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RE: Pressure comes to bear on free s... (in reply to estebanana)
Interesting, but I didnt see Youtube addressed which is the other colossal free streaming force alonsgside Spotify. I think live performance is going to be the only major revenue stream for artists for some time to come and that's why so many are having to cyber-busk on Patreon
RE: Pressure comes to bear on free s... (in reply to estebanana)
One giant at a time.
In Dec.2017 the three judge panel that sets royalty dividend rules will make a call on the new regulations. They meet every five years, the actions of streaming music companies have been subject to the old rules made five and ten years ago. Technology has become so adaptable and affordable the corporations exploited the old payout rules. It's like the goalposts were moved on the artists.
The new rules for royalty payouts will be updated to take into account the way corporate media has manipulated the game to have a free platform with ads, and a second platform payed platform without ads. If I understand this right they are going to change the rules so that the free platform will not be profitable. And there will be restrictions releasing music on free platforms that remain, it has to happen after it goes out on payed platforms.
There's is some hope, let's see how it goes. I think the judges will favor the music makers in this round.
Posts: 15418
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Pressure comes to bear on free s... (in reply to estebanana)
Instead of 1 cents per song, artist/composer will now get 2 cents per song.
About live performances...I have been using some "gig-X" booking type sites for 2 years now and its embarrassing what people want to pay for live music as well. I was tempted to quote some people's messages that were inquiring, but later said forget it. The market has been driven down so low it's just ridiculous, and peoples tastes are going to shi t along with the value of what is produced.
Posts: 1967
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Pressure comes to bear on free s... (in reply to estebanana)
Are there other industries where manufacturers don't get to set the price their products sell for? It's a horrible reality that the distributors are so much more powerful than the producers that the producers have little to no ability to set the price of their creations. If musicians weren't so fractured as a group, they could change this.
RE: Pressure comes to bear on free s... (in reply to estebanana)
The government is probably also going to cut music education in schools pretty hard, which makes teaching a lot more difficult a professional path for musicians. I remember back in the 90's my community college classical guitar teacher had a day job as an elementary school music teacher. Between adjunct teaching at the community college, teaching full-time at a public elementary school and playing the occasional wedding he seemed to have a rather stable path to provide for his family. Those kinds of avenues are disappearing.
RE: Pressure comes to bear on free s... (in reply to estebanana)
As long as Spotify's model is to pay royalties on the basis of a percentage of total "streams", then regular artists (i.e. artists other than the few big commercial names) are totally screwed by it. Unfortunately, these upcoming decisions won't do anything to change that. The only rationale I can see for puting your music on Spotify is to gain some visibility in an attempt to bring in new listeners who just might purchase your music elsewhere. But it's not a money maker. For most of us, we'd make more selling one album on BandCamp or a few tracks on iTunes then anything we could ever hope to get from Spotify. But even if Spotify no longer provided free streaming services, then people would just switch to one of those barely legal P2P sites, and there's no winning against those. When one goes down (latest was Grooveshark I think?), then another just picks up right where they left off.
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