Re:How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? (2010)
by earlz on Tuesday July 30, 2013 @12:04PM
(#6127872)
The "totally fair" figure isn't the problem. It's Spotify deciding that artists on the top 100 list should get paid substantially more per listen than some indie artist. No matter how good or bad the person on the top 100 is nor how good or bad the indie artist is. Also, some bands I would much rather tip with 50 cents than to give .2 cents for listening to them 5 times or whatever.
And yes, I'm of the general opinion that albums and songs that are /bought/ are overpriced... kind of. I don't care if I own my music. I care that I can listen to many different artists without having to buy $200 worth of albums to discover all their music.
Re:How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? (2010)
by TylerE on Tuesday July 30, 2013 @12:14PM
(#6127957)
You're ignoring price discrimination. Many who would pay $10/month for unlimited streaming would just go back to torrenting if you took their shiny toy away, they're NOT going to spend that $10 on iTunes instead.
Re:How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? (2010)
by AndrewDucker on Tuesday July 30, 2013 @01:48PM
(#6128667)
I pay £10/month to Spotify.
I was not spending anything like £120/year on music for several years before I got my Spotify subscription.
Re:How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? (2010)
by saalweachter on Tuesday July 30, 2013 @02:06PM
(#6128810)
... and you use Spotify because you pay less than £120/year for more music than you would otherwise get for that value?
Re:How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? (2010)
by AndrewDucker on Wednesday July 31, 2013 @08:53AM
(#6133291)
I use Spotify because I have the convenience of not having to think about music - it's just _there_ whenever I want it, without me having to transfer it anywhere, dig out CDs to rip, etc.
I've listened to vastly more new music since I got Spotify, because I could try things without having to buy a single or an album.
That's worth £10/month to me.
Spotify's benefit to the consumer is they pay less for listening to the same music. Compare that to iTunes which doesn't save you any money, it just makes it a whole lot more convenient. (As an aside, I was far more appalled by the discrepancy between retail albums and iTunes albums: Both cost the consumer $10, but the label gets 5x more from iTunes while the artist gets slightly less than the $1 they get from retail.)
You can save the consumer a certain amount of money by cutting out middle-men, but at the end of the day if consumers are paying less money the producers are earning less money. It only makes sense to the producers if it doesn't cannibalize their existing revenue streams.