New, fairer streaming services – any appeal to you?

barnstorm

Ahead of the major label bosses getting a grilling (hopefully) from the DCMS select committee, there's a piece in the Guardian about streaming royalties that mentions the following new, artist-friendly alternatives to Spotify/Apple/Deezer:

– SonStream (User pays 3.3p per track played, of which 2.5p goes to rights holder. Currently in beta, 1m songs available, no deal with majors.)

– Resonate (User pays for the first 9 streams of a song, after which they own it. Not sure if 'ownership' means you can download a file or if it just means the track becomes free to stream within Resonate. First stream is $0.002, and the cost doubles each time you play the track until you've spent $1.022. Currently 14,000 songs available, no deal with majors.)

– Audius (Artists set a per-stream rate or monthly subscription fee. 10% goes to Audius network, rest goes to rights holder. Currently 200,000 songs available, no deal with majors.)

Leaving aside the obvious issue of their small catalogues, would any of those models appeal to you? I ask because it's hard for me to understand why anybody who wants to do right by an artist they like wouldn't just buy an album or a single in the first place. Streaming services offer no practical benefit (for me) over digital files that I own.

JohnS37

It’s good that someone is trying to devise a fairer method of remuneration for the artist.  Of these three I think I like the Resonate model best, even though it’s a bit complicated, but only if you get to download the song when you have ‘bought ‘ it.  If I like it enough to stream it nine times I’ll want to put it on my iPod.

Stuckfast

I don't quite see how these address one of the biggest fairness issues. It's not just that Spotify et al pay pitiful royalties, it's also that most major label artists are on very unfair contracts that allow the label to keep the vast majority of income from streaming rather than paying it on to the artist.

barnstorm

Agree that major labels will screw artists out of money any way they can – but the original contracts are less of a problem in this context than the fact that…

– the services and labels chose, very cynically, to define streaming as reproduction rather than performance, even where a service is functioning as a radio station and selecting songs/playlists for the listener

– and that artists' earnings are dictated by the percentage of all streams on the service that their songs represent, so if a mental BTS fan uses their Spotify subscription to listen to BTS exclusively, BTS doesn't get all that money – or anything close to it.

Worth noting, too, that there's some evidence Spotify creates fake artists (with real songs) that are promoted heavily in playlists to bump up the number of total streams, diluting the earnings of real artists.

The contract status of the artists (all non-major-label) currently on the new services mentioned in the OP will vary, but the difference to independent artists in particular is enormous. The example given at the top of the Guardian article is someone earning £44.30 for 1772 streams in a week vs. less than a fiver on Spotify for the same number. Resonate has a little calculator for artists to show earnings vs. Spotify et al using an average per-stream rate for those services. 100k streams generates $600 using that average vs. $1526 on Resonate.

Anyway, what I was really interested in was the idea that there might be demand among 'good citizens' for a streaming alternative to just buying albums and singles outright for much the same money, but perhaps people now expect to have a subscription for every bloody thing!

Grumpyrocker

It's a good move. Not needed for me though as when I find stuff I like on Spotify I tend to buy a physical copy or download. That's how I support artists I like. 

However I know that's the norm. And something does need to change in terms of artists getting a fair payday for their work. 

digitalscream

Yeah, there's absolutely no appeal to me here at all. I use streaming services to find music I like. If I do, I just buy the album(s).

The thing is, there's little appeal for the end user other than "doing the right thing", along with "costs you more", which dooms these services to be bit-players in the market. And then...there's the added overhead for the artist of maintaining their catalogue on yet another service for very little in the way of return (since not many people will be using it).

It's hard to see who these things would appeal to. The main fans of any band will be buying their albums (and probably merch too), which is a much better and more direct way to support the band. The casual listener won't really care and will continue using Spotify and YouTube playlists. Is there really much of a market in between?

fretmeister

8 hours a day while I work. 3.3pence per 4 minute tune.

It's not bad, but radio is free. As is Spotify with ads.

ewal

So if we use streaming to discover music, then buy the album if we like something, could that be built in to the charging model? You can listen to a track X times under general subscription, at which point you need to buy it for continued listens?

Think I could live with that

darthed1981

barnstorm said:

Agree that major labels will screw artists out of money any way they can – but the original contracts are less of a problem in this context than the fact that…

– the services and labels chose, very cynically, to define streaming as reproduction rather than performance, even where a service is functioning as a radio station and selecting songs/playlists for the listener

– and that artists' earnings are dictated by the percentage of all streams on the service that their songs represent, so if a mental BTS fan uses their Spotify subscription to listen to BTS exclusively, BTS doesn't get all that money – or anything close to it.

Worth noting, too, that there's some evidence Spotify creates fake artists (with real songs) that are promoted heavily in playlists to bump up the number of total streams, diluting the earnings of real artists.

The contract status of the artists (all non-major-label) currently on the new services mentioned in the OP will vary, but the difference to independent artists in particular is enormous. The example given at the top of the Guardian article is someone earning £44.30 for 1772 streams in a week vs. less than a fiver on Spotify for the same number. Resonate has a little calculator for artists to show earnings vs. Spotify et al using an average per-stream rate for those services. 100k streams generates $600 using that average vs. $1526 on Resonate.

Anyway, what I was really interested in was the idea that there might be demand among 'good citizens' for a streaming alternative to just buying albums and singles outright for much the same money, but perhaps people now expect to have a subscription for every bloody thing!

I think it is worth bearing in mind that Spotify was started by a group of very eager illegal-music-downloaders who actually used their own pirated music collections to show off the technology (which was at least partly another kind of file sharing).

They also recently gave 100 million dollar contracts to a right wing streamer and to Harry and Meghan to do podcasts.

So it's quite possible Spotify are cunts.

Still I could always switch to Amazon music, or Tidal or Apple... oh.... no better.

...and these new ideas, all bluddy awful.  Confusing what people say that they want with what they are willing to pay for.

darthed1981

ewal said:

So if we use streaming to discover music, then buy the album if we like something, could that be built in to the charging model? You can listen to a track X times under general subscription, at which point you need to buy it for continued listens?

Think I could live with that

For Boomers and Gen X?  Might work.

For Millenials etc - no way, not in a million years.