term commodity but the reality is that 50 years ago people paid for music because there was real cost involved, just like they today still pay for a concert. Today to be in a position to have a band the price has come down many many times. That's the primary commodity part.
There is no "hard labour" involved for most of the music you hear today.
They understand that they should pay for it and there is a classic supply/demand principle in play.
With digital distribution and copying there isn't the same supply/demand principles in play. The artist don't pay for the medium that holds their music, they barely pay for the recording anymore, the consumers do themselves.
This is the difference in value. I like the music of bands and I am ready to support them, but I liked a lot of bands a lot before the internet and I didn't buy a fraction of what they were selling.
This has all changed and it is at no cost to music in genreal only to the individual musician. But I would much rather live in a world where record labels weren't the gatekeepers anymore.
Both the musicians and their audience is much better off.
People like music naturally and depending on what time in history you lived in will like different types of music, but music is the fundamental product that people are buying.
They would buy more or less whatever was available to them, cause that is how music works. Repetition and the more you hear a song the more you will end up liking it.
You can choose to play a game of semantics and not accept the term commodity but the reality is that 50 years ago people paid for music because there was real cost involved, just like they today still pay for a concert. Today to be in a position to have a band the price has come down many many times. That's the primary commodity part.
There is no "hard labour" involved for most of the music you hear today.
They understand that they should pay for it and there is a classic supply/demand principle in play.
With digital distribution and copying there isn't the same supply/demand principles in play. The artist don't pay for the medium that holds their music, they barely pay for the recording anymore, the consumers do themselves.
This is the difference in value. I like the music of bands and I am ready to support them, but I liked a lot of bands a lot before the internet and I didn't buy a fraction of what they were selling.
This has all changed and it is at no cost to music in genreal only to the individual musician. But I would much rather live in a world where record labels weren't the gatekeepers anymore.
Both the musicians and their audience is much better off.
This seems to be an argument that the price of music has fallen because we no longer have to pay for little plastic disks. Nobody was paying for the plastic disks or the clunky reels of magnetic tape.
I'm having a hard time understanding how musicians could be better off in 2013 now that a manipulated robotic market has driven the price for recorded music down to $0. As hard as it may be to stomach, the facts seem to indicate that they were better off in the era of A&R reps and cigar-chomping label execs. The things people claim make musicians money in 2013 were also revenue sources, also in the mix, in 1981 (another idiosyncratic tech belief is that the Internet taught musicians how to make t-shirts --- which also get pirated!). Most live musicians make fuck plus all on touring.
What might be the case is that 2013 is a better time to be a hobbyist musician; you might get some national exposure. But since the entire market for recorded music is collapsing, along with many (most?) classic artist follow-on jobs like recording engineering, session musicianship, scouting, and promotion, it seems like 2013 is a distinctly worse time for professional musicians.
(I'm not a musician but come from a family of musicians; my brother is a professional musician, for instance).
ps: I'm not voting your comments down, and voted the parent up; I couldn't disagree with you more strongly but appreciate your civility, which is unfortunately atypical of music licensing discussions on HN.
I'm having a hard time understanding how musicians could be better off in 2013 now that a manipulated robotic market has driven the price for recorded music down to $0. As hard as it may be to stomach, the facts seem to indicate that they were better off in the era of A&R reps and cigar-chomping label execs. The things people claim make musicians money in 2013 were also revenue sources, also in the mix, in 1981 (another idiosyncratic tech belief is that the Internet taught musicians how to make t-shirts --- which also get pirated!). Most live musicians make fuck plus all on touring.
What might be the case is that 2013 is a better time to be a hobbyist musician; you might get some national exposure. But since the entire market for recorded music is collapsing, along with many (most?) classic artist follow-on jobs like recording engineering, session musicianship, scouting, and promotion, it seems like 2013 is a distinctly worse time for professional musicians.
(I'm not a musician but come from a family of musicians; my brother is a professional musician, for instance).
ps: I'm not voting your comments down, and voted the parent up; I couldn't disagree with you more strongly but appreciate your civility, which is unfortunately atypical of music licensing discussions on HN.
I wouldn't expect you to vote me down just because we were in disagreement. I know you well enough for that :)
But back to the discussion.
All people start as hobbyists when it comes to playing music. It's something you do, not because you have to, not because it helps others, but because it's fun. It's for most a performing art.
More people can start as hobbyists today than ever before and more people do. More people are also today able to put out records for almost no money.
50 years ago it was both much more expensive and the only distribution you had was the one that the lables owned.
Today everyone can put out a song and everyone an access it. A professionally sounding song has also been driven down to almost nothing.
You need a string quartet? No problem, here is a sound. Need a xylofone? No problem, here is a sound.
Spotifys data show that people are listening to much more off-chart music, because they suddenly have access to it. Bands that was never heard of before or wouldn't have had a chance now has an audience. They wont make Elvis kind of money, but they can at least make a little.
This is the reason why music is a commodity. Not the individual artist but the process of making music and reselling the same performance.
The individual artist can still sell their concerts and do so in fact at many times higher prices than they used to, and people are buying it.
Most musician always made fuck all on touring. Let alone on their records.
I made fuck all when I was a struggling musician myself. Very few people have ever made money on music besides the record labels.
Music isn't an industry it's performing arts and that you can always make money on.
The record industry has nothing to do with music besides it selling it. If anything is a myth, that is the myth.
But back to the discussion.
All people start as hobbyists when it comes to playing music. It's something you do, not because you have to, not because it helps others, but because it's fun. It's for most a performing art.
More people can start as hobbyists today than ever before and more people do. More people are also today able to put out records for almost no money.
50 years ago it was both much more expensive and the only distribution you had was the one that the lables owned.
Today everyone can put out a song and everyone an access it. A professionally sounding song has also been driven down to almost nothing.
You need a string quartet? No problem, here is a sound. Need a xylofone? No problem, here is a sound.
Spotifys data show that people are listening to much more off-chart music, because they suddenly have access to it. Bands that was never heard of before or wouldn't have had a chance now has an audience. They wont make Elvis kind of money, but they can at least make a little.
This is the reason why music is a commodity. Not the individual artist but the process of making music and reselling the same performance.
The individual artist can still sell their concerts and do so in fact at many times higher prices than they used to, and people are buying it.
Most musician always made fuck all on touring. Let alone on their records.
I made fuck all when I was a struggling musician myself. Very few people have ever made money on music besides the record labels.
Music isn't an industry it's performing arts and that you can always make money on.
The record industry has nothing to do with music besides it selling it. If anything is a myth, that is the myth.
Yes, we all know that "great artists steal." And of course, every musician has been inspired by some one before. There are only so many chords. But that's a red herring.
When musicians directly copy another's work, i.e., sampling, don't they need to get permission? And if the owner of sampled work says "no, you can't have it", then that's that.
Again, easy to do =! ethical.
Mass surveillance has become widespread. Deal with it.
When musicians directly copy another's work, i.e., sampling, don't they need to get permission? And if the owner of sampled work says "no, you can't have it", then that's that.
Again, easy to do =! ethical.
Mass surveillance has become widespread. Deal with it.
Sampling isn't the only way to directly copying other peoples music.
Musicians who play covers are required to arrange licensing fees.
We aren't just talking about covers.
We are talking about passages, melodies, riffs, fills, rythms etc.
It is much more complex than you seem to be aware of.
We are talking about passages, melodies, riffs, fills, rythms etc.
It is much more complex than you seem to be aware of.
That's a weird thing to say. These are all questions that copyright jurisprudence has had to deal with. The copyrightability of riffs should be well known to anyone who watched MTV in the Vanilla Ice years.
Why? Playing a melody over a different chord progression or a re-arragned progression, different instrument, add a few lifts etc. the possibilities are litterally endless.
You can't apply copyright to these things unless they are blatantly obvious, which they in most cases aren't and not something that really matters to the bigger picture.
But the actual act of copying them. Most music is composed that way.
Thats also called inspiration. Which is just a nicer way of saying a less obvious way of copying.
You can't apply copyright to these things unless they are blatantly obvious, which they in most cases aren't and not something that really matters to the bigger picture.
But the actual act of copying them. Most music is composed that way.
Thats also called inspiration. Which is just a nicer way of saying a less obvious way of copying.
I simply cannot, for the life of me, understand why people think that it's their RIGHT to copy the works of others.
I don't think it's that hard to understand. The key is to realize that logic doesn't drive behavior. Rather, people do what comes naturally – i.e. that which is habitual – and then rationalize it as needed. The rationalization process is very strong. Logic is a mere speedbump on that road.
The only time people think carefully through a course of action is if they have no habits to fall back on.
People pirate music because they're habituated to think of music as free. The training process has been going on longer than digital music has existed, actually.
Which brings me to my observation that, of all the many dying forms of media, recorded music feels especially screwed. Yes, people pirate movies, books, and software, but somehow things seem a lot more dire among the poor musicians. Why is that?
I wonder if it's just a perfect storm of coincidence. So many things about recorded pop music make it extra-susceptible to piracy.
* Until recently, music was designed to be learned and performed by other people. That was the only way to hear it more than once. So not only is there a centuries-old tradition of performing other people's music, but there's techniques and instruments based on that art and schools to teach you how.
People often did this by ear. There's a story about Allegri's Miserere, the subject of the most famous act of music piracy in history: The Miserere was the personal property of the Pope, and would-be copyists of the work were threatened with excommunication. For 150 years it was only performed in the Sistine Chapel during Holy Week. Then Mozart came to town at age 14, heard the piece at the Wednesday service, went back to his room and wrote the whole thing down from memory, came back on Friday night to listen again and make minor corrections, and gave the transcript away to be published.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_(Allegri)
It may seem obvious, but if we took any modern Mozart to see Pacific Rim no amount of talent would enable him to produce a reasonable cover version in a day. It would take a year and hundreds of millions of dollars. Memorizing and recopying a novel is much more achievable, but the result would not be impressive except as a stunt: It's culturally understood that novels are intended to be printed verbatim, not reinterpreted or "covered", and it would be clear to everyone that the copied version was "plagiarism", not an homage or an interpretation. And many people are literally blind to features of a novel's "performance", such as its typesetting or the quality of its paper.
Novels were born in the age of cheap printing and are adapted to it. I predict that we will soon evolve genres of music that are similarly adapted to the era of cheap copying. It's not a difficult prediction, because the selection pressure that will drive this trend is starkly obvious.
* It's human nature to repeat the music that one hears. You can't stop humming. Often even if you want to.
* There's a tradition going back nearly a century of pretending that music is free: Music on the radio, and Muzak in stores. Of course, this music is all subsidized, but people don't think about that, if they even know.
If I were David Lowery and someone handed me a time machine and a gun, of course I'd probably go back and shoot Hitler, like you do. But then I'd hunt down the inventor of Muzak. Because after two generations of being marinated in free music it's no wonder people are habituated to think that music is free-as-in-oxygen.
* Pop music's designers spent half a century promoting a culture of repeat listening, in order to encourage everyone to buy singles. So we're trained to think of pop songs as something you collect, then listen to over and over. And we know that the best pop songs are the ones that are being heavily promoted, because being able to play "the latest single" is a fashion statement, even today.
Repeat-consumption of media is not some kind of natural law, it's genre-specific. I'm a big re-reader, but I think I'm an odd case: The majority of people read books only once, which explains why, even if they do read, they don't have a house full of books. Pauline Kael wrote about movies for a living, but never watched a movie more than once. And I have a huge Pinboard log of bookmarks, but I essentially never revisit them.
And, now that the money's been sucked out of the market for "original" recordings by the "original artists", there's no reason why musical culture should continue to encourage playing the same thing twice. Many genres don't: "Never the same way twice" pretty much defines jazz. (Unfortunately, jazz also evolved in an era awash with talented, classically-trained club and theater musicians, who eventually ran out of gigs because recording had been invented. The present and future of jazz is hip-hop and club music, built of improvised rhythm and rhyme instead of improvised melody and harmony, and of sampled recordings instead of sampled melodies and progressions.)
I don't think it's that hard to understand. The key is to realize that logic doesn't drive behavior. Rather, people do what comes naturally – i.e. that which is habitual – and then rationalize it as needed. The rationalization process is very strong. Logic is a mere speedbump on that road.
The only time people think carefully through a course of action is if they have no habits to fall back on.
People pirate music because they're habituated to think of music as free. The training process has been going on longer than digital music has existed, actually.
Which brings me to my observation that, of all the many dying forms of media, recorded music feels especially screwed. Yes, people pirate movies, books, and software, but somehow things seem a lot more dire among the poor musicians. Why is that?
I wonder if it's just a perfect storm of coincidence. So many things about recorded pop music make it extra-susceptible to piracy.
* Until recently, music was designed to be learned and performed by other people. That was the only way to hear it more than once. So not only is there a centuries-old tradition of performing other people's music, but there's techniques and instruments based on that art and schools to teach you how.
People often did this by ear. There's a story about Allegri's Miserere, the subject of the most famous act of music piracy in history: The Miserere was the personal property of the Pope, and would-be copyists of the work were threatened with excommunication. For 150 years it was only performed in the Sistine Chapel during Holy Week. Then Mozart came to town at age 14, heard the piece at the Wednesday service, went back to his room and wrote the whole thing down from memory, came back on Friday night to listen again and make minor corrections, and gave the transcript away to be published.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miserere_(Allegri)
It may seem obvious, but if we took any modern Mozart to see Pacific Rim no amount of talent would enable him to produce a reasonable cover version in a day. It would take a year and hundreds of millions of dollars. Memorizing and recopying a novel is much more achievable, but the result would not be impressive except as a stunt: It's culturally understood that novels are intended to be printed verbatim, not reinterpreted or "covered", and it would be clear to everyone that the copied version was "plagiarism", not an homage or an interpretation. And many people are literally blind to features of a novel's "performance", such as its typesetting or the quality of its paper.
Novels were born in the age of cheap printing and are adapted to it. I predict that we will soon evolve genres of music that are similarly adapted to the era of cheap copying. It's not a difficult prediction, because the selection pressure that will drive this trend is starkly obvious.
* It's human nature to repeat the music that one hears. You can't stop humming. Often even if you want to.
* There's a tradition going back nearly a century of pretending that music is free: Music on the radio, and Muzak in stores. Of course, this music is all subsidized, but people don't think about that, if they even know.
If I were David Lowery and someone handed me a time machine and a gun, of course I'd probably go back and shoot Hitler, like you do. But then I'd hunt down the inventor of Muzak. Because after two generations of being marinated in free music it's no wonder people are habituated to think that music is free-as-in-oxygen.
* Pop music's designers spent half a century promoting a culture of repeat listening, in order to encourage everyone to buy singles. So we're trained to think of pop songs as something you collect, then listen to over and over. And we know that the best pop songs are the ones that are being heavily promoted, because being able to play "the latest single" is a fashion statement, even today.
Repeat-consumption of media is not some kind of natural law, it's genre-specific. I'm a big re-reader, but I think I'm an odd case: The majority of people read books only once, which explains why, even if they do read, they don't have a house full of books. Pauline Kael wrote about movies for a living, but never watched a movie more than once. And I have a huge Pinboard log of bookmarks, but I essentially never revisit them.
And, now that the money's been sucked out of the market for "original" recordings by the "original artists", there's no reason why musical culture should continue to encourage playing the same thing twice. Many genres don't: "Never the same way twice" pretty much defines jazz. (Unfortunately, jazz also evolved in an era awash with talented, classically-trained club and theater musicians, who eventually ran out of gigs because recording had been invented. The present and future of jazz is hip-hop and club music, built of improvised rhythm and rhyme instead of improvised melody and harmony, and of sampled recordings instead of sampled melodies and progressions.)
Artists can refuse to have their songs played on Spotify. And people can copy the music played on the radio.
There is no one hindering the musician in keeping their recorded song to themselves. Just as I can keep my application database to myself. The artist can even choose not to record it an only perform with it. Just like they did when they started out playing music. The developer cant.
I can just as the artist put up my DB and ask for people to pay for it. And people can just as with music copy it if I choose to do so.
But the artist can also choose to simply charge for performing the song, an option a developer do not have unless they make a service at which there are ongoing costss
I think you need to rethink your position on this one mate.
It's not Spotify you need to blame it's technology in general.
There is no one hindering the musician in keeping their recorded song to themselves. Just as I can keep my application database to myself. The artist can even choose not to record it an only perform with it. Just like they did when they started out playing music. The developer cant.
I can just as the artist put up my DB and ask for people to pay for it. And people can just as with music copy it if I choose to do so.
But the artist can also choose to simply charge for performing the song, an option a developer do not have unless they make a service at which there are ongoing costss
I think you need to rethink your position on this one mate.
It's not Spotify you need to blame it's technology in general.
No, they can't; artists are between a rock and a hard place w/r/t Spotify, because if they aren't made available on one or more of the major paid services, they (a) are pirated merciless and (b) have to compete (and inevitably fail) for the promotion and monetization of their own work with services like Youtube.
I'm not saying Spotify is uniquely to blame for this situation, only that they're a part of the situation.
I'm not saying Spotify is uniquely to blame for this situation, only that they're a part of the situation.
This is absolutely no different than being on the app store and selling your app on the website.
You are trying to create a difference where none really exist. Take it from someone who have both been a musician and made apps.
Furthermore the new generations don't even have to change, this is the reality they grow up in and are free to make their choices.
Spotify is a far better ally for all musicians than record labels where for a select few.
You are trying to create a difference where none really exist. Take it from someone who have both been a musician and made apps.
Furthermore the new generations don't even have to change, this is the reality they grow up in and are free to make their choices.
Spotify is a far better ally for all musicians than record labels where for a select few.
They have been fortunate enough being one of the first industries that got to take advantage of the scaleability technology has allowed for.
Huh? Read some history. The Industrial Revoltuion (starting around 1750) was the first example of technology and scale. It was quite effective.
Huh? Read some history. The Industrial Revoltuion (starting around 1750) was the first example of technology and scale. It was quite effective.
aren't they entitled to pull their music off the service if they want to?
Whilst I don't see this being resolved any time soon, the whole thing is getting a little stale. It's the major record labels and the artists who've had (often big) pre Internet successes that are complaining the loudest.
Things change (for some better, for some worse) - but you have to adapt and get on with it. Artists are still making (and enjoying making) music and labels are still releasing music. The ones that go the furthest are the ones that embrace the situation, take advantage of it and work towards making the most of it.
Hell, a lot of the younger artists and labels don't know any different.
Things change (for some better, for some worse) - but you have to adapt and get on with it. Artists are still making (and enjoying making) music and labels are still releasing music. The ones that go the furthest are the ones that embrace the situation, take advantage of it and work towards making the most of it.
Hell, a lot of the younger artists and labels don't know any different.
I'd love to see a feature that showed how much I've personally paid to each band I've listened to.
I have to respect Thom Yorke's decision. These services only have their own profit in mind and do not come even close to fairly compensating artists. Thom's work is pretty niche to begin with and he probably doesn't see more than a few hundred dollars a month from streaming. For the number of plays he gets, this is probably not worth his time. Plus, hipsters love it when their bands turn down mainstream services. Makes them edgy and exclusive. This is a good business move for them
I pretty much exclusively use Spotify to listen to music. It's incredibly convenient. I love it.
It annoys me when artists decide not to participate. With Radiohead I at least 'kinda get it' in that their new album is a pay-your-price album, so sure whatever, fine. But for example, Taylor Swift's Red album is not there. What does she want me to do? Buy it on iTunes?? No thanks. If anything, it might make me want to pirate it.
What Spotify should do for these cases is what Xbox Music already does. If the song is not available for free (a-la Radiohead, or Taylor Swift) then you can purchase it just like on iTunes. Except that you get the benefit that it acts like any other song on their free catalog (syncing playlists etc. etc. etc.)
The only problem I see with this is that if it becomes an option, what would make an artist want to go the free route rather than the "pay to have" route? Then again, Xbox Music seems to be doing fine. Everything that is free on Spotify is free on Xbox Music (+ some others) and then Xbox Music gets the advantage in that many songs which just are not on Spotify are at least able to be purchased for ~1 dollar on Xbox Music.
It annoys me when artists decide not to participate. With Radiohead I at least 'kinda get it' in that their new album is a pay-your-price album, so sure whatever, fine. But for example, Taylor Swift's Red album is not there. What does she want me to do? Buy it on iTunes?? No thanks. If anything, it might make me want to pirate it.
What Spotify should do for these cases is what Xbox Music already does. If the song is not available for free (a-la Radiohead, or Taylor Swift) then you can purchase it just like on iTunes. Except that you get the benefit that it acts like any other song on their free catalog (syncing playlists etc. etc. etc.)
The only problem I see with this is that if it becomes an option, what would make an artist want to go the free route rather than the "pay to have" route? Then again, Xbox Music seems to be doing fine. Everything that is free on Spotify is free on Xbox Music (+ some others) and then Xbox Music gets the advantage in that many songs which just are not on Spotify are at least able to be purchased for ~1 dollar on Xbox Music.
I'm having trouble understanding your comment - because you explain exactly why artists would choose not to participate if there is a "paid" option, but then you say it annoys you when artists decide not to participate. Why does it annoy you?
Spotify has a discovery benefit, but it also robs track/cd sales. This is in contrast to something like Pandora, where the discovery aspect is just gravy, and a person still has to buy the tracks to listen on demand.
If an artist is being rational, they compare the discovery benefit to the track sales loss, and act accordingly. If a fan begrudges that choice to the extent of feeling justified in pirating, then what does that say about the fan? Spotify is actually complicit in reinforcing this attitude.
Spotify has a discovery benefit, but it also robs track/cd sales. This is in contrast to something like Pandora, where the discovery aspect is just gravy, and a person still has to buy the tracks to listen on demand.
If an artist is being rational, they compare the discovery benefit to the track sales loss, and act accordingly. If a fan begrudges that choice to the extent of feeling justified in pirating, then what does that say about the fan? Spotify is actually complicit in reinforcing this attitude.
Maybe the happy medium is cutting the labels out of the deal, allowing artists to self publish on the platform and see larger cuts of the proceeds for their contribution to the network. $500/m and $1/bn aren't exactly chump change until you realize the artists are getting tiny percentages of those payouts. If Spotify were to offer a convenient distribution platform and enticing terms to ditch labels and self publish the might find a sweet spot. That being said, piracy is popular because it's easy and free, the artists aren't competing against it because everyone's a pirate, they're competing against it because it's a more convenient alternative. Skip out on the most popular platform and your fans will adopt the alternative with a path of least resistance.
Just a couple years ago, iTunes availability was seen as a more convenient alternative to piracy. Now apparently Spotify makes iTunes so relatively annoying that piracy is preferable. I don't really think B flows from A, not without a lot of fans being encouraged to expect music for free when it isn't really free.
iTunes isn't that much more annoying than it used to be. People just started to feel more entitled to free music, encouraged by the newer services, and paying artists less. That's why it's a long slippery slope.
iTunes isn't that much more annoying than it used to be. People just started to feel more entitled to free music, encouraged by the newer services, and paying artists less. That's why it's a long slippery slope.
That's how Google Music does it, too. It has the All Access streaming service, and you can also continue to buy songs. And the streaming part is better than Spotify, too.
This is not new. Spotify have been screwing artists for a long time.
"Got paid £8 for 90,000 plays. Fuck spotify." https://twitter.com/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336
"Got paid £8 for 90,000 plays. Fuck spotify." https://twitter.com/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336
Spotfiy et. al need to evolve to cut out the middle man. Just as app developers can publish directly into the App Store, musicians need to own their work and publish it directly to different marketplaces.
Funny how you would take App Store as an example of cutting out the middle man. App Store has been more about changing the middle man from multiple publishers on the market to just one.
Good point. I guess I mean cutting out one of the middle men. As it is now with music there are two middle men: The publisher and the store. Publishers are getting decent money from streaming services, so that would be nice if it went directly to the artists.
The middle man isn't imposed by Spotify. It's the few record labels to which many artists are signed to.
What does this mean for In Rainbows on Rdio? It's basically the reason I subscribed.
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I really wonder what the future holds for cloud based entertainment in this regard. I now consume all entertainment via cloud services and Netflix / Hulu etc have very similar if not worse problems when it comes to movie and TV catalogs. You'd think that now we're several years into it that these problems would have ironed themselves out by now, but it seems to be getting worse. For the consumers we're all just screwed