Re:Invasive Diffusion: one unwilling illustrator found her t...
by Sankozi on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @06:18AM
(#33433579)
Comparing artists that could make record sales earlier to all current streaming artists is comparing apples to oranges.
I agree that Spotify's revenue split is not perfect (it is in fact worse than what you described), but it is still much more fair than record sales. I consider having tape/CD record sold in physical shops (i.e. not during concerts) would be a success on its own in the 90s.
Now every artist can publish their work on Spotify and start to earn money, possibly getting noticed through it. It is much feasible to not be a part of record label now.
Re:Invasive Diffusion: one unwilling illustrator found her t...
by srfvtgb on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @07:45AM
(#33434194)
>unless we consider the labels the people it was supposed to protect
You've hit the nail on the head there. The same record companies that got up to very dodgy copy protection schemes [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
You're also comparing apples to oranges on revenue. 40% of the revenue of a $10-$18 CD sale is a lot different than 70% of a $10/mo subscription being split out over however many artists someone might listen to on spotify.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/arts/music/streaming-musi...
Lots of artists talk about how they simply can't make a living off streaming royalties - artists that were able to do in the era of album sales. Obviously any sort of comfortable living requires merch sales and touring.