It looks a little better today. We are officially downgrading this from “Sexist Spectacle” to “Widespread Mansplaining.”
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Why Taylor Swift Is Winning The War On Streaming – It’s About The Math Silly, not Technology…
Streaming is Good, the Economics are bad – Get It?
There’s a media pile on claiming that Taylor Swift is going to lose her war on streaming… really? Is there a war on streaming? No. There is no war on streaming. The battle is over economic injustice, not technology. We’ve written about this before…
Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.
and
Why Spotify is not Netflix (But Maybe It Should Be)
The record business would do well to look at the solutions and marketplace that the film industry has developed with varied and robust consumer options in the streaming landscape. These include different access and payment models, not one business for all.
So let’s get this straight, and go right to the heart of the issue. It’s just math, and it’s simple math at that. We’ll ask again if anyone can show us how streaming scales to sustainability for artists and rights holders. Let’s see it, because this is how it looks to us…
SPOTIFY MATH FOR THOSE OF YOU AT HOME WITH CALCULATORS:
Spotify has ONLY 3m paid in the US at $10 each.
$10 x 12 mos = $120 per year. Pay out 70% that’s a gross of $84 per year per subscriber. Simple Math.
That $84 per sub is in revenue to all artists in rights holders. Times that by 3m and you get a whopping $252m a year in a $7b business.
Multiple that by 10, to get 30m subs @ $10a month and that’s only $2.5b a year… and that’s a big IF Spotify ever gets to 30m paid in the USA… and IF they do, that’s ONLY 2.5b in revenue against the $7b now…
So you effectively cut the revenue to everyone by 1/2 to 2/3rds… how does this math work without raising the price of subscriptions? It doesn’t.
It’s just math.
So please get your arguments right. No one is arguing against streaming as a technology or distribution mechanism. They are arguing over the fact that these piss poor business models can not exist or operate without artists subsidizing VC funded or publicly held companies.
If these business models are so bad that they can not afford to pay for the cost of goods to maintain a sustainable ecosystem it’s time to go back to the drawing board and start over. That has nothing to do with streaming, technology or distribution and everything to do with exploitative economic injustice.
It’s just math silly.
Rut Ro: @taylorswift13 Leaves the Spotify Cult and Proves the Rule: Spotify Needs Hits, But Hits Don’t Need Spotify
Spotify Needs Hits… But Hits Don’t Need Spotify…
If you’ve been observing the media campaign opposing Taylor Swift’s decision to withdraw from Cult Spotify while having the biggest first week sales of any record in a very long time, hopefully you haven’t been distracted by the bright and shiny object. Taylor Swift has proven the rule that we all knew, but was very unpopular to actually act on:
Spotify needs hits, but hits don’t need Spotify.
Check it out–if you can find the Billboard chart that deals with people who actually sell stuff, you’ll see what happened very plainly.
Everyone from the LA Times to The View has been acting like the invasion of Bob Lefsetz. The breadth and scope of this media concentration leads me to one conclusion: It is being orchestrated.
And who benefits from such a campaign? Spotify.
So think about that for a minute. Imagine if you decided that a certain record store didn’t…
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Profitable Female Artists Being Told By Money Losing Digital Services They Don’t Understand Business
Does anyone else find this infuriating?
Three female artistes, Adele, Beyonce and Taylor Swift have now withheld their music from Streaming services. We have to assume that this was at least partially a business decision. As should be all artists right, they have chosen to monetize their music without using the streaming services.
Objectively these three female artists are enormously successful and run profitable businesses.
Yet these money-losing streaming services and their (mostly male) journalist supporters seem to be telling these women they don’t understand business?
It would be funny if it was an Onion article. It’s not.
RELATED
Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?
Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?
Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.
Music Industry Press: There Must Be “Male” Reasons Behind Taylor Swift’s Spotify Decision
This is getting funny now.
Journalists are now reporting the “real reason” that Taylor Swift has opted to “window” her albums on Spotify. That is, her public statements about “free” devaluing all music and hurting all artists are not good enough. So the (mostly male) journalists have gone on quest for a male “self-interest” kind of truth. Because after all Men are certainly making the real decisions here.
Business Insider (which is neither) seems to have first reported the “Real reason” that Ms. Swift chose not to put her albums on Spotify. According to Business Insider it was Ms Swift’s record label “boss” who pulled Ms Swift’s music from Spotify (BTW a label she and her family own), The article cited an unnamed “industry source familiar with firsthand knowledge of why and how this happened, and who is most responsible.” The article goes on to explain without attribution that the label “boss” is trying to sell the record label. Increasing sales (a tacit admission that Spotify decreases sales) and hence the value of the label was cited as “his” motivation. Business Insider did not explain why Big Machine’s other artists including megastars Florida Georgia Line are still on Spotify.
You see it can’t possibly be
1) A female artist making business decisions or….
2) Action altruistically motivated by Ms. Swift’s previously stated feelings on the exploitative nature of free music.
Nope these dudes have to take the long way around the verifiable facts, and rest their entire story on anonymous sources and rumors.
Now virtually every major publication is repeating Business Insider’s anonymous unsourced claims.
“Real” indeed.
Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?
Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?
Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.
Amazing Sexist Spectacle By Music Industry Insiders and Journalists As Taylor Swift “Windows” Album On Spotify.
Here’s Taylor Swift a few months back in the Wall Street Journal on music:
Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.
Very eloquent. Clearly she intended (as she has in the past) on “windowing” her album. That is withholding her album from Spotify for a period of time. Just like TV/Movie industry does with Netflix and Hulu.
So Spotify’s response is to treat her like a teenager and make her a mixtape playlist!!!???
Yikes. It is clearly “Bro-land” over at Spotify.
But that’s not the worst of it. Here are the mostly male music industry beat journalists responding to her decision to not release her new album on Spotify. The very fact they say she “pulled” it from Spotify is in itself loaded. It was never on Spotify. They don’t even get this basic fact right.
Look we get the jokes, but it’s doubtful that if a male artist had so clearly stated his feelings in regards to streaming and the value of music those comments would have been left out of the stories. Nor would he have been treated like a teenager.
And below is Joshua Brustein “Mansplaining” that Taylor Swift is wrong when in fact her strategy makes perfect sense.
1) new album not on Spotify = 1.3 million sales.
2) New albums always generates interest in back catalogue.
Therefore also remove back catalogue album to generate additional sales.
Why isn’t bloomberg interviewing Swift for demonstrating such business savvy and showing the boys how to play the game?
On the other hand Brustein makes no sense whatsoever.
Hey Joshua you write for Bloomberg a money magazine. This is about the money it’s not a “protest.” Protest.. why the fuck would you assume she’s protesting? Cause she’s a woman and emotional? Something like that? Not thinking rationally? Is that what you are getting at?
And Gawker deserves special mention for being too stupid to notice that Spotify is owned by Billionaires. Oh but they are male! That’s right men can be “rich as fuck” assholes like the SnapChat guy and that’s cool. Darn I always forget how this works!
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Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?
Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?
Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.
“Baghdad Bob” Lefsetz Hilariously Claims “Streaming Has Won” as Taylor Swift Sells 1.3 Million Albums
“Streaming has won…”-Lefsetz commenting on Taylor Swift’s 1.3 million first week album sales, an album not released on Spotify or other streaming services. (Photo Christopher Harte CC)
This is just a quick note. I try not give Bob Lefsetz any oxygen… but has anyone else noticed how much Lefsetz and the rest of the usual pro-streaming suspects have begun to resemble the former Iraqi Information Minister “Baghdad Bob?” They can’t seem to face up to the obvious fact:
Taylor Swift’s “windowing” of her album has increased sales and revenue! First platinum record all year.
And should we be surprised? Windowing leads to increased revenue in the TV and Film business why wouldn’t it work for music?
This is actually a rather boring and mundane observation only made interesting by the current irrationality of the music business. It’s only interesting because so many music business executives and journalists have completely drank the koolaid and refuse to believe that streaming cannibalizes sales. That streaming as it stands now (everything available for free) is really bad for the music revenue. Reading the music business headlines in the wake of Swift’s feat is like watching some sort of religious cult have a mass nervous breakdown.
“Oh no the spaceship did come! It whisked all the true believers away. It was right over there. You just didn’t see it? That’s because you didn’t believe! Why am I still here? uh …”
Here’s Lefsetz in the face of Taylor Swift’s 1.3 million first weeks sales, a feat not accomplished since Napster was around:
Selling a million copies a week in a country of 300 million people is a blip on the radar screen, but owning the news cycle, even trumping the World Series, is priceless.
As for Spotify…
Acts come and go, institutions remain.
Hilarious stuff if you consider that Lefsetz declared her career pretty much over with during a well publicized spat he had with her in 2010. Payback’s a bitch isn’t it Bob?
Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?
Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?
Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.
Taylor Swift Says No To The New Boss. Pulls Recordings From Spotify (and other streaming services).
If streaming is so good for artists why is it that artists that control their own recordings opt to “opt out” of streaming services?
David Byrne
Now Taylor Swift. This story is blowing up big time. Expect the streaming services and their record company allies to “activate” their shills against Taylor Swift in the next couple of days. This is what they do every time a prominent artist speaks out.
Watch this space here cause as that happens, this time we are gonna call them out.
The only reason that the major record labels and big indies supported streaming is because THEY ALL GOT EQUITY IN SPOTIFY. Did other public advocates of streaming also accept monetary compensation? As noted in previous articles on the Trichordist it is becoming apparent that there are a lot of folks posing as “disinterested” parties that had a financial interest in the success of Spotify. That is why we can’t wait for the Spotify IPO. It will reveal who got paid off. Though it’s doubtful that commercial bribery statutes will apply in most cases, expect some artist lawsuits against their labels. The labels after all took something of monetary value (equity) against artists albums without counting these revenue produced by these albums.
On the bright side. Maybe the idiots who couldn’t do simple math and got us into this mess will finally lose their jobs. See article below
RELATED:
Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?
Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?
Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.
Let The Heads Roll…More Genius From The Record Industry Braintrust or Mark Mulligan Gets a Calculator…
Happy Halloween and welcome to the scary stupid post of the day…
We’ve been saying this for a long time, music streaming math just doesn’t add up. Would someone please buy some calculators for the record industry braintrust that keeps making these stupid deals? Seriously, it’s just math and it’s not that hard… even Mark Mulligan is getting it… no kidding…
$2.3 Billion In Net Loss To Artists and Labels Per Year
The report extrapolates that YouTube Music Key will generate $400 million in revenues in its first year. But over the long run it will also be responsible for more than $2.6 billion in lost subscription revenue yearly. That’s a negative net impact of $2.3 billion in lost music revenue every year, according to the study.
Ok, that’s YouTube. Let’s revisit how the Spotify math works…
If you own a calculator, let’s just do the math one more time, real slow and simple like…
1) Spotify and former uTorrent CEO Daniel Ek says Spotify only needs 40m paid subscribers for streaming to be sustainable for artists. But that math just doesn’t work.
2) $10 per month subscription = $120 per year per subscriber
3) $120 per year, per subscriber paying out 70% of gross to rights holders equals $84 per subscriber, per year.
4) $84 per subscriber, per year x’s 40 million subscribers equals $3.4b per year in top line gross revenue to ALL rights holders. That’s $3.4b for labels, artists, publishers and songwriters combined.
5) $3.4b per year is HALF of the current revenue of $7b per year where the domestic business has been flat lined.
6) Assuming you could DOUBLE the subscription base to 80m PAID in the USA within two years by dropping the price in HALF to $5 per subscriber per month you still only gross (wait for it…) $3.4b a year in revenue.
We know this is shocking to the math impaired, but doubling scale (imagined as it is) while cutting the subscription fees in half, actually nets you the same amount of money. Shocking the things one can learn with a calculator or a spreadsheet.
Maybe we’re all screwed, but we will not go quietly and we’re gonna call it how we see it on the race to the bottom. We will document the stupidity undoing the business. Maybe it’s time for Lucian Grange to get out that axe again and let people know what time it is? #stopthemadness
READ THE FULL POST AT HYPEBOT:
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2014/10/youtube-music-service-could-cost-artists-labels-23-billion-in-lost-income.html
RELATED:
Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?
Who will be the First Fired Label Execs over Spotify Fiasco & Cannibalization?
Streaming Is the Future, Spotify Is Not. Let’s talk Solutions.
Why is $5 Dollar a Month Streaming Good For Artists? Because 1/2 the Record Company Executives Will Lose Their Jobs! Yeah!
Label executives and many distributors including most indies have been out there trying to sell artists and small labels on $5 a month streaming! Because at $5 a month many more people will subscribe to these streaming services!
1) No they won’t. Why would they pay for what they already get for free? It’s totally irrational you morons.
But Let’s ignore several hundred years of economic theory and proceed to #2.
2)Let’s say streaming gets as many subscribers as cable. Even round it up a bit to 100 million subscribers. Let’s do the math. Everyone get out your calculators and follow along. YOU WILL BE TESTED!
$5 x 12 months is $60 x 100 million subscribers. Spotify keeps 30%. that’s a $4.2 billion dollar music industry. About half what the industry is now. And it’s highly doubtful they will reach 100 million subscribers. What does Netflix have now? 40 million? and Netflix isn’t stupid enough to compete with itself with an identical free version of it’s service.
Either way at least half the money. And with half the money you can only employee half as many executives.
Let’s hope that the first batch out on the street are the ones that sold everyone on these deals. If it were up to me I’d start with the head of digital and anyone who has ever uttered the phrase “data is the future.”
You DO know there’s not room for all of you executives to work at YouTube and Spotify right?
And here’s some career advice for all you future former record executives: sell t-shrits.
The Trichordist 
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