The great streaming debate

[RobotBoy]

I've said from the start that streaming is utterly useless for the industry. I love Apple Music and they and Spotify have lured in friends of mine who've never paid for music in their lives, but I still fail to see how it can make significant money for labels and artists as a general model.

 

[GNL]

Of course Taylor Swift is going to be negatively affected by streaming, because the label is going to share out the percentage of the earnings they get with everyone involved in making Taylor Swift happen, but I don't think streaming is that bad for music, it's just that it's not ideal for big labels or their artists.

 

[Zu]

I've said from the start that streaming is utterly useless for the industry. I love Apple Music and they and Spotify have lured in friends of mine who've never paid for music in their lives, but I still fail to see how it can make significant money for labels and artists as a general model.

THIS. Streaming is a disgrace. Everyone's got far too used to technology offering (more or less) free goods, without much of a thought as to how the artist actually makes a living. The strops about having to actually pay for the Adele album are disgraceful. You wouldn't go into M&S and throw a hissy fit because the food wasn't free

 

[Halli]

THIS. Streaming is a disgrace. Everyone's got far too used to technology offering (more or less) free goods, without much of a thought as to how the artist actually makes a living. The strops about having to actually pay for the Adele album are disgraceful. You wouldn't go into M&S and throw a hissy fit because the food wasn't free

I do understand what you are saying, but to have Spotify you pay a monthly fee and you do that with the knowledge that you are streaming and you don't have the CD. This process GENERATES money for said artist. we go to their concerts, I don't know if it does but if I am paying about a tenner a month for Spotify (premium) then I hope some of it is going to the artist, and of course the rest to the compan(ie record label - which im happy to contribute to, we have just seen what has happened to Anastacia when she left Def Jam and re-joined Sony). Now that streaming is included in the charts that is MY way of contributing because that means they are up in the charts and therefore promoting the album which means financial GAINS.

By bringing listeners into our free, ad-supported tier, we migrate them away from piracy and less monetised platforms and allow them to generate far greater royalties than they were before. Once they are using our free tier, we drive users to our premium subscription tier, at least doubling the amount that they spend on music, from less than $5 per month (the average spent by download consumers in The US) to $9.99 per month for Spotify.

I love Adele, and I love music, I just don't need a fucking CD and iTunes a lot of it goes to APPLE anyway. Calm down and just enjoy the music.

 

[Sheena]

To add to the streaming debate, I really feel uncomfortable with it still. It doesn't generate money for artists and, I'm sorry, but in a world where people are QUITE HAPPY to pay £3 for a fucking cup of COFFEE, I fail to see why they won't pay 99p for a song they can keep FOREVER.

 

[Zu]

To add to the streaming debate, I really feel uncomfortable with it still. It doesn't generate money for artists and, I'm sorry, but in a world where people are QUITE HAPPY to pay £3 for a fucking cup of COFFEE, I fail to see why they won't pay 99p for a song they can keep FOREVER.

QUITE!

I'm not being an ASDA MUM and buying this CD

Oh GO ON. Get us some Taytos while you're at it

 

[lolly]

I guess it's because the alternative to streaming is that they wouldn't pay 99p for it. They would illegally download it to keep forever. Not that I think the streaming model is perfect, but I can see why things have gone that way.

There was an article on telegraph.co.uk regarding Adele's refusal to allow the album to be on spotify, stating that for it to generate enough for her to buy a hard copy of her own album (so I suppose they are looking at a tenner to the artist), she needs to have 10,500 track streams.

 

[Cerro de Casa]

To add to the streaming debate, I really feel uncomfortable with it still. It doesn't generate money for artists and, I'm sorry, but in a world where people are QUITE HAPPY to pay £3 for a fucking cup of COFFEE, I fail to see why they won't pay 99p for a song they can keep FOREVER.

Hear hear!

 

[GinAg (39)]

You don't necessarily keep it forever though. If the publishers chooses to remove it, your access to it could disappear. Same for Spotify (which of course happens), but at least you have the rest of the library.

 

[GinAg (39)]

And WHY SHOULD I give a SHIT about the POOR STARVING ARTISTS? Within my life the cunts charged me £15 for an album and their concert tickets are still significant portions of my wage.

 

[RobotBoy]

And WHY SHOULD I give a SHIT about the POOR STARVING ARTISTS? Within my life the cunts charged me £15 for an album and their concert tickets are still significant portions of my wage.

You shouldn't. You're legally consuming music through Spotify.

But I'll be amazed if the industry allows the streaming model to continue much longer in its current bargainous setup. My prediction is that it, like Netflix, will become a strictly catalogue-only affair on the streaming services, with occasional exclusives.

 

[GinAg (39)]

It will be tough to break the model.

 

[RobotBoy]

It will be tough to break the model.

Not at all.

Universal are so big now and they're run by lawyers and accountants. All it will take is for them to pull the plug. It'll happen soon, I reckon. They're ruthless. I've heard about some of the contracts they're renegotiating with broadcasters to be able to screen their content. They're wising up to the fact they are massively underselling their core product.

 

[GinAg (39)]

I could probably deal with a catalogue subscription service. Paying for the odd album isn't the end of everything.

 

[VoR]

It is hard to go backwards though. The record labels made a huge mistake jumping on Spotify without ironing out a workable model, no doubt because they feared missing the boat like they did with downloads (and even then they managed to ultimately pull it back thanks to iTunes making it far easier to download songs legally than not.)

Now people accept streaming as legit, and they'll be pissed if/when it's taken away from them.

They really need to find a way for it to generate a fair, realistic income stream for artists on all levels, instead of the laughable sums the performers are making right now.

 

[GinAg (39)]

I don't disagree the money paid is RIDICULOUS. However as I said for what I'm getting I don't care. Besides I'd say for many it's a great way to be found.

 

[Zu]

Now people accept streaming as legit, and they'll be pissed if/when it's taken away from them.

They just need to be retrained. Yer average consumer can easily be persuaded to part with a tenner for an album if they want it that much and they're not given a streaming option. The sales figures for the Adele album SAY IT ALL

WELL DONE DARLIN'

 

[Shirley]

I think the industry could have sold a HELLUVA lot more mp3s if they had THOUGHT THROUGH THE PRICING a bit better

Especially on the sort of OLD TOOT I like. I'm not stumping up £10 for the mp3s of some 25-minute 40-year-old DISCO DISASTER

THANK GOD FOR RUSSIA

 

[Indie]

I am pro-streaming, but having said that, I don't use it very often. It just hasn't got the stuff I want.

 

[Kala]

I just don't have the SPACE anymore for CDs. After 25 years of collecting them I've got a spare room practically full of CDs and DVDs and I'm sick of it now. Spotify has drastically reduced my purchases to just main artists I love and some reissues and the rest is on Spotify. I still refuse to pay £7.99 for a bunch of mp3s when I could get the CD for the same price.

The industry has changed now for good and I can't see it going backwards. Maybe they'll increase subscription fees. I'd happily pay £20 a month for Spotify. Maybe then they could give more to the artist.

 

[GinAg (39)]

Annual payment to the artists might hit upwards of £4.

 

[GinAg (39)]

Apparently Taylor Swift would make about 6 million. So fuck the haters. These people are just greedy.

 

[Zu]

I still refuse to pay £7.99 for a bunch of mp3s when I could get the CD for the same price.

Paying money for a compressed digital file does feel like a right rip-off (so I can see the attraction of Spotify et al) although that might be an age-related thing: no glossy booklets or furry sleeves, etc. In fact, it creates the sensation of having bought nothing. Even buying a WAV has more or less the same effect, so it's not even about compression. It's about the VIRTUAL

 

[RobotBoy]

Apparently Taylor Swift would make about 6 million. So fuck the haters. These people are just greedy.

I don't believe she would have said no if she was going to make 6 million out of it TBH.

A few years ago Spotify paid out £12 million IN TOTAL to the entire UK music industry. Absolutely pitifull. That's artists, labels, writers, distributors, producers, the lot.

 

[Marilyn]

My reservations about using streaming personally is that I'm not comfortable with a "library" that can have stuff removed at any time. That's why I still maintain my iTunes, because at least I know that once somethings in there, it's in there.

I do have a premium Spotify subscription, but I barely ever use it. I buy new CDs almost weekly (you can pry them from my cold dead hands), occasionally legally download and illegally download more things than I'm happy to admit. One day I plan to replace everything I've illegally downloaded with legit copies but that day is not soon, which is probably why I keep the Spotify subscription out of guilt

The pricing of both physical media and legal downloads has to change if the consumer will ever be turned back to them. This is a bit of a LOCAL ISSUE but I went to buy the new Beatles 1 CD/2 blu-ray thing only to find it was $110. It was $70 AUD on Amazon.com, which is still QUITE STEEP, but it meant I was able to chuck in Vulnicura Strings and still come in under the original price.

Why would any regular non-loon consumer want to purchase something when prices are that ridiculous?

 

[Eileen]

I would like to see streaming die because Happy and Uptown Funk shouldn't be 2 million sellers.

 

[lolly]

I would like to see streaming die because Happy and Uptown Funk shouldn't be 2 million sellers.

I think the issue of if (and how) streaming sales are calculated is another issue.

I still think part of the problem is the profiteering that went on too long when CDs became the dominant format, and then particularly the giving away of CDs free with just about every issue of every music magazine in the mid 90s for a good few years. Record companies cheapened their own product and made it something disposable and worthless.

 

[lolly]

I still think part of the problem is the profiteering that went on too long when CDs became the dominant format, and then particularly the giving away of CDs free with just about every issue of every music magazine in the mid 90s for a good few years. Record companies cheapened their own product and made it something disposable and worthless.

And the fact that the whole notion of an album at the moment seems to be an anathema to a huge amount of people under 25.

 

[VoR]

It doesn't help when the likes of Ellie Goulding treat LPs like a dumping ground for every half-arsed thing she's set her vocals to in the past year either. I'd genuinely be more inclined to pay for less in the sense that I'd probably be tempted by a 10-12 track CD from her (if I knew she wouldn't reissue it which is YET ANOTHER issue) but the fact that her latest is a 21 track slog has actively put me off buying it.

 

[Eileen]

It feels that the question "what was your first single?" is now completely nonsensical to most people under 30.

 

[Ryan]

I think it's going to be quite hard to re-work the model now but absolutely feel that consumers were given too much too soon too cheap.

For most people, there's no incentive to buy an album anymore when they can listen to it for free and then add the tracks they like to their playlists. I think it would have made far more sense to make streaming a 'Singles only' affair so that people still had to pay for the album if they wanted more. I suppose there is, however, the argument that, if this was the case, people would just illegally download the albums rather than buy them anyway.

I'd be interested to know how many people turned from illegal downloading to paid-for-streaming services or if, actually, it was just people who paid for their music anyway who now use Spotify etc and those who never paid, never will.

Of course, the One Directions/Justin Biebers of the world make enough money from endorsements and stadium shows to not worry about earnings from the actual music but for small to medium sized acts, something really has to be done. I remember La Roux tweeting that she earns £100 a quarter from Spotify. With non-existent album sales, how can that be fair? I'm sure she would have done OK from the 1st album but for other acts like that (with top 10 albums that disappear quickly), how can their careers be sustainable?

 

[Tetris-Rock]

I'd be interested to know how many people turned from illegal downloading to paid-for-streaming services or if, actually, it was just people who paid for their music anyway who now use Spotify etc and those who never paid, never will.

I have through SHEER LAZINESS over anything else.

 

[big ron]

I'm the same. I bought a few albums every now and then, mainly anything I though might help Pete Doherty buy a bit mor gear. Spotify just made it easier for me to access music than stealing it. £10 a month for all the music in the world is decent.

 

[RaspberrySwirl]

I pay for streaming and that should be enough. If it weren't for streaming I would have stopped buying music anyway. And it's so much more practical. Therefore I am totally pro streaming.

 

[BoysForSeles]

I'm not sure if I agree with limtless plays on something like Spotify when it's a free service, the previous model of 5 plays and that's it seem to be more pro artist, but I guess then those people will move back toward illegal downloading.

 

[GinAg (39)]

I'd be interested to know how many people turned from illegal downloading to paid-for-streaming services or if, actually, it was just people who paid for their music anyway who now use Spotify etc and those who never paid, never will.

I went from illegal to free streaming to paid streaming. Now I would never illegally download anything.

 

[lolly]

A bit of both for me. I do definitely buy less music since I subscribed to spotify (and I use the paid service), but I can't remember the last time I illegally downloaded anything, and I used to reasonably regularly before.

 

[ameraal]

i'm not sure my problem is as much with streaming as it is with the general population's bad taste and young kids' increasing sway over the music industry.

 

[GinAg (39)]

Kids like music?

Is not just that we're OLD and don't understand?

 

[Iguana]

Interesting graphics from BBC News today as MPs call for "a complete reset" of how artists are paid for streaming: