Lars was right...

Seems to me that being a musician in 2022 is better than it has ever been. You can create, produce, mix, and distribute your music from home. No longer does one need to send endless demos in the hope some record executive (who also probably doesnt play an instrument) decides you have the "it" and signs you.
One has total control of the rights to their art. I feel that is priceless.
None of which pays any bills. I keep posting ironic comments on all the threads about what a bummer it is to play a gig for $100 when it costs $150 in petrol to get there - and yet it's ok for musicians to spend weeks making a record for $0?
 
To be fair my opinion of Spotify has risen as a result of this video, I'd assumed that only the massive artists made money as a result of the volume of streams they get and everyone else was scratching around for the scraps. The example of independent artists making a living
and paying the bills on modest stream numbers was illuminating and for them it could be argued that they've got better circumstances now than in the previous heyday of physical media.
Hmm, I haven't watched the video, but it takes 1 million streams per month to earn the equivalent of average wage in the UK. I don't know many interesting indie artists achieving 1 million streams a month, EVERY month.
 
The iTunes store opened in 2003. MP3 was available in 1995. The technology existed to open a web store long before 2003 but nobody did. 192 Kb/S MP3 is more than good enough for the mass market. So why an eight year gap?
Because the industry was competing with free (piracy), you can't compete with free. Actually the numbers for digital downloads are tiny. By far the biggest market in music these days is streaming. No one label could make streaming work. It took piracy to reduce the value of music to $0, which enabled Spotify to come in and say "we'll pay you more than $0". So we've ended up with Spotify earning big bucks, the labels earning big bucks and the musicians, the people who actually create, do the work, not earning much at all.
 
None of which pays any bills. I keep posting ironic comments on all the threads about what a bummer it is to play a gig for $100 when it costs $150 in petrol to get there - and yet it's ok for musicians to spend weeks making a record for $0?
So, making everything yourself and uploading it to iTunes makes you no money ar all? That would mean you're creating an undesirable product. It requires zero fuel to do all of that from one's home and create a following; if you make music that people want to consume. When one creates a following, demand creates opportunities to tour for actual decent money.
In the end, making a living off a product, which music is, is dependent upon making a product the people want to consume.
 
Because the industry was competing with free (piracy), you can't compete with free. Actually the numbers for digital downloads are tiny. By far the biggest market in music these days is streaming. No one label could make streaming work. It took piracy to reduce the value of music to $0, which enabled Spotify to come in and say "we'll pay you more than $0". So we've ended up with Spotify earning big bucks, the labels earning big bucks and the musicians, the people who actually create, do the work, not earning much at all.
Spotify and mass streaming wasn't around until 2006 and only really got any traction from 2009 onwards.

So what about the 14 years between the invention of the MP3 and streaming?

The record industry dropped the ball. In 2009, digital music sales (not streaming) were $4.3 billion. Largely driven by iTunes sales:


The record companies were caught with their trousers down and it took a third-party technology company to make online music sales gain market share. When they were viable, they were highly profitable. In 2001, there were virtually no mainstream sites selling music online. They didn't compete with 'free'. They didn't compete at all.

If you wanted the music on your computer in 2001, you had two choices. i) Piracy or ii) buy a CD in a physical store and then rip it. I remember it well.

I'm not defending piracy but digital music marketplaces were a direct reaction to piracy when it was suddenly realised that digital music distribution was possible. Not the other way around.
 
So we've ended up with Spotify earning big bucks, the labels earning big bucks and the musicians, the people who actually create, do the work, not earning much at all.
The labels have always made substantially more than any artist under their roof when it comes to distribution.
Consider what it takes to run an operation like Spotify. They don't just have a server with a connection and then do nothing but count their money. Think about the time investment @Supergrobi puts in just to maintain this little forum. Then think about what sort of effort it takes to maintain a database of music the size of Spotify's and the effort required to keep up with the streaming demand while always maintaining reliability.
It's a much bigger picture than is being viewed here.
 
Hmm, I haven't watched the video, but it takes 1 million streams per month to earn the equivalent of average wage in the UK. I don't know many interesting indie artists achieving 1 million streams a month, EVERY month.

Have a watch of the video.
To paraphrase, Spotify take 30% of the money generated by advertising and subscriptions, the other 70% is given to the artists/labels and divided up based on the percentage of streams that month so there isn't a definitive 0.001p per stream number.
Where it gets muddier is that labels may then be taking 75% of what's handed over and the artist might be getting 25% or less, all depending on the contract they have. And it gets muddier yet if that band had an advance that they're paying off, the 25% share they're getting may well be servicing that debt hence the "we're getting millions of streams per month but not getting any money" claims. Also factor in that the money finally coming in to the band is getting split 4 or 5 ways plus potentially, and I don't know how it works, the writers might be getting a bigger cut.
As to making a living (I haven't rewatched the video and am paraphrasing so apologies if I get the numbers wrong) the guy who made the video has a friend who's channel has 140k subscribers and through them he's been a full time musician and "paid the bills" for 4 years. He hasn't got a label to pay, he owns his own songs and masters and that's how he's doing it.
 
The labels have always made substantially more than any artist under their roof when it comes to distribution.
Consider what it takes to run an operation like Spotify. They don't just have a server with a connection and then do nothing but count their money. Think about the time investment @Supergrobi puts in just to maintain this little forum. Then think about what sort of effort it takes to maintain a database of music the size of Spotify's and the effort required to keep up with the streaming demand while always maintaining reliability.
It's a much bigger picture than is being viewed here.

And from the video they actively curate music and break bands, they're not just acting as a provider they're promoting bands, adding them to playlists etc. They're losing money because of every £10 subscription they're getting £3.
 
The record companies were caught with their trousers down and it took a third-party technology company to make online music sales gain market share. When they were viable, they were highly profitable. In 2001, there were virtually no mainstream sites selling music online. They didn't compete with 'free'. They didn't compete at all.

If you wanted the music on your computer in 2001, you had two choices. i) Piracy or ii) buy a CD in a physical store and then rip it. I remember it well.

I'm not defending piracy but digital music marketplaces were a direct reaction to piracy when it was suddenly realised that digital music distribution was possible. Not the other way around.
Nooooo. The price of music was reduced to zero by piracy, which 100% ENABLED Spotify to work as a business model. they are paying basement rates to musicians. When asked why they couldn't pay more (in a recent UK parliamentary enquiry) ALL the streaming companies said the same thing - they are competing with free (piracy). people will pay $9.99 per month for music, but of the fee went up to $20 a month, the consumer will just go back to piracy. That's why Spotify streaming prices haven't changed for ten years.
 
The labels have always made substantially more than any artist under their roof when it comes to distribution.
Consider what it takes to run an operation like Spotify. They don't just have a server with a connection and then do nothing but count their money. Think about the time investment @Supergrobi puts in just to maintain this little forum. Then think about what sort of effort it takes to maintain a database of music the size of Spotify's and the effort required to keep up with the streaming demand while always maintaining reliability.
It's a much bigger picture than is being viewed here.
Whatever, Daniel Ek, creator and owner of Spotify is a billionaire. the average pro musician is lucky to earn average wage. I think pretty much everyone* agrees the balance is wrong. Not you, not I, but everyone* who has seriously researched the streaming business model, including a committee of UK parliamentarians.
 
So, making everything yourself and uploading it to iTunes makes you no money ar all? That would mean you're creating an undesirable product.
No, it means I'm not being discovered, like the other 6,000 people who uploaded their tracks today. To get discovered it helps if your face fits and you have $$$$ to send on promotion, greasing palms, including paying to get on playlists. There is a mountain of content being uploaded, and most consumers are just swiping past it, or just consuming the music their favourite playlist puts in front of them. The algorithm pushes trending tracks to more and more people. Not ;good' tracks, but trending tracks.
I'm not sobbing about my lot, I'm just explain how it works. No one but the top 10% in the industry is making any serious money from streaming. the rest of the 90% in the industry is using streaming to promote their live show. It is unpaid promotion. Which is why no one spends 6 months or even 6 weeks making their album these days. It is working for $0.
 
Man I used to LOVE BMG and Columbia House.

Getting 11 tapes/cds and 1 free for 1 cent plus postage and sometimes a money order for $2.50 if I recall.

Honest question: How did musicians cope with this?
Though not free, it was still somewhat highly accessible means for a middle school person.

My cousin had a huge book of CDs from that he would order from there anytime we picked up a music magazine or catalog that had them.
Maybe hundreds close to thousands of dollars worth at a low fraction of actually spent.
 
If you wanted the music on your computer in 2001, you had two choices. i) Piracy or ii) buy a CD in a physical store and then rip it. I remember it well.
What's wrong with buying the CD and directly supporting the artists? That's what I was doing, then uploading wavs to my computer, making compilations for my iPod etc.
Piracy didn't really impact the labels, they had deep enough pockets, and they ended up doing the deal with Spotify. Piracy deprived independent musicians of their income.
MP3 is bad quality. A lot of streaming services are moving away from MP3 to better (CD) quality. Digital downloads was a brief fad. Really the industry has gone from CD to streaming, with a brief dalliance with piracy and downloads. By far the most people stream music in 2022/23. And the problem with that is only the top 10-20% of very popular artists are earning money from streaming. Everyone else is just using recordings to promote the live show.
 
So, making everything yourself and uploading it to iTunes makes you no money ar all? That would mean you're creating an undesirable product. It requires zero fuel to do all of that from one's home and create a following; if you make music that people want to consume. When one creates a following, demand creates opportunities to tour for actual decent money.
In the end, making a living off a product, which music is, is dependent upon making a product the people want to consume.
Like Chris has alluded to you’re competing with thousands of tracks being uploaded the same day.

Now if your music is featured by one of the streaming sites or listed on an official playlist or the algorithm favours you then you’re instantly increasing your audience as masses are being directed to you so that 0.000006 pence per play (or whatever it now is) starts to feel less insulting.

It’s simply not as easy as creating something good and ‘people will come’ I wish it was that simple though.

There are thousands of good artists/bands that will never see their listener count increase to a point whereby they’ll make anything like acceptable money/return from their investment.

Saying that personally as someone who has released music on Spotify and all the major streaming providers and hates their practices for artists, but pays Spotify a monthly subscription like a total hypocrite.

I think Deezer pays the best rates to artists, but again we’re talking zilch.

Unfortunately out of the streaming companies/owners, the listeners and the artists it’s the ones who create the music or ‘product’ that everyone else benefits from who get shafted.
 
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No, it means I'm not being discovered, like the other 6,000 people who uploaded their tracks today. To get discovered it helps if your face fits and you have $$$$ to send on promotion, greasing palms, including paying to get on playlists.
How is this any different than what has been going on since the dawn of consumer driven music?
You've ways had to "get discovered" in order to make a living. What I said was that now, you don't have to sell your soul to the label and lose control of your art. You get to keep it all.
How many people in younger generations have been exposed to and risen the profiles of older artists through YouTube and streaming services? I'd be willing to bet that number is high.
I get that to almost everyone "change" is a swear word, but things change and one can adapt and thrive or stay where they are and be left behind to die off.
The industry and artists failed to see the writing on the wall, as @Mediocrefunkybeat eloquently pointed out. The same thing happened to the book and bookstore industry when they failed to read the writing on the wall that said "Amazon". They did not adapt and most died off rather quickly. One can complain about the game and the rules or they can play. The choice is yours.

Who got paid when Brand Nubian sampled "What I am"? I'm guessing the label.
 
Whatever, Daniel Ek, creator and owner of Spotify is a billionaire. the average pro musician is lucky to earn average wage. I think pretty much everyone* agrees the balance is wrong. Not you, not I, but everyone* who has seriously researched the streaming business model, including a committee of UK parliamentarians.
Let's trot out the old tried and true Walmart argument. Or even better the CEO vs the Janitor wage gap argument. Shit, might as well compare oranges to bricks while we're at it.
When someone has a better business idea, everyone loves to crucify them for being successful. I'm kind of tired of the anti success crowd. First it was Sam Walton for having the better business model. Then it was Bill Gates for creating something everyone wanted to use. Then it was Jeff Bezos for again creating something that everyone wants to use. No one accounts for the huge losses all three men took in order to secure their product and marketplace.

Note to self, be a failure in life so no one will crucify you. Be a success and the green eyed monster of society will come for you.

Random note: did you know that Walmart single handedly was responsible for CDs being removed from those humongous cardboard sleeves and being reduced to shrink wrap on only the CD? They maximize shelf space and in doing so informed all manufacturers of products they carry that things need to packaged to fit their shelving or they wouldn't carry the product. Thanks for reducing waste in the landfill Walmart. Thank you to all the streaming services for reducing the amount of plastic finding its way into the landfill in the form of a scratched CD.
 
Nooooo. The price of music was reduced to zero by piracy, which 100% ENABLED Spotify to work as a business model. they are paying basement rates to musicians. When asked why they couldn't pay more (in a recent UK parliamentary enquiry) ALL the streaming companies said the same thing - they are competing with free (piracy). people will pay $9.99 per month for music, but of the fee went up to $20 a month, the consumer will just go back to piracy. That's why Spotify streaming prices haven't changed for ten years.

With respect Chris, I'm not talking about digital streaming. I'm talking about digital music sales. Which is a different thing.

You log into a storefront (e.g. Apple Music) and you buy a copy for downloading to your hard drive. Streaming is an entirely different paradigm.

Between 1995 and 2003 there was no significant online market place to legally purchase music for downloading onto your hard drive. This is much closer to the 'piracy'. You don't stream the music as a pirate, you download it your hard drive.

The fact that no significant legal service existed for this in the eight years that the technology existed up until 2003 is a damning indictment of the music industry and it was the very notion of piracy that eventually drove the industry to accept that they would have to get with the times and make digital music available for sale and to download to your hard drive. In the end, Apple got the jump on the market and made the iTunes Store popular. They brokered deals with the record companies and took 30% of the cut.

The record companies could have done this in 1995. They didn't. They failed to see where the market was heading.
 
What's wrong with buying the CD and directly supporting the artists? That's what I was doing, then uploading wavs to my computer, making compilations for my iPod etc.
Good question. I still do this as much as possible. Artists are beginning to not offer CDs at all, forcing me to buy a digital download instead. Ironically, the same artists are selling vinyl, which I can't rip into my computer or listen to in my car. And yes, both my car and computer still have CD players. Sorry for the Gen X rant. I want my old CDs (Mtv)!
 
Growing up, my dad had a reel to reel and later on got a whole ADAT system with a mixing board and whatnot. I was lucky to have some access to multitracking recording growing up for sure, it taught me alot and at that time it wasn't a common thing aside for some 4 track recorders.

Now, everyone has a home recording studio of some kind (big or small), no wonder we have such content saturation. You can see it the in the budget kits got better...globalization (for better or worse), made these thing far more accessible and affordable. You can make music without learning an instrument either. On top of this, the competing media of modern tech...even more media saturation, more so than any time in human history. Pretty tough to cut through the noise.

Natural selection would say for music, the media needs to evolve to something far more exclusive to cut this noise. Maybe that means have VR body suit experiences at music shows or changing what an album is in the classic sense (or always have it combined with other media like movies or animimation with a new technological front). Just some wild ideas....but part of the art is creative solutions and it hasn't found its self other than repeating legacy formats of yesteryear that are just lost. Nature says either evolve or die.
Between 1995 and 2003 there was no significant online market place to legally purchase music for downloading onto your hard drive. This is much closer to the 'piracy'. You don't stream the music as a pirate, you download it your hard drive.

I'm having a flashback of CD burners in 1997...remember when getting a 4x was like Ferrari? And just like dual tape decks, everyone was primed to this concept since more or less many people traded with their friends without much thought....until is got ridiculously easy like the Napster thing, seemed like a line got a crossed. And not to be an old fart, but there is a notable generation difference that expects 'free' media without a second thought that weren't even alive at this time...the attitude now is more like an expected 'why isn't it all free' is what I gather.
 
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