Music industry better off with streaming...

W
???

Gov't Mule, Phish, String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic, Leftover Salmon, moe, Tedeschi Trucks Band, My Morning Jacket, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

That's just scratching the surface of your so called abnormality.
Who are these people?
 
Try getting a ticket to any of the 3 shows by Widespread Panic at Red Rocks, they just finished a three day run, again all sellouts, like every run, every year.
 
I think the music industry is better off with streaming, I personally love it, Tidal and Deezer being my go too. Those bands I mentioned are tremendously successful with huge followings. If time warped Led or Pink Floyd into today as young men, they would be making great music for the same reasons as the 60's & 70's, because they loved it.
 
What we have learned:.......
Good synopsis.

I’d also like to think that we’ve learned that the per unit micro payments system is not as all pitiful as it is made out to be. There are indeed some minor and mid-level artists cashing some very decent checks from streaming. But all that seems to get reported and parroted back in the mainstream press and blogoshere are sob stories of receiving below a pittance.
 
Unquestionably mega stars are cashing enormous streaming checks. As they should. But unfortunately their stories are the only ones getting any of the upside headlines. Chiefly because it’s relatable news for Joe Consumer at the super market check out line, Facebook, USA Today, et.al. Everyone knows who Beyoncé and Swift are....so I get it, they move product and sells face-plaster 'gossip' rags and pixels....Talk about convenience, minimal effort, and money on the journalism front. :rolleyes:

An overriding perception in this thread as far as streaming royalty payments are concerned appears to be that it’s either black or white; feast or famine. That is simply not the case. There IS a middle ground of reasonably healthy income being generated and received by many musicians and songwriters…but all the general public hears is either end of the extreme. That’s vexing to me as it breeds misinformation and facilitates undo animosity.

I’ve made several attempts in this thread trying to explain “the system” and hopefully dispel some very common decimal point misunderstanding and false equivalencies regarding a track sold vs. a track streamed. [sigh] ...As no good deed goes unpunished, it appears a portion of my honest “pro streaming” effort still falls upon a few deaf ears. While frustrating, that’s OK; understandable I guess.

Yes it’s new math with a complex and multifaceted paradigm in tow. At times I feel like I’m trying to describe the color red to a blind person? If only I could share some actual royalty statements from several unknown “blue collar” bands/artists that are grossing $120,000-$250,000/yr. via streaming. But I simply can’t here.

In any event, that’s a considerable segment of the un-reported (inside baseball) real middle-class of the new streaming economy; certainly more than “pizza money”.
 
Hey nothing wrong with the math, just was always told many times what the actual artist got was. 001 to .004 cents per stream .
Then your source(s) were confused and wrong.... "many times". Line items on royalty statements are factored per dollars not cents. Glad I helped clear that up for you.
You say. 001 dollar, you are the expert, you professionally represent "both sides" (however that works) , who am I to argue?
Yep, I wrangle both sides; on occasion I circle 3 and 4 "sides". "It" works. It has to in order to get music to peoples ears.

Despite what most people think, there's a lot of respectful collaboration between labels, distributors, producers, radio stations, artists, studio session players, etc.. While there are gripes in due course, you'd probably be surprise, maybe even amazed, with how "family oriented" most labels/distribution channel folks are actually.

The "Industry" is not just one giant evil corporate empire. It's extremely segmented and consists of many very friendly people doing regular jobs trying to deliver a quality product. Dealing with scumbags is a relative and anticipated blip. Overall is just another day at the office. LOL

Who are you to argue? You are Alobar. And I urge you and others to continue to chew and argue this subject . Makes for a much more enlightening, engaging, and educational experience. Is that not the the primary purpose of a forum?
when a household can listen to tens of millions of songs any time or place they want, presumably into perpetuity for the unbelievable price of $10 per month, can't you see just how undervalued that is? How unsustainable ?
As was mentioned before, a free market dictates the price of a product/service. As to how it's valued is completely up to the consumer. Let's try and keep this real for a minute and go back to one of my earlier unanswered questions. What price per stream would you deem/propose as fair for an on-demand streaming service to pay a rights holder? How much money should they get for 1 million streams?
Now just because we look back at the Napster era we can justify this hogwash as somehow being better off. Even by your numbers (which a few artists here seem To disagree with ) this situation is a frigging mess for the industry or at least the part of it i care the most about.
We would all benefit hearing more from them but sadly the two artists that popped in to this thread have fled the scene. So we really don't know if they agree or "disagree" with any of what I and others have posted since they left. FWIW, the "numbers" aren't mine, they are simple facts and are what they are.

Lemme try one more analogy per the premise of my OP and ask if it has any ring of truth to you. Let's say your are a realtor circa 2009. Your "industry" is in a death spiral. Then, 3-4 years later "industry" sales begin to recover and climb. The real estate market overall is beginning to bloom again. Please explain to me how and why you feel that scenario is not a good thing for you...a a realtor?
 
I was referring to the mega corporate streaming services which if I am not mistaken are losing money at this time, value added bennies aside. See #247.
OK. Overlooked that quoted reference/context. When you said "no one is making money" I assumed that included everyone. ;)
 
I'm not convinced it makes much difference to that many people in the industry really. It doesn't really seem that hugely famous pop stars are really struggling, despite some of them moaning about it all the time. Big record companies aren't going to let themselves miss out on anything, they effectively hold all the rights here and they only care about the money, so you know they'll still be quids in. Obviously companies like Spotify are going to be raking it in, if the artists are getting something tiny per listen, you can be sure they are too, and of course they get some for every listen.

Small bands have never really made a lot of money from record sales directly and most people who are into smaller bands still buy CDs, vinyl or paid mp3 downloads in my experience (I fall into this category, I tend to stream an album and buy it if I like it). Smaller bands have always made their money from live shows and merch sales, so that's not changed. If anything this is just better advertising for them. Wonder how many people have checked a band out because why not if its free? Then gone on to like them, see them at a show, buy a t shirt etc. I know I have.

My biggest worry is for smaller record labels. They don't have the clout of the bigger labels to be able to set the industry standards and protect themselves, and their artists aren't getting millions of listens a day, so that 0.04p per listen or whatever is accounting to nothing of any use. And when the smaller bands they have on their label are making their money from shows, the label isn't seeing any of that.

I mean like I said, most people who listen to that sort of music still tend to buy CDs and stuff, so they're still being supported, but should that ever stop I'm sure these guys would be the first victims.

All of that said, industries change with the evolution of technology and so they should. They said home VHS recording would kill the film industry. Maybe home brewing will kill the beer industry too? Whatever happens; companies will find a way to survive in the new industry, that's how progression happens.
 
What price per stream would you deem/propose as fair for an on-demand streaming service to pay a rights holder? How much money should they get for 1 million streams?
So if you are still good with. 001 dollars per, then 1 million streams is 1,000 dollars, a tidy sum for the year for the starving artist I guess. Pizzas and cheap beer for the band after practice , if that is really what they get to keep. But do they share that with anyone else? Do they have to pay for this and that, recording studio time etc, and if a group has many members I would assume it gets split between everyone .

OK now let's go back to the bad old days, when the industry was supposed to be worse off then it is now. Even after I was graciously corrected for dollars instead of cents, I still find I'm having difficulty understanding how this works.. Let's say a group of 4 members instead of receiving a million streams sold a million CDs and the artist cut was 50 cents per cd. That's a half million dollars. Well on their way to independent living. Now how many streams would it take to equal the cd cut? I came up with half a billion streams. Is that a lot? Is that mega stardom? Or just a good day at the office?

I'm trying to wrap my head around these numbers and how it is that when listeners are getting vastly more music today that is virtually free to them, and then compare it to when we actually bought the music and spent far more per month on a few cds, how is it better today for anyone but the listener?
 
Entitlement is thinking you have a right to something happening a certain way without considering other options that may prove better...


You will need support this definition of entitlement with documentation because it is not in the dictionary I quoted from nor have I ever heard it defined as such.

thanks
 
It is the fact that no one is making money under this model.
As for the "change is inevitable" thing, I cannot disagree, but I thought this was about the OP of this thread, the proclamation that the music industry is better off with streaming. Is change always a good thing?

1) no one is making money

So? As an investor, I sell. As an artist, I either pull out and work a day job or accept that my money is made at live events and that recordings are primarily marketing. Marketing where instead of a cost you make a small profit! I wish I had that option for my business.

2) OP of this thread, the proclamation that the music industry is better off with streaming.

It certainly is to the consumer. Gross revenues for music is higher than ever so it must also be for corporate america, even if they have not yet figured out how to make a profit. No sympathy from me with those kind of revenues. And, I submit, it is better for the artist too. Because streaming is part of a socialite change in how we consume music and stream is not alone in a vacuum. Part of this change means more outlets than ever to get our music out there.
It's a new model, so like in all of life, those that adapt will flourish. Those that insist that "old ways" are an "entitlement" and can't or won't adapt will be left behind.
It's the very nature of existence that artist must deal with. Boohoo.

3) Is change always a good thing?

Of course not. But change is inevitable and science has taught up that those that adapt survive, those that do not, die off. I would suggest that anyone confronted with change use their energies to adapt, not to fight the forces of nature as that is a death sentence imposed by self.
 
So should I take the term petunia as yet another insult from you? Could even be considered a personal attack.. Just saying.

Our confirmation bias often interprets stimuli around us. That is to say, we tend to interpret things to confirm our beliefs.

I always found it fascinating, at halftime of a youth team sport event, when the parents in the stands had time to talk with each other about the first half of play.
Never had anyone viewed the play the same. It was obvious why each parent saw what they saw. Indeed, our human interpretations, the same ones that kept us safe, hold no universality. isn't that perplexing? Thank God for science. But I digress.

To my mind, it is hard to interpret a beautiful flower as an insult.

Look how exquisite.

petunia-bloom.jpg



"captions" for people pop into my mind all day. My poor children live with a plethora of such flippant yet descriptive caricatures. They just laugh.

As I said, we humans have a knack for interpreting things from preexisting beliefs and objectivity is all but lost in our species.
 
Unquestionably mega stars are cashing enormous streaming checks. As they should.

First, great perspective in your posts. Thanks

I do, philosophically, disagree with this quoted statement though. .I think it inane that any artist make "enormous pay checks."

But that is part of an overall individual philosophy on how society members should be valued, I won't bore you or sidetrack the thread. :whip:
 
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