Spotify just reported record-breaking profits. In totally unrelated news, Spotify stopped paying nearly 90% of artists on the service ANYTHING (no royalties for songs w <1k streams/year) - ThreadSky

aramsinn.bsky.social • 107 days ago

Spotify just reported record-breaking profits.

In totally unrelated news, Spotify stopped paying nearly 90% of artists on the service ANYTHING (no royalties for songs w <1k streams/year)

Comments

trb1000.bsky.social•107 days ago

Is that legal???

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

it is until someone successfully sues them for it

trb1000.bsky.social•107 days ago

Huge class action?

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

maybe. we'll see.

egemenpamukcu.bsky.social•107 days ago

Are you saying they were paying those 90% of artists, but stopped paying recently for whatever reason?

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Until a year or two ago, all streams on Spotify entailed a small (about $0.005) royalty for labels/artists, although bigger artists and labels got special perks. But then the company stopped paying any royalties whatsoever for songs streamed less than 1k/year.

egemenpamukcu.bsky.social•107 days ago

Thanks for clarifying. Wouldn't have guessed that 90% of artists stream less than 1k/year, but I guess that makes sense.

So those artists would be making a max of $5/year if Spotify kept on paying them the same way.

jherskowitz.com•107 days ago

Check UMG's pockets for those royalties. 😉

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

🤐

magstheobscure.bsky.social•107 days ago

There are alternatives to Spotify, if you are a classical music lover then you're best moving to Apple. Though the Classical App could do with being better, I normally find what I need on it and listen on the standard app.

rolandofgilead19.bsky.social•96 days ago

When I left them, I left them permanently.
It wasn't just for a week or two so I could go back before my email would be unrecognized.
I still hate everything they stand for and the one they love the most.
I haven't even looked back since 1.28.22

sladeofyaupon.bsky.social•107 days ago

this is why i will never use spotify. i still buy albums on itunes.

pineight.com•102 days ago

Any good iTunes Store alternatives for Linux users like me? iTunes doesn't sell through web, and its native client for Windows was broken in Wine last I checked. Or is only iPhone sync broken?

bbbbbr.bsky.social•5 days ago

Bandcamp and similar have drm-free purchase and download in a regular browser.

ghostforest.bsky.social•106 days ago

High five!

Although I stopped using iTunes years ago when they just randomly deleted like 500 songs from my library. Most of the stuff I listen to is on smaller indie labels, so I just get everything from Bandcamp and/or on physical media now.

truckfucker69.bsky.social•105 days ago

Oh my god, same. Imported my library I’d been building since I was like 11. 250GB of music cut almost in half. Music I’ll never get back since a lot of it was from limewire or decades old torrents. Never heard of anyone having the same issue. I see you, brother.

dasching.bsky.social•105 days ago

I thought maybe I imagined having more songs than I do now. Good to know I am not alone.

ghostforest.bsky.social•105 days ago

Luckily mine was almost all stuff that I had ripped from CDs. Even so, the hours of re-ripping a giant stack of CDs was no fun. I use a music player called power amp now and I backup everything.

classlessactarmy.bsky.social•98 days ago

We hates them! How is great music supposed to continue if people can’t make a living at it?

aramsinn.bsky.social•98 days ago

As a professional musician, I promise you we're not in it for the cash. Music existed long before capitalism, and it will outlive it too. OTOH we *do* like to get paid fairly for our work.

classlessactarmy.bsky.social•98 days ago

I understand that but the fact that you guys don't get paid enough to eat, then the labels take advantage of your talent bugs the heck out of me. Music makes all of our lives better. You deserve to be able to make a decent living.

chromesthesia.bsky.social•107 days ago

Man fuck Spotify. They make all this money and give it to Joe Rogan to say ridiculous shit but not to musicians who actually need the money!

chorongomon.bsky.social•107 days ago

I dropped Spotify long ago! Crooked

idiotic.dev•107 days ago

What did you move to?

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

Apple Music, mostly. But I spend a lot of time with BandCamp and MixCloud.

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

Same. As soon as they forked over all that cash to Rogan

chorongomon.bsky.social•107 days ago

Exactly same. 200 mil if I remember right? Absolute bullshit IMO

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

I believe the final figure is 250M but yeah bullshit.

chorongomon.bsky.social•107 days ago

🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽🤦🏽

swac.bsky.social•107 days ago

The fact someone could get paid that much to talk out of their ass is mind boggling. Fox News staffers must have been livid.

janeenmathisen.bsky.social•105 days ago

How can they be so mean??!? 90 PERCENT OF ARTISTS!??! they need their money for their hard work, darn it!!! 😡😡😡😡

nicbrown.bsky.social•107 days ago

Never used Spotify or any other streaming service. Bandcamp meets all my needs, well, 99.99% of them anyway.

acts-of-tekla.bsky.social•106 days ago

I'm pissed the founders sold it, but I don't know of any current alternatives.

nicbrown.bsky.social•106 days ago

Same here.

7leaguebootdisk.bsky.social•107 days ago

Remember, they are owned by record companies, and they get their profits directly, they don't want artists to get streaming royalties.

rushi.io•106 days ago

What would be the royalty for an artist who streams less than 1k a year, $10, $100? I think Spotify was probably spending more money doing these low value bank transfers to these 90% of artists. Instead of stopping payment, they should hold the money till it reaches a reasonable value.

josettenicole.bsky.social•107 days ago

Realized for the amount paid over the years my family had a family plan, mainly for me, I could’ve OWNED all the music I wanted via cds, plus vinyls… even room for special edition ones… what a total scam for customers and artists.

fenrirarch.bsky.social•107 days ago

Between that and Joe Rogan hosting people and never pushing back on lies I don’t know why people even still bother with them

remblanc.com•107 days ago

the news isn't that they reported record-breaking profits, the news is that they made the profits. spotify has not been profitable this entire time

neilljenkins.bsky.social•107 days ago

I've never been happier to unsubscribe from something. Amazing service operated by an appalling company.

ciaromano.bsky.social•106 days ago

Living in the age of sociopaths.

pyrateslife.bsky.social•107 days ago

And continued to raise prices

keikibelle.bsky.social•107 days ago

A good reason not to use Spotify!

planesailinggames.com•107 days ago

When I saw this article quoting Lily Allen I realised that Spotify is even worse that I'd thought

https://variety.com/2024/music/news/lily-allen-onlyfans-feet-pictures-spotify-1236191247/

dharhix.com•107 days ago

And that's why I don't go there anymore. Thieves. All of them.

idrisgrey.bsky.social•107 days ago

I'm gonna have to get my podcasts elsewhere. This is garbage

fairytaleteacup.bsky.social•106 days ago

I use https://castbox.fm personally

idrisgrey.bsky.social•106 days ago

I'll try it next. I tried Podcast Addict earlier and the UI is not my favorite.

fairytaleteacup.bsky.social•106 days ago

Good luck! Finding the new right fit can be tricky. I primarily went for it over some others as it (slowly but does!) sync between desktop and mobile devices.

davemck.bsky.social•106 days ago

Look, I'm with you, but payment per stream is about $0.005.

A thousand streams would be about $5/ year.

aramsinn.bsky.social•106 days ago

As a recording artist and longtime music industry researcher, believe me I know. None of the demonetized artists were going to make rent from Spotify. But that's no reason to take the $100,000,000s we collectively generate & fork it over to Joe Rogan.

davemck.bsky.social•106 days ago

Ok, that makes sense. But how to do that fairly and cost efficiently is another matter entirely. I'm up for creative suggestions that redistribute more fairly away from the biggest names.

bbbbbr.bsky.social•5 days ago

That's easy and already solved.

Buy music directly from artists you listen to on bandcamp & similar, they keep 85-90% reportedly instead of the sub-sub-sub-fractions of pennies from streaming. And you can choose to pay extra for purchases if you want to show more support.

aramsinn.bsky.social•106 days ago

It's not rocket science. All of the metadata systems are already in place. For over a decade Spotify managed to pay indie artists and every other streaming service still does. It's not even redistribution, unfortunately, because the biggest names still get better rates & guarantees.

jedleonard.bsky.social•107 days ago

Any good alternatives to Spotify? I use YouTube Music, but I don't know if that's any better.

elnostradamus.bsky.social•98 days ago

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ojvldIzbaMo&feature=shared
That too

kalaharihel.bsky.social•107 days ago

Tidal is far more entertaining. Everything you'd find on Spotify and more interesting algorithms

kokobean.bsky.social•105 days ago

I like Tidal quite a bit.

ghostforest.bsky.social•106 days ago

Buying music directly from the artist.

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

Apple Music, Tidal

vampirestepdad.com•106 days ago

Bandcamp

scottcarpenter.bsky.social•107 days ago

If you really want to support an artist, buy their physical media. Getting 0.00004 of a cent per stream does nothing for the artist.

goatsgotohell.bsky.social•107 days ago

I only use Spotify for podcasts. Curious how much different Apple Music is in relation to paying artists.

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

Apple Music currently pays all artists for all streams.

rupertramsgate.bsky.social•98 days ago

The relentless fucking of artists continues (and not in a good way).

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

In a way, Spotify is like the mythical Ouroboros — it eats its own (long) tail.

redloribrighteyes.bsky.social•107 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/redloribrighteyes.bsky.social/post/3kcos2r6ryg2h

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

lol

siobhanmcelduff.bsky.social•107 days ago

Feels more like it's eating other tails first...

ranylt.bsky.social•107 days ago

I feel like the face of evil is just all around us now.

lanceblair.bsky.social•107 days ago

Sad that Sweden produced ABBA but now produces generic pop and Spotify.

officialmilo.bsky.social•107 days ago

Additionally, trying to get your music in rotation on anything that actually can get you an audience as an independent artist is next to impossible. Plays are harder and harder to come by each year.

yardistic.bsky.social•103 days ago

reallll

childofnovelty.bsky.social•106 days ago

Stealing content from poor artists. There's surely a class action suit in that.

terseus.bsky.social•107 days ago

not saying it is true, just pointing out that Spotify *claims* they do not make any more money by demonetizing <1k stream tracks

"No, Spotify doesn't make money from this change."

https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/track-monetization-eligibility/?ref=related

aramsinn.bsky.social•107 days ago

I know you're not making any claims for its veracity, but that is a totally absurd premise.

pabloredux.bsky.social•107 days ago

It's... free advertising for them?

C30 C60 C90 Go!

alphatozulu.bsky.social•107 days ago

Of course, it’s home taping that’s killing music.🙄

wickbrstm.bsky.social•107 days ago

And people got mad at me when I said I'd rather have Nintendo Music be its own app than dumped on Spotify, lmao

Granted, I think everyone shouldn't have to go through the headache of the music they want not being where they want, but that stuff going on Spotify is not the win they think it would be

blueknight78c.bsky.social•105 days ago

I definitely agree with having video game music be it's own app...😏

satumma.bsky.social•106 days ago

The problem is that those that are being exploited are always fewer than those benefiting from the exploitation. No solidarity.

jotatx.bsky.social•107 days ago

it is almost as if you can only profit if you defraud someone.

falcon529.bsky.social•106 days ago

I unsubbed. Tired of them being scummy in so many ways.

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