{"id":181987,"date":"2021-02-18T20:54:17","date_gmt":"2021-02-18T17:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/should-spotify-payments-go-to-artists-you-actually-listen-to\/"},"modified":"2021-02-18T20:54:17","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T17:54:17","slug":"should-spotify-payments-go-to-artists-you-actually-listen-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/should-spotify-payments-go-to-artists-you-actually-listen-to\/","title":{"rendered":"#Should Spotify payments go to artists you actually listen to?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Should Spotify payments go to artists you actually listen to?<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\n One solution being that is gaining traction is for streaming services such as Spotify to funnel each customer’s fee to the artists they actually listen to
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Streaming companies such as Spotify and Deezer are credited with rescuing the music industry from piracy, but while label executives rejoice in billion-dollar revenues, even top-level artists are struggling to survive.<\/p>\n

For musicians, the workings of the streaming economy can be mystifying but the results are clear.<\/p>\n

“All I know is that the earnings from my streaming are not significant enough to keep the wolf from the door,” indie star Nadine Shah recently told a British parliament committee investigating the issue. <\/p>\n

Despite being nominated for Britain’s top Mercury Prize and having millions of listeners on Spotify, “I am in a position now where I am struggling to pay my rent,” she said.<\/p>\n

Few young artists have her courage to speak out. Many, she said, fear retribution by streaming platforms and major labels. <\/p>\n

That is not an exaggeration, said Tom Gray of the band Gomez, who founded the Broken Records campaign last year to raise awareness on the issue.<\/p>\n

“The music industry has its roots in gangsterism and has never shaken that off.”<\/p>\n

A new model?<\/b><\/p>\n

One solution that is gaining traction is for streaming services to funnel each customer’s fee to the artists they actually listen to. <\/p>\n

At the moment, all subscript<\/a>ion fees go in one big pot which is paid out (minus a hefty service fee) based on which artists have the most global streams. <\/p>\n

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\n British indie star Nadine Shah says she struggles to pay her rent despite having millions of listeners on Spotify
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That massively favours a tiny band of uber-stars and top genres, mostly pop and R&B. The top 10 artists\u2014Drake, Ariana Grande and the like -take nearly 10 percent of the entire pay-out, according to a study by France’s Centre National de la Musique.<\/p>\n

For the rest, the odds of survival can verge on the absurd.<\/p>\n

Gray says his five-piece band would have needed 180 million Spotify streams a year to earn \u00a330,000 each. That’s significantly more than Elvis Presley and not far off The Beatles.<\/p>\n

‘Fundamentally wrong’<\/b><\/p>\n

There has been talk of German streaming service Soundcloud becoming the first to try the so-called “user-centric model”, in which subscribers’ cash goes directly to the artists they listen to. <\/p>\n

Many music fans would welcome the move on principle, but it is no silver bullet.<\/p>\n

The French study found it would redistribute 4.5 million euros a year from the top 10 artists on Spotify and Deezer, but spread it very thinly around artists lower down.<\/p>\n

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\"Tom
\n Tom Gray, pictured here in 2006, says his five-piece band Gomez would have needed 180 million Spotify streams a year to earn \u00a330,000 each
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“We consider it essential that this debate is taking place,” said Antoine Monin, of Spotify France. “In theory, the user-centric model is attractive, but it’s clear that it will not solve everything.”
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Campaigners insist it is still better than nothing. And there could be longer-term benefits, since the study showed a significant boost to lower-profile genres such as jazz and classical. <\/p>\n

“That’s clear proof that their money is being taken by other music, which is just fundamentally wrong,” said Crispin Hunt, chair of Britain’s Ivors Academy, which has also launched a campaign, Keep Music Alive, to “fix streaming”. <\/p>\n

“It’s not just the overnight effects. Once people realise there’s money in jazz, that will lead to more investment in jazz.”<\/p>\n

Major label stranglehold?<\/b><\/p>\n

Campaigners say the issue must go beyond streaming companies to investigate the stranglehold of the three major labels, Warner, Sony and Universal, who are seeing record digital revenues. <\/p>\n

Just as musicians were plunged into crisis by the cancellation of live dates last summer, Warner Music execs awarded themselves $593 million worth of equity when they floated their company, according to Music Weekly.<\/p>\n

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\n A French study found switching to a “user-centric model” would redistribute 4.5 million euros a year from the top 10 artists on Spotify and Deezer, but spread it very thinly around artists lower down
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Quizzed by British lawmakers last month, label bosses said one million streams generates around \u00a35,000. Under a typical contract, a label keeps \u00a34,000, and perhaps the entirety if the artists have not paid off their initial debts, which can take years. <\/p>\n

They argued they take the risk on investing in young artists, who are under no obligation to sign their contracts. <\/p>\n

That is disingenuous, said Hunt: “In most cases, it’s a contract between a bunch of 19-year-old kids and a huge global corporation. There’s no symmetry in the negotiation whatsoever.”<\/p>\n

‘No fanfare’<\/b><\/p>\n

Hunt said such deals made sense in the 20th century when labels manufactured and distributed millions of physical albums, but not in the digital age.<\/p>\n

“Even the marketing they claim to do is mostly done by social media<\/a> platforms now,” added Gray. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the price of inaction is often invisible, measured in songs that never get recorded.<\/p>\n

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\n Guy Garvey of British band Elbow, pictured here in 2014, says the price of inaction is that musicians will stop producing music
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“When a musician stops producing music… there is no fanfare or press release,” Guy Garvey, of band Elbow, told the parliament hearings. <\/p>\n

“You just hear one of their songs three or four years down the line and you think, ‘Oh, God, what happened to them?'”\n <\/p>\n\n

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Spotify to let artists post music without labels<\/a>\n <\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n Should Spotify payments go to artists you actually listen to? (2021, February 18)
\n retrieved 18 February 2021
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news<\/a>\/2021-02-spotify-payments-artists.html<\/p>\n

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