The Illusion of Being Heard (aka Spotify) - Distributors update to overstep the copyrights of your music?

[JEPA]

So I will leave this here and we will see. I have NO distributors for my music, I have plans to do it myself, that's all. I am bored to see how companies steal and steal (e.g. Spotify) and how musicians fall for the illusion of being heard...

 

[creativeforge]

So I will leave this here and we will see. I have NO distributors for my music, I have plans to do it myself, that's all. I am bored to see how companies steal and steal (e.g. Spotify) and how musicians fall for the illusion of being heard...

Nobody stopped them. Old grift. Colonel Parker disciples. And shareholders investments, not Art investments. It's never going to come back, is it? Greed is a chameleon tongue. It doesn't let go.

 

[JEPA]

Looks like I'm the last of the Mohicans.... I see for example how many hobby musicians make this market worse, they don't really live from music and are on spotify "to be heard", enriching the monster and lowering the value of music for people who live from music. But I guess I am stuck in the past... I remember when you could buy/download a song from Apple iTunes for $0.99 (Steve Jobs).

Here I have summarized some info for 2025 streams:


source: https://routenote.com/blog/how-much-music-streaming-services-pay/

Streaming Platform​	Average Payout per Stream​	Payout per 1000 streams
Pandora	$0.0013	$1.3
Spotify	$0.003 – $0.005	$3.0 – $5.0
Amazon Music	$0.004	$4.0
YouTube	$0.005 – $0.007	$5.0 – $7.0
Deezer	$0.0064	$6.4
YouTube Music	$0.008	$8.0
Apple Music	$0.01	$10.0
TIDAL	$0.013	$13.0

 

[Reid Rosefelt]

I've never made much money from YouTube. $150, to be exact. But they have hosted all my content for a decade. It must cost them billions to host all the content they do. Anybody who wants to upload anything now matter how long or how often, can do so. Hosting your own videos is not cheap, and you also don't get the advantage of people finding your content in Google searches. Yes, they make more money than I do from my uploads, but that's chump change, as relatively few people watch my videos. I think I'm getting a deal.

Spotify hosts millions of song, mostly crap. Don't you think they pay a lot to host all that?

Last night, a friend was at our place and was curious about my music. It was complicated telling her how to find it on YouTube. Imagine if I could say, just look up my name on Spotify or Apple or Amazon, and a hundred other places, and you can hear it. Ask Alexa to play it.

The good old days of the music business that people are nostalgic about often involved predatory labels who signed people to unfair contracts and stole all the money. People had hits and toured a lifetime and ended up penniless and homeless. Some did well, but some do well today, in the current technological environment.

Billie Eilish put a song up on Soundcloud in 2016, "Ocean Eyes." It was written and produced by her brother Finneas O'Connell and recorded on a $99 Audio-Technica microphone and arranged with Logic stock sounds. They put it up on Soundcloud so that her dance teacher could hear it. It went viral, and then you know what happened.

 

[JEPA]

Yes, you are right in some aspects, like how much it costs to host these files. As for the revenue of the crap music, I agree, because who is going to make a profit from it (speaking for Spotify as a platform). But that is the point, the musician who makes a living from it, e.g. someone who wants his music to be used and not just listened to, would want some money for it. And yes, I wrote "But I guess I'm stuck in the past..." and I think so. Everyone has the right to decide what to do with their own music, and considering the current development of the music industry, it is a choice to participate in it or to find new strategies (or old?).

 

[creativeforge]

From what I understand, they don't make money from the music, but the abundance of songs, for a fee. That fee is theirs. And everything they can do within the law to exploit the artists and their songs.

 

[Reid Rosefelt]

It's been a long process. Music used to be sold on albums.

Then there was file-sharing. People didn't pay anything.

iTunes came along to "save the day." But then you could just buy one song. That wiped out the historic way recording musicians made money.

Then streaming basically finished everything off. There's no real money in streaming, as you make clear. Even for big stars, that is not their number one source of cash. Not like albums once were.

The big musicians tour and have a lot of merchandise. I get emails from Billie Eilish all the time when she has new merch in her shop.

You have to have fans. That either comes from touring or from social media. You look at somebody like Mary Spender. She's only toured once, and lost money on it. But she makes a living as a successful YouTuber, and people pay for her music.

But for most musicians today, TikTok is the best game in town. But you need 10,000 subscribers to monetize TikTok.

 

[Tim Nash]

I lived blissfully unaware of what the music business had devolved to, until I decided I had some music others might like to hear. I did my due diligence. I discovered record companies are now useless unless you're Taylor Swift, streaming services are nothing but bandits and there's no workable business model at all anymore. The only option seemed to be Bandcamp. I can create a nice artist page, track my sales and stats, and get a decent return if I sell anything. People just have to type timnash.bandcamp.com and it takes you straight to my page. Easy to tell people where to find it, another entirely getting them to actually go to it.

I've come to terms with the demise of the 20th century music business. It was inevitable anyway just as big bands, surf music etc..... all had their day. It'll take some time but things will swing back to organic human made music. Unfortunately, in the meantime, anyone trying to make a living at it will struggle.