For a play on Spotify, the artist gets paid $0.00029, So… 5000 plays generates around $1.45. I can’t even buy popcorn let alone go to the movies on that or even make a plan to pay my band, master the brilliant music, pay for the tour bus, the tour manager. In comparison, 5000 track downloads at iTunes generates almost $3000. And people ask me why I don’t release all my new music??? Things have got to change before I stick my toe in this swampwater music iz-ness.
Lady Kier
(via notesladykier)
This is horrific. I understand that consumers have A) long-standing resentment towards record labels for historically charging quite a lot for albums (remember that $18.99 for Boyz II Men from the Coconuts in the mall? Hard won, that was. Hard won.) B) grown used to getting mp3s for free online and C) grown platform-neutral so they don’t care whether their music comes out of a phone, a laptop, an elevator, or a stereo.
The fact that we’ve become so dissuaded from ownership, from the real true possession of records, is very unfortunate. When we use Spotify, we’re renting music. Not owning. Just renting.
That’s chill if it’s the new Katy-Britney-Rihanna rehash and you don’t really want to own it. But this mentality is shaping the relationship consumers have with music they’re actually truly fond of. Making music is a musician’s career, like baking. Selling bread is a baker’s career. You wouldn’t steal bread from his bakery, so why would just take music from a musician? I know, I know, Spotify is actually paying the artists not stealing — but if you actually read the data Lady Miss Kier threw down on her blog, that’s BARELY paying the artist.
Spotify users are either too stupid to know how to find free album leaks to download or completely naive to think that those insanely annoying ads are paying the artists well enough.
