Tag: Music Streaming

Issues related Music Streaming Services

Get Ready For The Streaming-Music Die-Off | ReadWrite

We’ve been saying for a while that we’re not opposed to music streaming as concept so much as we are about the revenue models and royalties. We’ve offered our criticisms that the math just never really adds up, even if you scale out Spotify to it’s logical conclusion.

We’ve also offered our suggestions for how these streaming services could offer a more robust and diverse environment to both artists and consumers. Looks like we’re not the only ones seriously questioning the economic validity of these models.

The streaming era is the next music industry ice age.

Beyond their broken business model, these companies share a lot of dubious promises to investors, shareholders and artists. Rdio hopes to get in the black by luring in more ad-supported subscribers. Spotify promises that when it scales up to 40 million paid users—it’s currently at 6 million—that artists will get paid five times what they make from the service today (the math works out, but that 40 million figure is a big “if”). Pandora, unprofitable and crippled by royalty fees as its user base grows, promises that mobile ad revenue can offset the revenue it’s hemorrhaging.

READ THE FULL STORY AT READ WRITE:
http://readwrite.com/2013/12/06/streaming-music-competition-pandora-rdio-spotify#awesm=~opsnA43Lt7QuiQ

by Trichordist Editor

16 Artists That Are Now Speaking Out Against Streaming… | DMN

We’re seeing more and more artists speaking up and speaking out against the unsustainable economics of the exploitation economy. We also hope more artists will also be speaking up about the Ad Funded Piracy that creates the downward pressure to justify these bad business models.

There used to be one band with the courage to do this sort of thing: Metallica. Now, there are dozens of high-profile artists, with outspoken critics like David Lowery and Thom Yorke leading a previously-unthinkable level of protest against streaming and content devaluation. Here are just a few of those voices that emerged in 2013.

READ THE FULL POST AT DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/12/02/artistspiracy

by trichordist

Swedish Artists Are Now Threatening Legal Action Over Streaming Royalties… | DMN

The origin of the outrage is telling: Sweden is widely regarded as a model country for streaming and access, thanks to massive adoption and recovering recording revenues. The threatened suits suggest that not everyone is celebrating or, more importantly, enjoying the early spoils.

Regardless of the locale, the issue comes ahead of very difficult juncture for Spotify. Mega-artists like Thom Yorke continue to raise uncomfortable questions about paltry payouts, but more perilous questions are dangling on the financial side. Recent financial figures show an unsustainable level of cash burn at Spotify, and potentially serious problems attracting more capital as a result. And after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars, Spotify is getting dangerously close to depleting its funding tranche.

READ THE FULL STORY AT DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/10/25/swedishartists

by Trichordist Editor

David Byrne: ‘The internet will suck all creative content out of the world’ | The Guardian UK

In future, if artists have to rely almost exclusively on the income from these services, they’ll be out of work within a year. Some of us have other sources of income, such as live concerts, and some of us have reached the point where we can play to decent numbers of people because a record label believed in us at some point in the past.

I can’t deny that label-support gave me a leg up – though not every successful artist needs it. So, yes, I could conceivably survive, as I don’t rely on the pittance that comes my way from music streaming, as could Yorke and some of the others.

But up-and-coming artists don’t have that advantage – some haven’t got to the point where they can make a living on live performances and licensing, so what do they think of these services?

We were also very happy to see this plug for the Content Creators Coalition. Be sure to read the full interview at The Guardian, the link is below.

The major labels are happy, the consumer is happy and the CEOs of the web services are happy. All good, except no one is left to speak for those who actually make the stuff. In response to this lack of representation, some artists – of all types, not just musicians – are forming an organisation called the Content Creators Coalition, an entity that speaks out on artists’ behalf.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE GUARDIAN UK:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world

by trichordist

The music industry may be streaming towards a cliff | Business Spectator

In August the cellist Zoe Keating published a spreadsheet of her earnings from various streaming sites. In the first half of 2013 she scored 232,000 streams, for which she was paid $906.41.

I used the word “legitimate” above because by far the biggest “publisher” of music is BitTorrent, which is simply the internet protocol for enabling peer to peer sharing of files, and the foundation of Napster’s many successors. Some people I know have zettabytes of music and movies they have downloaded; BitTorrent has been estimated to account for as much as 70 per cent of all global internet traffic.

READ THE FULL POST AT THE BUSINESS SPECTATOR:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/10/9/information-technology/music-industry-may-be-streaming-towards-cliff

by Trichordist Editor

Xbox Music : Microsoft to Pay The Most of Any Music Streaming Service?

This could get interesting. Digital Music News reports “The Xbox Music streaming service is venturing into iOS and Android platforms, as well as free internet streaming, with newly adorned with apps and features. The Web service will provide on-demand access to 30 million songs, with an ad-free subscription or ad-supported free use.”

What makes this even more interesting is that Microsoft appears to be paying more than any other streaming service that we know of  (we don’t know what Itunes Radio is paying yet).

Faza at The Cynical Musician wrote this:

A Quickie: XBox Music Royalties

Since this is streaming money, there’s not a lot of it, but the rate is absolutely astounding: the latest statement pegs a stream at 3.6 cents. Yep, you read that right: several cents a pop. Traditionally, I’ll do a quick stream-to-download calculation which works out at 18 XBox Music streams to one iTunes download (both numbers for songs to which we own the entirety of rights, making CD Baby the only middle-man – they take a commission of 9% I believe).

It’s a sign of the times when we get excited by a per stream rate of 3.6 cents…

by Trichordist Editor

Tell Us Again “Streaming Is The Future” As Paid Downloads Are Down 2.3 Percent In the US…

Let’s see… maybe streaming services are cannibalizing transactional sales, maybe? Streaming Royalties are small but they can really grow? Really? Let us guess… the good news is streaming is reducing piracy? In Norway and Sweden…

According to half-year stats shared by Nielsen Soundscan with Digital Music News this weekend, paid downloads are slumping 2.3 percent at the half-point, meaning the period from January 1st through June 30th.

All of this points to the same issue of streaming services paying too little, while illegally operating, infringing businesses pay absolutely nothing at all. So much for sustainability…

READ THE FULL POST AT DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130721downloads

by Trichordist Editor

The New Yorker : If You Care About Music, Should You Ditch Spotify?

The New Yorker weighs in on the controversy surrounding music streaming royalty rates…

The issue beneath all the complaints about micropayments is fundamental: What are recordings now? Are they an artistic expression that musicians cannot be compensated for but will create simply out of need? Are they promotional tools? What seems clear is that streaming arrangements, like those made with Spotify, are institutionalizing a marginal role for the recordings that were once major income streams for working musicians—which may explain the artist Damon Krukowski’s opinion that music should simply be given away, circumventing this entire system. But first, some words from Godrich, condensed and edited for clarity.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE NEW YORKER:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2013/07/spotify-boycott-new-artists-music-business-model.html

by Trichordist Editor