In case you haven’t noticed, Google has been conducting an all out assault on powerful positions in the U.S. Government.  Note that I say “the U.S. Government” and not “the Obama Administration” for a reason–it just happens, it is merely coincidental that President Obama is the occupant of the White House during Google’s rise to power.  Focusing on the political party of the White House misses the point–David Duke could get elected president and Google would still be playing the same game.  And it’s a game as old as mankind.  Using money to gain influence and using influence to gain power.

Because, as Erik Telford writes in Townhall, “Google [is] the Halliburton of the Obama Administration.”  Even Politico’s Google booster Tony Romm said “The Obama Administration recently plundered the search giant’s ranks.”  Andrew Orlowski wrote four years ago in the Register, “Google is Obama’s Halliburton: So Who’s…

On October 14, Blake Morgan and a great line up of performers hosted a sold out standing room only live show for the #irespectmusic AND I VOTE! campaign at the legendary Bitter End in Greenwich Village.  In addition to stellar performances by City of the Sun, Jus Post Bellum, Coyle Girelli and Janita as well as a rousing speech supporting artist rights by Congressman Jerry Nadler that brought the house down, Blake told the story of the #irespectmusic activism and the voter registration campaign.  (See event review here at Doo Bee Doo Bee Doo.)

I highly recommend watching this video of Blake’s inspiring short speech about the evolution of his activism, the voter registration drive and the Congressional Creative Rights Caucus.

Tell your friends, sign the petition and VOTE on November 4!

As we noted in a prior post, Billboard reported on what might be called the “chart value” of streams compared to downloads.  To the extent that streams are counted in both the Billboard charts and the UK’s Official Charts, streams are valued at 100 streams to one permanent download.  This ratio was touted by Spotify at the recent artist meetings hosted by the Featured Artist Coalition in New York.

When you consider the royalty value of that ratio, however, those 100 streams are rewarded at a much, much lower penny rate than a download, even if you compare 100 streams to the $0.70 price of the lowest iTunes wholesale price of downloads.  As we noted previously, the 100:1 ratio implies a per-stream royalty of $0.007.

What About the Royalty Value?

Experience suggests that this seems high.  Quite high.  So just to confirm what Spotify representatives actually said at the…

The erudite Harley Brown reported in Billboard about Spotify’s artist relations charm offensive in New York that:

[Blake Morgan’s] main complaints were manifold, but two were based on the meeting’s central tenets: that the per-stream rate is never going to go up (70 percent of revenue goes to royalties) and 100 song streams equals a sale on the Billboard charts and the U.K.’s Official Charts Company. With regard to the former, both [Mark] Williamson [of Spotify] and [Paul] Pacifico [of the Featured Artist Coalition] stress that Morgan (and a few other malcontents) didn’t pipe down long enough to let Spotify help the uninitiated artists in the room understand their position.

“What I was trying to explain,” Williamson says, exasperation emanating from his voice over the phone, “Is that we’re a revenue share model. How do we increase the amount of revenue — the pot of royalties — which increases the amount we…

If we are to explore the digital marketplace for both streaming and transactional downloads the music business might do well to look at what the film business is actually doing in the same space. We will quickly see that Spotify is not Netflix, but maybe it should be.

Readers will note the film business has not bought into the faulty logic that the only way to combat internet piracy is to make every film ever made, available instantly, on an all you can eat service for $9.99 a month. Some might argue that is what Netflix is, but people making that argument are obviously not current subscribers!

One thing that has struck us in the comparisons between Spotify and Netflix is that Netflix does not have every film, or even every current film, or even a large percentage of popular films. For the vast inventory that Netflix has, you also…

I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends.

John Lennon

The Spotify “artist relations” team continued their swing West last night with a stop in Nashville at City Winery where a songwriter can grab a burger and a glass of red for a mere 350,000 plays–including tip!  And don’t forget to take home a bottle of Tres Amigos, a disruptive little house blend of malbec, bonarda and cab for a modestly priced 400,000 plays.

Now here’s the problem–the Featured Artist Coalition spent a good deal of time putting together these meetings with the best of intentions.  Although I was not present (I live in a flyover state, and you know how that can be), it appears to me that Spotify seems to think that these three events in New York, Nashville and Los Angeles are opportunities to sell their company by repeating their talking points as opposed to…