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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
why streaming rips off musicians
why streaming rips off musicians
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kudzurunner
5052 posts
Oct 15, 2014
7:17 AM
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I just checked my CD Baby account.
How much do you think a blues musician (or any musician) receives when somebody streams one of their recordings on Last fm?
Five one-hundredths of a cent.
Spelled out as it was in my account, it looks like this:
$0.0005
So if twenty people stream the song, I receive one cent in royalties. If 200 people stream it, I receive 10 cents.
If 1400 people stream it, I receive 70 cents.
Or, if one person actually buys and downloads the mp3, I receive the same 70 cents.
1400 streams, or one purchase.
Streams are a rip-off for the musician.
In the long run, if this system doesn't change, many musicians simply won't choose to produce recordings of their own music, and the listener who wants new music will find the selection of music--including streamable music--much smaller and less varied.
I made the decision to stream precisely one of my recordings: "Big Boss Man," by Satan and Adam. I've chosen not to stream any of my other recordings. When Right Recordings licensed KICK AND STOMP, however, one of the first things they did was put it out for streaming. Streams have been good. Sales, and royalties, have been poor. So it goes.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 15, 2014 7:18 AM
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walterharp
1535 posts
Oct 15, 2014
7:30 AM
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yes, it makes it almost impossible for any but the top acts or heavy touring bands to even afford to record because there is no way to recoup losses when people do not buy cd's or downloads, blues, folk and bluegrass bands are playing to older crowds that still buy some cds, but less all the time
most of the college kids i know NEVER buy music, unless they are getting a CD as a give as a gift to their parents... adam quiz your undergrads if you do not believe me
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HarpNinja
3958 posts
Oct 15, 2014
8:57 AM
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I have many conflicting thoughts about this, and music as a money making tool in general.
One thing I am fairly certain of, though, is that there are a lot of musicians getting exposure through the Internet that would otherwise never be heard of, which is giving them the chance to make money or at least be heard.
Making money in music is hard and fleeting at best. Many of the big harmonica guys currently out there are a product of the Internet, and that is the only way they'd have found a niche.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
Last Edited by HarpNinja on Oct 15, 2014 8:58 AM
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Kingley
3732 posts
Oct 15, 2014
9:06 AM
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HarpNinja - I agree Mike.
If it weren't for the internet how many CD sales would a lot of harp players be making anyway? Other than a handful of CD's sold at gigs, I don't think it would be that many at all. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of players sell more music online than they do by any other means. If a person wants to avoid being ripped off by streaming. Then they should either not sign with a record company, or use a third party to distribute their work and do it all themselves. Or they should have the common sense to investigate those things first and have clauses written into any contracts to forbid it. That's just my view on it.
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JInx
915 posts
Oct 15, 2014
10:38 AM
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What would be a "correct", non rip off, compensation? How to best determine this value?
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Pistolcat
720 posts
Oct 15, 2014
10:57 AM
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I use spotify streaming as a way to browse through music. That's because I don't listen to radio as I am allergic to Radio MC:s. If I find something that is good i end up buying them. Digitally that is since I don't need circular pieces of plastics cluttering up the house. I only buy cd:s at shows or if I could get them autographed or if there is no other way to get the music...
That said, I have probably listened to each of the songs on my "Key of E Blues" playing list more than 1400 times.
How much are you paid for a song played on radio Kudzu?
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Pistolkatt - Pistolkatts youtube
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Frank101
24 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:01 AM
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Streaming is a total ripoff for the musician.
"Oooh, it's great exposure" ... GMAFB.
How much compensation would be fair? How about enough to make a damn living from?
I'm on a couple of other music forums, and it's amazing how many people ON MUSIC FORUMS hate the idea of paying for music, hate the idea that musicians should be paid for their work, hate the very concept of BMI and ASCAP ...
Whoops, the armored car is here to pick up my exposure & haul it to the bank, gotta go ...
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harpdude61
2200 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:10 AM
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Times have changed and I can't see them unchanging.
Unless you do it all yourself....make your dough from the show!
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www.facebook.com/catfishfryeband
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HarpNinja
3959 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:16 AM
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Just because someone makes music, it doesn't mean that the world owes them anything (Who says anyone is going to like it?. If you pulled "free" streaming, that isn't going to automatically trigger an increase in sales.
Music that is popular makes the artist money in many different ways. There hasn't been a time in history were the "big" acts were making it rich off of free air play (radio or the web). (They made their money touring with new found fans from the exposure).
In the heyday of the music labels, when music went national vs regional, the LABELS were making all the (big) money off of physical sales...the artists made money touring.
The only substantial difference with recording (now) is that there are people who a generation ago would have NEVER have been able to afford to put out albums.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
Last Edited by HarpNinja on Oct 15, 2014 11:29 AM
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HarpNinja
3960 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:17 AM
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And national acts do make money off of streaming, but again, the real money is made doing things other than recording.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
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nacoran
8060 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:31 AM
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Frank101, the question is, how many people would be making enough on CD sales to make a living? The big bands, yeah, but how many blues musicians would be making a living, or even able to afford to record before the pre-computer age drove recording prices down?
That said, how about this for a model? A non-profit streaming service where all the revenue actually goes out to the artists? I've played with a couple ideas in my head. Another option would be a digital library where artists, authors, programmers get paid for downloads of their material (less than they would normally per download, but hopefully the same amount overall). You might have to get the government involved in a scheme like that. (Some countries do have very robust funding for the arts). There are subscription services but most of them are just relying on ad revenue.
Now, as for streaming, how does it compare to airplay when you actually consider the difference in the number hearing it? One stream is not the same as a station broadcasting it, but presumably it's a better targeted listen. (Which may actually hurt your exposure numbers).
I still buy CDs, but usually at free shows.
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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
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kudzurunner
5053 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:31 AM
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I made quite a lot of money on Kick and Stomp in the 18 months after its release, because streaming hadn't yet caught on. I love the internet! I love the web. It offered me great exposure.
Streaming killed off my mp3 sales.
There's plenty of evidence I've seen, Mike, that when companies choose not to stream recordings, they see mp3 sales rise.
I know from speaking with many people, including the head of the Grammy museum last week (Bob Santelli), that streaming is hurting the royalties of many, many musicians. I'm echoing here what Santelli said at Delta State: in the present unsettled environment, where even mid-level musicians are seeing royalties plummet because of filesharing and streaming, musicians will soon decide that it's not worth their time to create albums anymore.
Of course the major labels are bummed, but it's not just about them. Streaming has killed MY mp3 sales. I was actually making some decent money three years ago. At first, as the decline began, I couldn't tell what was going on, but as I lifted my head, I began to see articles on all sides in which musicians were suffering precisely the same thing.
Filesharing didn't hurt me at all. That was going on three or four years ago. It's streaming, which has hugely increased over the past few years, that is killing the goose. It has legitimized the "Pay one low fee and eat all you want" model, which squats right next door to the "Music should be free" model.
As for the "exposure" red herring: I'm not talking about that. The internet, the web, the freedom of musicians to upload their own music via CD Baby and Tunecore: that's all great. Let's all get exposed and may the best man (or woman) sell mp3s! That's terrific.
It's streaming--unrestricted streaming, not controlled streaming like Pandora, or satellite radio--that's the problem. When people can play your music for free, any tune they want and anytime they want, they have no incentive to buy it. Which means ultimately you have no incentive to spend money making it.
1400 streams. Or one mp3 sale. I'd like to hear somebody here offer a good argument for why the former deserves to exist.
My argument is cool, hard, and pragmatic: Musicians who might have spent $5K to record a blues album, especially if they knew they could earn it back through itunes/Amazon royalties, will end up choosing not to make albums.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 15, 2014 11:39 AM
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Joe_L
2518 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:36 AM
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"The only substantial difference with recording is that there are people who a generation ago would have NEVER have been able to afford to put out albums."
That's not true. Take a look at the history of Alligator Records. Bruce Iglauer started amount of money and hustled his ass off when he recorded Hound Dog Taylor's first LP. At that point, very few people knew who Hound Dog Taylor was. Several artists have worked this way for years. It the blues world, it isn't uncommon.
Very few CD sales come from the Internet. I sold CD's online for a very prominent artist for several years. Sales came through his web site. I didn't sell very many.
Another friend has a record label, he sold CD's directly via mail order through his web site. He sold very few. In order to get distribution through Amazon, it required him to build and carry a substantial inventory that he may never burn through.
Most of their sales come directly from gigs. There is a reason why guys like Hummel have a little merchandise booth set up when they tour. For others, it simply isn't worth the hassle. The money isn't there.
When recordings show up on youtube, artists lose money, too.
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Last Edited by Joe_L on Oct 15, 2014 11:39 AM
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kudzurunner
5054 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:41 AM
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Talk to Hummel. Ask him how CD sales have fared over the past year or two. I bet I know the answer. Bruce Iglauer used to say "The gig is the new record store." Because that's where fans bought CDs. I believe those days are winding down.
@Kingley: I agree with the end of your post. I should have had the good sense to insist on no streaming. It never occurred to me to raise that issue. (We all wear our hair shirts from time to time.) I did, however, insist on a contract that self-cancels rather than self-renews after the three-year initial term, unless the label and I mutually agree to renew it. The verdict is still out on whether licensing my album was a good deal.
CDs are a great calling card. Having one in hand legitimizes you. They will continue to serve a use for that reason with all aspiring bands. But they don't sell as well as they used to--again, because younger people just aren't particularly into purchasing music that way.
I get a pretty nice penny every time a tune from K&S is played on Bluesville, actually. I'm a fan of Bluesville!
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 15, 2014 11:48 AM
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HarpNinja
3961 posts
Oct 15, 2014
11:59 AM
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Joe,
There are several things about your post that I don't understand. Specifically the part of my post you quoted relative to the rest of your first paragraph, which itself confuses me.
It is much easier to record music and share it with others than any other time in history - which is the point of the text you quoted.
I must not be aware of streaming opportunities and how they work. I know of Spotify, which I pay to use (and even then 90% of the starred tunes are songs I've purchased physically).
I took a screen grab from Adam's album on there...
Are there sites that are a bigger deal than Spotify that let you stream whatever you want for free? I am intrigued by streaming like this and, again, have conflicted feelings. I guess I am filtering between a full-time musicians with some regional appeal compared to a band who was all the rage but is waning and the Lady Gaga's of the world.
I wonder how many of those hits are from people streaming Adam's music for the first time...or over and over...or if they do own a physical copy...or if the decided to buy it as a result...I dont' know how to answer any of that.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
Last Edited by HarpNinja on Oct 15, 2014 12:05 PM
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HarpNinja
3962 posts
Oct 15, 2014
12:03 PM
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"Talk to Hummel. Ask him how CD sales have fared over the past year or two."
How has his popularity changed over that time? I honestly haven't the slightest clue. Is he gigging internationally? Regionally? Locally? Is he making more or less money for those shows? What are the demographics at his shows? There are many questions we could ask to get at the root cause of why his sales are more or less than before.
I totally see live gigging as being harder to pull off than it used to be - even ten years ago. I think streaming factors into that, but I don't know if it is causational or relational. Mostly because of my limited first hand experience.
I feel blues acts have been waning for some time and that there are many causes for that. Streaming is probably part of it.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
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HarpNinja
3963 posts
Oct 15, 2014
12:14 PM
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I took less than a minute to filter "Mark Hummel" by the last year and view count on Youtube. Of the 20 or so vids that popped up on page one, only two were of Mark playing with a band. The rest were essentially clips with several players from his events.
The one Little Walter tune he had up there was around 2,000 views. I looked on Spotify and he has a song around 8,000 and another around 6,000. Everything else was significantly lower.
I then did a quick search of James Cotton whose Spotify top 10 were 30,000 to 150,000 streams. His youtubes were in the 1,000's for this past year, but he also has some vids in the millions.
Finally, non-harp related, I looked up Sena Ehrhardt just because I know her and she's fairly popular in the blues world. Her top ten on Spotify were all over 1,000 and up to 4-6,000. She had next to no representation on YouTube over the last year. Very few vids, with only a couple cracking the 1,000 mark. I would argue that she does well for herself and has more resources and exposure than anyone I know from this forum.
I don't really have a point other than I am just sharing public data. If people are choosing to monetize their vids and streams, what kind of money would be fair?
If I had to wager a guess, the semi-pro types might not be making a ton of money, but even without streaming, it'd be a difficult career path. The people who are making money, are making up what they lose from streaming by other means, mainly gate sales, guarantees for playing, and finding other revenue streams related to music.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
Last Edited by HarpNinja on Oct 15, 2014 12:19 PM
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kudzurunner
5055 posts
Oct 15, 2014
12:15 PM
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My album is on Spotify because Right Recordings, having licensed it for three years, is allowed to do that. I don't like it. That's mostly because of the royalty statements they've sent me--statements which make clear that it's being streamed a whole lot, for essentially no return to me (again: 1400 streams equal 70 cents to me), and purchased in CD and mp3 form only a little. I don't need the exposure. The Crossroads video gets 25,000 hits a month and it was feeding directly to an itunes page. And that was working. Now it's not.
Radio airplay used to drive mp3 sales. Now it drives Spotify streams and YouTube video plays. Unfortunately, not a single one of my 495 YouTube videos is monetized. That's because I "gave it all away"--including trailer music and other incidental music drawn from a range of copyrighted recordings by other people. Monetization was disabled on my channel three or four years ago, after enough of those content matches accumulated. I"m glad I showed everybody how to play "Watermelon Man" along with Herbie Hancock and "Whammer Jammer" along with Magic Dick. Good karma. Hah!
Here's new song from Rod Piazza. It's funny and true.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 15, 2014 12:19 PM
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HarpNinja
3964 posts
Oct 15, 2014
12:28 PM
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While YT may have proved a financial fail in your eyes, it has given you many other opportunities in recent years to make money playing harmonica. Would any of that have happened if you didn't have free streaming content?
Seriously...eliminate YouTube from your career arc and where would you be today?
And those videos of Whammer Jammer and Watermelon Man...don't they exploit the copyright holder in similar fashion to what labels do with sites like Spotify?
I just searched "Adam Gussow" on YouTube by views. Your video on gapping the harp has 3x as many views as any performance videos. I vaguely remember something about some videos getting pulled and view counts being off?
But, you have two performance vids that add up to like a million views - which is amazing! One could argue that those videos hurt your bottom line because they are "free" videos, but that has to have helped drive sales os something for you!
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
Last Edited by HarpNinja on Oct 15, 2014 12:33 PM
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KingoBad
1550 posts
Oct 15, 2014
1:06 PM
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I agree with Harpdude... It's now all about the show. Including the big time musicians.
You better have something more (show/entertainment/persona) than what is on your cd or download so that people will want to come see you.
There is a problem for anyone putting any music out these days. Once it is out - it's out.
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Danny
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Bryan A
5 posts
Oct 15, 2014
2:58 PM
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Streaming is the new radio, times changed fast. I still remember when napster began and then file sharing has been easy ever since. Personally, I like the sound quality of an actual cd in my stereo better! I still have all my tapes and love the sound of vinyl. Hopefully the playing fields will level out, trends come and go and we can all co-exist as long as the demand is there.
Last Edited by Bryan A on Oct 15, 2014 2:58 PM
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nacoran
8062 posts
Oct 15, 2014
3:43 PM
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My counter question is this- how can we build a system that compensates artists fairly and what would it look like?
We live in a world with a lot of content out there, and short of a strict talent union/guild how do you prevent the people giving it away from undercutting the price? What is the cost of that to the casual musician who would like to gig locally but who can't afford to pay union dues?
In a world where it is cheap (basically free) to distribute content, even if you don't own the content, how do you keep content 'locked up'? (Hopefully, without creating a police state that checks everything that every person downloads.)
How do you automate the middleman problem? Middlemen always want a cut. Are they providing a big enough value to deserve a cut? Is there a way to keep them cut out (not just the record labels, but the Ticketmasters, club owners who don't pay well, streaming sites, etc.) I can see a harm to not having a market for musicians. It's in our blood- but I'm totally fine with cutting out the middlemen.
A lot of venues get bands to play for exposure. It's not so much a trap as an uneven playing field. They have the space, and they have more people who want to play than they have time, and for a band that needs stage time and exposure to figure out what they are doing they are providing a service, but the same band that is starting out and giving it away for free is undercutting the working pro. All the while, the venue expects you to be the one promoting the show. As independent contractors we don't even qualify for minimum wage.
Do we decide that it's about the music? I know as a kid we all made fun of the bands that 'sold out'. Maybe in the new economy there is no money to sell out to and it all has to be about the love of music- except of course, you have to pay the bills. Harmonicas don't grow on trees.
Streaming sites act as a place- one stop shopping for music. I'm not sure why the search engines haven't squashed that yet. It seems a search engine should know enough about your musical tastes to pull up files from all over the web to play for you. A search engine also has a reason to keep you on their page- even if you aren't buying music today, maybe you are buying a chair, and they can sell an ad for a chair- they are a bigger market, potentially than a single purpose streaming site. Maybe someone needs to tell the search engines this.
There are things a music union could do, but it would need to provide real services to members- help finding gigs, lodging, help with securing rights to covers, help find studios and help promote, all while staying streamlined enough and non-profit-y enough to not demand a middleman's fee. Most importantly, if it was seen as a fair arbitrator that negotiated fees collectively (X amount per song no matter who you are- if you are famous, you get more money because of the number of plays, not because you are favored in the formula) maybe you could get some negotiating power for better rates.
Here's the thing- I've seen articles explaining why you shouldn't play a free gig. I get it, but if you are at the bottom of the food chain and you join ASCAP, but they are only paying royalties to the top few artists, you are left scratching your head wondering why you are supporting the top artists.
We can encourage people to get out to shows. We can merchandize.
Realistically, I think the only solution that satisfies all those conditions is recognizing a couple things- music is easy to come by, and it provides a great social good. It's like a park. Everyone wants a park and we have some vague notion that most of the time it should be free and that it provides a lot of social good, enough that we decide that the public as a whole should pay for it. Fund the arts or they die. :(
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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
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eharp
2242 posts
Oct 15, 2014
5:07 PM
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Adam- How many streams did you get?
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waltertore
2754 posts
Oct 15, 2014
5:29 PM
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humans have been trying to eliminate humans from the making of music since day one of technology. We are now at a point where I think anyone trying to make it in music is insane or soon will be. I see people that have hundred of thousands of hits on a youtube video,that musically is terrible, and don't have a live gig generated from all those views. In my day if I had that many people listen to my music my name would be as common a name as the Rolling Stones. Live music is about dead and since the invention of the radio, record, tape, cd, digital downloads, etc, continues to progress the eventual death of doing music as a living and amatuers will dominate the airwaves with garbage that never would have gotten in the door with a record label or recording studio 30 years ago. Check this out and you will see it all being told by my friend Roy Smeck(played some kooky harp too). I use to hang out at his apt (the one in the video) around the time of this documentary. Roy wanted me to join his band but he was all about theory and I knew nothing of it. He offered to teach me but at the same time I met Louisiana Red and he talked nothing of theory. I moved in his house and lost contact with Roy. Roy was a true legend of live music and an incredible musican that most never heard of. He told me when I was complaining about the DJ concept begining to take over our live gigs that the invention of the radio and record put 90% of musicians out of work. Just look at the garbage that dominates music videos today on youtube. Very sad. Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year in the Tunnel of Dreams Studio.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
my videos
Last Edited by waltertore on Oct 16, 2014 3:59 AM
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kudzurunner
5059 posts
Oct 15, 2014
5:40 PM
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HarpNinja: I don't for one minute--not for one second--suggest that YouTube hasn't been critically important for me. As I wrote at the very top of this thread: "I love the internet! I love the web. It offered me great exposure."
You're misusing the phrase "free streaming content." YouTube videos cost me nothing to produce. That's why I've produced a lot of them. I love the free exposure they've given me. I haven't for one minute suggested otherwise. It would be great if I were able to monetize them--I'd actually make some decent money--but I'm not allowed to, because of my decision BEFORE the age of monetization to sample copyrighted music into many videos, either as outro music or as the songs I was taking apart and showing people how to play.
Nothing I've written in this thread should be taking to imply that I don't like how YouTube works.
This thread is about why it makes no sense for musicians to stream albums they've spent thousands of dollars making. It's not about why they shouldn't stream videos on YouTube that cost them nothing to make.
The former is a bad idea. The latter is a great idea.
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kudzurunner
5060 posts
Oct 15, 2014
5:42 PM
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Patrick Carney hates the current streaming model:
"Carney also said the Black Keys have not released their last two albums — “Turn Blue” and “El Camino” — to subscription streaming services like Spotify, not because the band is opposed to streaming music, which he calls “the way of the future,” but because artists are not currently compensated fairly in the subscription model.
“My whole thing about music is: if somebody’s making money then the artist should be getting a fair cut of it,” said Carney. “The owner of Spotify is worth something like 3 billion dollars…he’s richer than Paul McCartney and he’s 30 and he’s never written a song.”
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Darren Watson
11 posts
Oct 15, 2014
8:14 PM
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The only records of mine on streaming sites are the ones I don't own myself. My latest record is just being mastered now and has cost NZD$15,000 to make. I can't afford to give it away, which is what streaming is for artists working in niche genres. I'm with you, Adam. (Actually I still sell CDs at gigs too)
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Tweedaddict
171 posts
Oct 15, 2014
8:28 PM
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D
I know I've been away from NZ for 15 years Ish.
I know I'm not in your league musically.
I know YOU got a GREAT ear for what you want on a record.
But MAN.... COME RECORD IN GEORGIA!
We can knock that puppy out for waaay less next time with some Killer Diller Local Players!
That said, I also know that your new record will be a killer, as they all are.
Kudos my friend.
M
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Darren Watson
12 posts
Oct 15, 2014
9:32 PM
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It's different when you have to pay all the musicians, engineers etc as well as studio time, Tweedaddict. I doubt they're any cheaper there.
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arzajac
1497 posts
Oct 16, 2014
4:31 AM
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Seems pretty obvious to me that the only sure-fire way to make money in the music business is to go to business school or law school.
Studying music won't pay off.
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Custom overblow harps. Harmonica service and repair.
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NathanLWBC
6 posts
Oct 16, 2014
7:11 AM
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Maybe it's because I'm young, but I think streaming is great for musicians. A band I used to play in cut a high quality demo at a local university studio, and we allowed the music to be streamed and downloaded for free. This allowed for people to get to know our music without needing to buy anything. We saw a steady increase in plays as the months ticked by, and we saw a steady increase in attendance at shows.
The increase in attendance at shows resulted in us making more money. We got a larger and larger cut of the door and we sold the EXACT same demo at shows, which we sold plenty of. People are willing to buy things to support you, if they like your music. They could have downloaded it for free, but they chose to buy a physical copy.
Technology has made music very grass roots. You don't need a record label anymore. You can do almost everything they do, with a little research and commitment. What would your royalties be without the exorbitant cut that goes to the label per play? You really don't even need a professional studio anymore. You can build your own studio for under five thousand dollars that is way better than what most of your favorite records were recorded in.
It is true; the old model of getting signed, selling cds, and going on a label booked tour is dead. Only the biggest artists can survive like that now. In it's place, however, is a new model where the artist can have complete control of their career and maximize profit. You can write, record, publish, promote, and manage yourself.
It's a brave new world out there.
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--Nathan Heck
Lead Technician, Lone Wolf Blues Co.
customerservice@lonewolfblues.com
Last Edited by NathanLWBC on Oct 16, 2014 7:11 AM
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kudzurunner
5061 posts
Oct 16, 2014
10:14 AM
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Nathan, it sounds as though streaming has been great for you. That may have something to do with your youth, as you note. Things work slightly differently when you've had a long (albeit primarily part-time) career in the music business, as I have. And it certainly works differently if you hope, through touring, to accumulate a stock of recordings and compositions, a backlist, that will actual deliver you some income over time--as has been the model not just for artists at the very top, but for many professional musicians over many years, both those connected with major labels and those working for themselves. Your model works as long as you're playing a steady schedule of live shows. It falls apart if you're hoping to make a living from music in any other way.
I agree with everything you write below; I thought I was arguing precisely the same things, in fact:
"Technology has made music very grass roots. You don't need a record label anymore. You can do almost everything they do, with a little research and commitment. What would your royalties be without the exorbitant cut that goes to the label per play? You really don't even need a professional studio anymore. You can build your own studio for under five thousand dollars that is way better than what most of your favorite records were recorded in.....It is true; the old model of getting signed, selling cds, and going on a label booked tour is dead. Only the biggest artists can survive like that now. In it's place, however, is a new model where the artist can have complete control of their career and maximize profit. You can write, record, publish, promote, and manage yourself."
Bravo! We agree. I've produced and paid personally for two solo albums and a duo album, and I paid for most of a second duo album (the Satan & Adam album). I own the masters for all four albums. One of them cost $1600 to make; the others all cost between $4500 and $5500 to make. I've chosen the artwork, written the press releases, uploaded them to iTunes, Amazon, and CD Baby, and harvested the profits.
The profits, as I've said, were pretty damned good with the first album, but they've tailed off notably with the other three--all albums released as streaming roared into the marketplace.
Audio streaming, which is what I'm talking about here, has not been good to me.
BTW, all my 495 YT videos together get roughly 110,000 hits per month. That's not a typo. So how good is that? Obviously it's been great, low cost publicity, since virtually all of them (except the three music videos) cost me nothing. But the current audio streaming model, if applied to those videos--i.e., as monetization--would amount to $55 per month. That's what 5 hundredths of a cent times 110,000 equals. But perhaps monetization on YT pays a lot more per stream than the current audiostreaming model. If so: great! I've missed out on YT monetization, unfortunately, for reasons I've suggested in an earlier post, but I applaud any streaming model that actually gives creators a significant cut of ad revenues.
I love giving away my knowledge in the form of YT instructional videos and live performances that I've recorded. But I believe that I should also have a fighting chance, if I choose to spend real money in a recording studio, of making that money back. I don't believe in giving THAT music away for free. I think that's insane, in fact. If younger and relatively unknown artists choose to do that, I won't tell them that they're wrong. I'll just tell them that their minds are likely to change as they age.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 16, 2014 10:21 AM
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NathanLWBC
7 posts
Oct 16, 2014
10:35 AM
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If you aren't playing live regularly, then you're right; it probably is awful for you. The old method of touring for a couple months and watching the royalties roll in for the next eight to ten months will probably never be achievable again.
I'm in a different situation than you, and we're probably both right for our unique situations.
Another interesting thing to note, though, is that streaming services, such as Spotify, have led to DRAMATIC reductions in piracy.
https://gigaom.com/2013/07/18/charts-how-spotify-is-killing-music-piracy/
The current system isn't perfect, and I'm sure it'll evolve more over the next few years. I just tend to think the more people that you can get to listen to your music, the better. That, to me, means higher attendance, more cd sales at shows, more merch sales, etc.
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--Nathan Heck
Lead Technician, Lone Wolf Blues Co.
customerservice@lonewolfblues.com
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kudzurunner
5062 posts
Oct 16, 2014
11:25 AM
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"I just tend to think the more people that you can get to listen to your music for free, the better."
I just don't agree.
Yes, I've added two key words to your statement, but I'm sure you won't mind, since that's clearly what you mean. Isn't it what you mean? (Surely you don't mean the other thing, which is NOT for free: i.e., to listen to your music after purchasing it. Because that's what I'm arguing.) I believe it is, and I believe you need to be clear and honest about that. When you add those two words, "for free," some people who might have been tempted to agree with you might now be tempted to have second thoughts. I encourage those second thoughts.
I will say this: I think it's a great publicity tool when a band OCCASIONALLY chooses to give away a song for free. That's called a loss-leader. It's a tried-and-true sales strategy. I just don't think that free giveaways 24/7 works as a longterm business model. That's what 5 hundredths of a cent per stream is. It's somebody listening to my music for free--at least from my perspective. Of course from the perspective of the multi-millionaire who owns Spotify, it's a great business model. I started this thread to protest the rip-off that takes place in the space between his business model and my business model.
I'd be curious to know how your CD sales have fared not just recently, but over the past four years. It sounds as though your band has been on a rising curve for some portion of that time. Have average CD sales at your shows consistently risen over the past four years, or three years? The performers I speak with describe the opposite phenomenon. (Vinyl, however, seems to be big these days.)
The truth is, live music venues are drying up. This is a widely-seconded claim; I'm merely reporting it. Every touring blues performer talks about it. There just aren't as many venues featuring live music as there were 30 years ago, or 20 years ago. Some people have attributed this to the fact that with so much free musical entertainment available on YouTube and of course with the explosion of low-cost audio streaming, there's less need to leave one's house in order to be entertained. Movie theater receipts have flattened for the same reason. Lots of free entertainment on all sides. I don't mind contributing a few videos to that phenomenon, but again: I don't think that asking people to pay a buck for a song is too much. Back in the 1920s, people paid $2 for a 78 rpm record with two sides. That's about $25 in today's money. For two songs!
I'm actually happy to pay that buck and support musicians. When I hear a song I like on the radio, I jump to Amazon or iTunes and buy it. Makes me feel good. I know what they went through to create it. It's the least I can do.
And then, of course, I actually own it. I'm not at the mercy of Spotify, or internet connectivity. I've actually got the files.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 16, 2014 11:39 AM
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Honkin On Bobo
1283 posts
Oct 16, 2014
12:33 PM
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An argument why streaming deserves to exist: Because it can?
I'm assuming that over time many musicians will come to the same conclusion as you regarding the desire to spend money making a recording and then licensing it for the pay one fee eat all you want type of streaming. When no artists agree to do that (or at least enough so that the streaming catalogue is so small that users are no longer interested in forking over any money) then the streaming company presumably dies for lack of product and hence customers. Whether enough artisits will do that remains to be seen, although you've made a compelling argument as to why they should.
The major problem for you as I see it is that your kind of caught in the middle. You're not a young up and coming recording artist wanna be who's willing to give away all recorded music as a way of promoting a rather non-stop never ending touring schedule. But neither are you an established mega star who has already made so much money that you don't have to give a shit about streaming rates. Think, U2 who recently, in one of their more megalomaniacal moments, gave away their newest album, all while The Edge waits for Malibu zoning variances so he can build a compound the size of small town.
It definitely sucks. Personally, I think the rip-off term is a bit of a stretch though. I usually reserve that term for people who have been outright defrauded. I'm assuming you knew your streaming remuneration rate when you did the deal, no? Or am I mistaken about that? The owner of Spotify may be a greedy bastard, but if he's delivering the deal that all parties agreed to, I don't see how he's ripping anybody off.
Last Edited by Honkin On Bobo on Oct 16, 2014 5:49 PM
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NathanLWBC
8 posts
Oct 16, 2014
1:35 PM
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I typed a massive thoughtful response and I got the captcha wrong...so I'll just respond with a quick little blurb. Haha.
People have been listening to music for free for around one hundred years on the radio. Streaming is the new radio. I agree that Spotify short changes musicians. I also know that streaming is the future, and we need to work within the new parameters, not the old ones. Streaming has helped deter the culture of piracy, which I think we can all admit is great (You were likely not as affected as others due to the demographics of blues. Imagine if your target audience was college age kids.) Streaming is an advance in that these people are not permanently stealing your music. They can't burn it to CDs, put it on their iPod, etc.
I view Spotify as Napster(ironically, the founder of Spotify was part of the Napster team). Napster was awful for artists, just like Spotify is. Apple took the Napster model and built iTunes, which works great for artists. Let's hope that Spotify is replaced by its iTunes. Your royalties are extremely low, and they should be higher, but that's on Last.fm(which really is a pretty dead streaming service at this point), not the entire idea of streaming music.
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--Nathan Heck
Lead Technician, Lone Wolf Blues Co.
customerservice@lonewolfblues.com
Last Edited by NathanLWBC on Oct 16, 2014 1:36 PM
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kudzurunner
5063 posts
Oct 16, 2014
2:07 PM
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Nathan, I'm willing to call it a draw. You're a great debater. I agree with pretty much all of your last post. The problem isn't streaming per se; it's the incredibly bad deal that most musicians are getting from it. If that can be adjusted in a way that recreates something like the relative equity of iTunes, I'll be more interested in it. I'd like to believe that raising the issue vigorously here, as I have, is a part of the general consciousness-raising process that will help push things in that direction. If things DO go in that direction, you and I will both be helped.
Honkin, you're exactly right about where I've ended up. I've ended up in the middle. And interestingly, it was precisely BECAUSE I was in the middle, three or four years ago, that I did so well back then, and got so excited. I was quite comfortable with my niche market as a performer. The ability to make my own album, own it all, pay some modest mechanicals for the covers, upload it to CD Baby, see it on iTunes and Amazon, hear it played on Bluesville (which clearly stimulated sales of mp3s), and then, miracle of miracles, get actual DOLLARS deposited in my PayPal account every month....What's not to like?
That was such an unbelievable improvement over the way things had worked between me and the record business for the preceding 20 years. Rounder went 19 years without paying Sterling Magee or me one cent in royalties. Next to that, the world of self-produced music I'd just discovered was....amazing. I honestly believed that that DIY world was made for small-scale entrepreneurs like me. It promised an honest return on investment--assuming, of course, that the music itself found an audience.
You can see why I'm pained by the streaming model. It grants me, theoretically, a larger audience than before, but there's no cover charge to enter the club and I'm not getting more than a couple of cents on each drink the club sells. That's not right.
Funny: I sound like an old blues guy bitching about the record industry. The blues'll getcha one way or another.
Thanks to Nathan and others for keeping this disagreement an honest, almost gentlemanly one. We actually exchanged some information and opinions without anybody getting (too) pissed off. That's a good thing. There's hope for the forum after all.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Oct 16, 2014 2:08 PM
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isaacullah
2861 posts
Oct 17, 2014
10:21 AM
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Ok, I'm way late to this discussion, but I've read the whole thread, and I have thought about this topic a lot. It doesn't affect me personally, as I have no real aspirations to be a recording artist, but I do have a "stake" in this as an avid music fan, a supporter of musicians, and amateur musician in my own right.
In many ways, it's a generational thing. As far as I can tell, most folks who are Gen X or before are too set in the "old idea" of the record biz as one where bands make full-lenghts, fans buy those LP's, and then go see the band at shows, and that's how bands "make money". People who are Gen Y and above don't even know that that was a way to "make it". It's all "viral" and "instant success" these days, and the market has shifted that way. The streaming services are all apart of that, as was peer2peer piracy back in the early aughties. My own generation - the "XY Cusp-ers" - is a weird one, because we grew up with the old system, but were the ones who helped first instantiate the new one. We like it both ways. :)
I, like many XY Cusps subscribe to a streaming service - in my case, Google Play Music All Access (hereafter shortened to GPMAA). I pay $9.95 a month, and I am fully aware that MOST of that goes straight into Google's coffers, and very very little goes to the artist (check out this article to see exactly how little each service pays!). You can see that GPMAA is actually one of the "better" ones, in that approximately 15 streams = one iTunes purchase. That's a major part of why I chose GPMAA over other services, but here's the main reason why I choose to use a streaming service in general -- it saves me TIME. In the past, as an avid music listener, I exerted A LOT of effort to find new music. In the Aughties, I would buy lots of music mags, get sampler CD's, go to shows just on rumor that the band might be good. When I found a band I liked, I bought their whole catalog. As I got older, I didn't have time for that, but the internets got bigger, and so I, and team of like-mind friends, would spend hours scouring the internet, going from blog to blog, to find these bands. We'd download free MP3 samples, share them by e-mail, and then Dropbox, discuss why we liked or didn't like them. When I found a band I liked, I bought their whole catalog. Now, as an "up and coming academic" (read: "underpaid, overworked, post-doctoral scholar"), I don't have time for all that. But I still want to find new bands, don't I? Well, GPMAA is the answer to that. It's a one stop shop for me: I can search to my heart's delight, share with friends, make playlists, AND WHEN I LIKE A BAND I CAN BUY THEIR ALBUMS. GPMAA also let me upload my entire digital music catalog (over 3000 songs) to their servers so I can access it from anywhere. It gets to know my tastes, and recommends stuff (and is pretty, spookily, good at that sometime). I know that my initial streams pay the artists exactly Jacques Merde, but without the streaming service, I would NEVER have found them (especially bands from across the pond in the UK and Australia). Maybe I'm not a "typical" user of these kinds of services, but I think that's changing. I think a lot more people are doing it like me, because the "premium" streaming services (like GPMAA, Amazon Prime, Beats, iTunes radio, etc.) ALL ALLOW IN APP PURCHASE OF MUSIC. And *that's* the future of album sales, people. Like it or not!
Now, as someone who watches the Indie music scene quite closely, one symptom of this is that many many, if not most, Indie bands are NOT recording full-length albums. The 5-6 song EP is king these days, as are "digital singles" with 3-4 songs on them. "Remix" albums of the popular single are all the rage too (i.e., get 5 or 6 of your DJ friends to put a spin on the song, and the re-sell that sucker). Bands are literally going for 2-3 years on single 6-song EP. They throw the EP up in Soundcloud, put it in the streaming services, make a few YT vids, and that's enough to get the fans in the doors at shows. And fans also BUY that EP too. I've done it many times by now. As an XY-cusper, I kinda miss full-lenghts, but I'm fully aware of why young bands don't make them. They are damned expensive, and they take a lot of time. By contrast, and EP can be thrown together these days for very little money, and if it's just as effective (or perhaps even MORE effective because it's now "cool"), then why *wouldn't* bands do it that way?
And by the way, these indie bands also still know how to sell records at shows. They cut the EP to vinyl, which is preferably colored vinyl (red is cool these days, so is purple), and put it in a "limited edition" artsy sleeve. They can charge $20 for that, no problem, and the hipsters eat 'em up.
Finally, if you are still pissed at the streaming services, you can always do what this band did, and stick it right up their collective asses (to the tune of $20,000)!!!
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YouTube! Soundcloud!
Last Edited by isaacullah on Oct 17, 2014 10:27 AM
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NathanLWBC
9 posts
Oct 17, 2014
1:11 PM
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@Kudzrunner: Civility in a forum is a rare commodity indeed. I'm glad I found this gem.
@isaacullah: You're probably in my age range, and I think that definitely makes a difference in how you perceive streaming.
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--Nathan Heck
Lead Technician, Lone Wolf Blues Co.
customerservice@lonewolfblues.com
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blueswannabe
513 posts
Oct 17, 2014
2:09 PM
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It doesn't look like the lawsuits have started yet. Streaming one's music with no royalties to the musician is not right. If you took a well know movie and played it for the masses for free, would a movie company tolerate that? The problem is individual muscians from all over the country haven't found a way to pool their assets to enforce their rights to stop this. Mo money for musicians means no music.
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garry
537 posts
Oct 17, 2014
6:29 PM
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the kind of streaming they're talking about is not illicit. it's entirely legal, just a bad deal for the artist.
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FBInsMan
16 posts
Oct 20, 2014
7:16 PM
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Iggy Pop has an intresting take on this whole subject.
http://www.nme.com/news/iggy-pop/80367
I found his views to be similar to Adams. It's an interesting read on the subject. Somehow the model needs to be fixed in order to get more money into the pocket of the individual musician. It's akin to the complaints of the 50's radio stations and the musicians that would end up with absolute shit contracts. Musician made nothing Label made everything and owned everything.
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"The only way to get better is to play a little outside your comfort zone every time you play!"
Last Edited by FBInsMan on Oct 22, 2014 7:40 AM
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20REEDS
12 posts
Oct 20, 2014
7:53 PM
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I thought streaming was a voluntary thing, if you don't like it, don't license it to a company that streams. I know a lot of artists that have declined streaming their work, artists that I knew before the "big change" and I still buy their stuff. Another thing people have been doing is setting up kickstarters or the like where without a certain number of "sponsors" contributing, the album doesn't get made in the first place. I'm not afraid of supporting an artist. But the days of spending money gambling on an artist if I haven't heard are long gone.
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RyanMortos
1484 posts
Oct 21, 2014
6:16 AM
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I think Kudzu is looking at streaming wrong. It's not about making money for the musician it's a service for the listener. It presents your music the opportunity to create a sale whereas it might not have sold if the shopper were uncertain what it might contain. When I stream music or even hear an album in a friend's car and I really enjoy it I look it up and buy it. Otherwise, I might have been doubtful or just didn't know the artist. Also, some of the streaming platforms have recommendations or you can see what your friends are listening to there and discover new artists/albums that way that wouldn't have been possible previously. You could say, I like Paul Butterfield and 3 songs later a recommendation comes on the stream and OMG who is this funky harmonica playing guy, I need to check out more of his music and tell my friends about him and pick up some of his music and see him when he's in town.
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~Ryan
See My Profile for contact info, etc.
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jbone
1791 posts
Oct 24, 2014
4:21 AM
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We tried online sales of our first cd and never sold one via Tunecore. Granted we may not have been good promoters but even with throwing the link around, nobody actually went there and bought a song.
This current cd, we sell face to face or we can do a mailout once we get a paypal or a paper check. There is also an option to buy from our reproducer and so far in over two years nobody has opted for that either.
I tried to convince myself to go digital with this one but realized, a lot of those songs we wrote and copyrighted are on youtube, posted by us. We've even had an Eastern European- we think- turn part of a song into a ringtone with no permission. Early this year a gal messaged us and told us her friends had begun covering one of our songs and doing well with it. Upon further inquiries, she pretty much disappeared as did any reference to her friend's band.
I think the internet is great, and I wish I could buy all of y'all's cds. I have heard some great material on line that I would never have heard otherwise. But call me old school. If and when I see you live I may buy a cd. Hopefully you will do the same for us. The odds though are slim that most of us will ever physically be in the same place and see this happen.
Call me old school. I like the idea of actually selling a cd to someone in person. A real physical item. I have sold many to people who never report back how they liked it, but at the same time nobody has asked for their money back, and I HAVE had many good reviews. By the same token I have bought cds, listened once or twice, maybe didn't like the material that much, but still feel ok that I helped support a fellow musician at very least. I don't load up an Ipod or whatever and listen constantly. I'm from a time when you put an lp on the turntable and settled in to listen for 40 minutes. Back then an artist pretty much had to be with a label. In that respect I like things better today. Recording options are not as hard to come by or expensive, and I CAN sell face to face.
Bottom line for me is, I do not expect to make my living off of music. It's nice to make a few bucks back for my investment, of time, effort, and cash, but it's a few bucks. We're looking to pay for the next recording/mixdown/mastering out of this year's gig and cd proceeds.
From where I sit, there are always sacrifices to be made if you have a vision and a desire to bring your creation into the world.
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http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000386839482
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbTwvU-EN1Q
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isaacullah
2862 posts
Oct 24, 2014
2:43 PM
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I must reiterate: not all streaming services pay out the same!!! The data are here: http://thetrichordist.com/2014/02/20/streaming-price-index-updated-2014-per-stream-pay-rates/. The service I use is Google Play Music All Access (a terrible, terrible name, I admit), but Google pays the artist $0.045 (that's 4.5 cents) per play. By my math*, if the artist is selling a CD for $10, I have to listen to that album 18.5 times for them to earn that $10 from my streaming. However, we all know that not all of that $10 per CD goes to the artist's pocket. There's ALWAYS overhead, perhaps also including what the label needs to get paid, etc. So the artist who makes $5 on a $10 CD is doing well. By my math, I then need only stream an album on Google 9.25 times for the artist to get the same cut as if I bought their CD. Google doesn't keep track for me of how often I've streamed each album (or song), so I have to guesstimate here, but I listen to music all day while at work, and I'm easily obsessed by music I like, so I'm very certain I've streamed some albums more than 40 times. That means I've "bought the CD" several times over, in terms of the revenue that the artist actually received from my listening of the tune, and they will continue to get paid every time I listen. IMO, that's a MUCH better deal than the old way of doing things... In that logic, if I just bought the CD, then I'd be shortchanging them. If I truly want to support the artist financially, then I should be streaming them [on Google], rather than buying their albums.
*I assume 12 songs on the album.
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YouTube! Soundcloud!
Last Edited by isaacullah on Oct 24, 2014 3:08 PM
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CarlA
621 posts
Oct 24, 2014
7:15 PM
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I love the joke so I will use it again.
"What's the difference between a musician and a large pizza?"
Answer: A large pizza can feed a family of four
Last Edited by CarlA on Oct 24, 2014 7:15 PM
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A440
230 posts
Oct 25, 2014
4:16 AM
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The baby boomer generation grew up as buyers and collectors of recorded music. It was a special time in history, spurred on by the advent of good, inexpensive hi-fi equipment, an unprecedented boom in British and American musical artistic output, and the rise of recording studios and record companies. The American and European middle class massively embraced a hobby: listening to and collecting recordings. In the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, people bought a lot of music. People spent time with their record collections, and it was a social activity to play records together, discuss artists, create mix tapes, trade/sell/buy records, etc., then in the 90s start building CD collections with the same mindset. And most people also kept a big collection of casettes, then later CDs, in their cars.
Fast forward to today. The vast majority of people do not buy much music, at least in comparison to the boom years of 1955-1995. Perhaps the over-50 crowd still likes the idea of collecting music, but they don't find as much great new music to buy these days. And older people don't have as much disposable income as before. The under-40 crowd does not, generally, buy a lot of music. Even teenagers don't buy huge record collections like their parents or grandparents did. They still listen to a lot of music, but its free. Its free on YouTube, MTV, digital car radios, a Squeezebox in the kitchen, online Streaming sites, etc.
If you look up the "best selling albums of all time", you will probably find that Michael Jackson Off The Wall, Fleetwood Mac Rumours, and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon are probably in the top 5. That was the "peak" of the record boom: late 70s or early 80s.
In 10 years, very few people will be buying music.
On another topic: remember when everybody used to collect libraries of movies on VHS tapes, then DVDs?
Last Edited by A440 on Oct 25, 2014 5:13 AM
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LadyArdRhi
2 posts
Oct 30, 2014
5:18 PM
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I know I'm new here, but I have a little gem of commonality with this conversation.
I'm no pro musician...yet. I was, at one time, a pretty good amateur. On brass. Not harp. We'll see how I do on that over time. Adam's videos, and other sources, are seriously helping. I'm eternally grateful to Adam for making those available. I never would have even TRIED to learn without them.
I came back to music fresh from the comicking world. For those not familiar with the term, a comicker is someone who draws or otherwise creates a comic. I'm too much of a bit-head, I don't draw my comic, I use a computer to make it. But it still takes a lot of work, a bunch of skill (which I learned by doing), and a bit of imagination. At the end, you have a big stack of pretty pictures that you hope tells an enjoyable story. Sort of like putting together an album of songs.
I have a website where I give it all away, for free. I don't consider it a problem; I used it as a learning experience anyway. I'll go back to it someday. Right now, I have too much blues in my soul. I gotta let it out.
But one thing I did do was put my comic, in good old-fashioned comic book form, on a "print on demand" comic distributor site. You can order the comic for about $5 (believe it or not, that's the going rate for a comic book nowadays), it gets printed for you, and mailed out. After a few days, you have a nice colorful comic book to read and put in your collection, if you have one.
I think the last time I checked, my total sales was less than the price of a large pizza. Le sigh...
I printed a pile of them for myself (you get a discount because there's no profit margin) and give them away to fellow comickers, sometimes in exchange for one of theirs. We autograph them for each other, too. It's lots of fun. Sometimes they go to my site and read the rest of the comic (that I've completed so far).
I put ads on my site for a while. Small, tasteful ones, usually advertising other comics. I think, all total, I've made less than $100 on those ads. Enough to run a few ads and spike my web traffic for a few days. I don't know if the ads are still running, I haven't checked in a while.
My time is better spent with Adam's videos, my Google Music account (I bought all of Adam's albums I could find, as well as a number of others), and I go out to the woodshed. It's actually a 1996 Ford Econoline conversion van with a wheelchair lift, but our real woodshed is gross and full of bugs. I knew exactly what he meant by "the woodshed" -- my parents at one time sang Barbershop, and when a quartet went off to practice or just noodle along for a while, they called it "woodshedding".
I have a shelf of VHS tapes. Next to it is a shelf of DVDs. There is a single row of Blu-Ray disks. Now we get everything we could ever want from Amazon, or Netflix, or Hulu, or Google Play.
I hate the "it's good exposure" line. Comickers get it, too. Usually from someone who wants you to spend a couple of weeks doing artwork for them. For free.
Comic artist Ryan Estrada said it best on this page: http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/07/ryan-estrada-takes-aim-at-requests-for-free-art/
Exposure? People DIE from exposure.
-- Gwen
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Komuso
436 posts
Oct 30, 2014
5:23 PM
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Zoe Keating shared her 2014 Spotify payments.When it comes to paying artists they should rebrand as NanoSpotify.
tl;dr
TOTAL 444,202 @ 0.004314092734 /stream = 1916.32862
Yippee!
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Paul Cohen aka Komuso Tokugawa
HarpNinja - Your harmonica Mojo Dojo
Bringing the Boogie to the Bitstream
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