We backed up Spotify (metadata and music files). It’s distributed in bulk torrents (~300TB). It’s the world’s first “preservation archive” for music which is fully open (meaning it can easily be mirrored by anyone with enough disk space), with 86 million music files, representing around 99.6% of listens.
So the artists get paid even less than from Spotify?
a few years ago, back when I was still using Spotify, I checked my Wrapped and apparently I was using Spotify more than 99.5% of users in my country, and when it came to my most listened artist, I was in top 0.05% listeners worldwide. doing some back-of-the-napkin math with the data I got online about Spotify’s payouts, it turned out the money the artist got during that year from me amounted to
less thanjust a bit over a dollar.if you’re really concerned about supporting artists, use the money you’d pay for your music streaming subscription and buy their album or a piece of merch every two months.
Yeah, I’ve been seeing an increasing number of artists who are pro piracy, who basically say “steal our music, save your money, and if you want to support us, come to a gig and buy some merch”.
I’ve also seen more and more artists staying off Spotify entirely. One such artist is the wonderful folk artist Lucy & Hazel . This was the first time I actually bought music in years, and a big part of that was because I wanted to support their active choice to stay off Spotify.
An unexpected side effect of this is that because I’m aware these guys are situated less optimally for algorithmic discoverability, I find myself actively recommending them to people. It feels nice compared to the more passive mode of algorithmic music discovery
I’ve had Spotify since it basically released. I fully switched to a self hosted music library about 5 months ago. I imagine I’ve supported artists more in those 5 months than I did during my 18-ish years of Spotify premium. I still use Soulseek for large artists or quite old albums, but most new releases and remix tracks I pay for.
How many buyers are there
isif entire archive is available for free? 10? 20?okay so this next bit might shock you, but there’s already a HUGE amount of music available on Youtube for everyone to search through and listen to with just a few click. and in addition to that, there’s the Soulseek network, countless torrent trackers – both public and private – that let you download entire discographies, as well as Youtube download tools, websites and tools that let you rip music from streaming services. and all of those are free! more than that, they have been around for years! and before that, people would download songs from Limewire or Kazaa or Napster, tape songs from radio, or buy bootleg albums. and somehow, there’s still people buying music and T-shirts from their favourite bands, and paying to attend their concerts. absolutely bonkers.
I buy at least 5 cds a month from groups I like. Usually on bandcamp or the artist website. Usually smaller groups. If theyre massively famous or were hugely successful 40 years ago I may not purchase it though. Or get a used copy.
It might shock you, but content on YouTube gets paid. And illegal sources out there don’t make it more legal to share it. It’s funny though, you are basically saying what? Listen for free, middle finger to authors, and buy merchandise? As opposite to listen legally, authors get something and buy merchandise? But hey, I’m glad that you speak for authors.
similar fraction of pennies as in Spotify’s case, and often the people who receive the money aren’t the people behind the content, especially when it comes to older or less popular music, because it’s been uploaded by some random guy 14 years ago.
no, my good guy, I say middle finger to Spotify and their warmongering, slop-embracing, Joe-Rogan-loving business, and spend money in a way that skips at least one middle man which hopefully results in the artist getting a bigger cut, and in you actually owning something even when the company you’ve bought from goes down, rather than renting it.
right back atcha!
How so? You are the wiser what artists really wants - not being paid for listening to their music and would like you to listen to it for free. I merely follow what they offer and not trying to listen to it illegally.
I am a small indie artist. I earn nearly no money from streaming services, but I do from Bandcamp, SoundCloud (though fuck Soundcloud, they also suck), actual LPs and CDs sold, etc.
If someone decides to listen to my music over Spotify, or really any streaming service, they are also “stealing” my music. Because I get no money from that, and listening to my music over those platforms strengthens their monopoly (this mostly applies to Spotify).
I need to publish my music on Spotify et al (fuck you discogs) for discoverability, because they have an evil fucking global monopoly, but the moment anyone finds my music there, I would ask them to listen to it elsewhere.
It will literally benefit me, and indie artist, more, if you bootleg my music instead of listening via streaming services, as this weakens their monopoly. Seriously.
I have a different job, I don’t need to live from my music right now, so the stakes are fairly low for me. But it still sucks to see streaming services ruin independent music like this. I would ask everyone to bootleg music, and then support artists like me through Bandcamp (especially CDs and LPs) and donations (or merch, though I don’t have any), if you appreciate the art.
I don’t expect anyone to immediately buy niche music they don’t know, so bootlegging until you become a fan seems reasonable to me. I’ve discovered many of my favorite albums like that, eventually buying LPs online and donating to the artist; that is far more beneficial to those artists than listening over any streaming service (including the slightly better tidal and Amazon music).
/rant over
So, you do get benefits from Spotify, don’t you? Besides, there are other streaming services around that supposedly pay better - as you said. Anyway, all good to you, hope you succeed and Spotify dies one day.
Well, we are talking pennies here so… /s
It’s not just Spotify, it content is free for all, then who is buying?
Its mostly Sony, UMG, and all the other leeches who would get paid less for their share holders.
I dont feel like editing the image but imagine the guy with most of the cookies in this picture was UMG and the artists are the guy on the right.
Yes, sure, but if those don’t get paid, artists don’t get paid. And artists are not forced to pick a label, they are free to go solo, but they still prefer labels, so it’s not that black and white labels bad, artists good
Well if you genuinely care about seeing artists get paid the ones who need it most tend to make their conent available already for free on bandcamp or similar services, and have physical albums and merch you can buy.
Last night i spent $10 on 3 albums on bandcamp, those artists each made more on that single purchase then they would from thousands of streams.
Spotify making less (or more) money does not trickle down to artists on a per stream basis.
Dont be a corporate bootlicker. Say it with me now, "If buying isnt owning Piracy is not stealing. "
It is really refreshing how this thread spins in “we know what’s best for the artists, certainly not paying for listening to their streams, that’s exactly what they want”. If you don’t want to use Spotify, that’s fine, I don’t want to either because they are an awful company. But that doesn’t make you the person who create the rules for artists nor does it give you the permission to listen to illegal content.
I dont think its a huge leap to think artists would rather you be able to buy their music once and make a $ instead of stream it from a sevice that pays them next to nothing.
What is stopping them? But it seems that general consensus here is that artists would like you to listen for free and here and there buy something from them.
I’m not sure how you think Spotify compensation works, but it is not a “one stream and you get paid”-deal, but rather a revenue share model where artists are compensated from a large pool by total streams. The main share of your Spotify monthly subscription that goes to compensating artists goes to Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny etc. Being a top listener to your favorite, but underground band contributes negligibly to what they actually get paid.
If you care about their compensation, buy the album as directly from them as possible, or buy merch/go to concerts, and recommend their msuic to other people so they might end up paying customers. Subscribing to Spotify and thinking they get a fair deal out of that is not the way, and increasingly not the way (with their GenAI-shenanigans).
First, what am I using is beyond the point and I’m not using Spotify because of their payment method and their politics. And again, if albums are on streaming services, they are voluntarily there, are they not?
How voluntary is it when these platforms have a monopolistic grasp on how consumers access music these days? And the more people believe that the artists are actually fairly compensated from this model, the firmer this grasp becomes. What choice do they have of being there if they want to have any kind of reach?
A Spotify Premium subscriptions will cost someone 156€ a year. If that person instead spent that entire music budget on purchasing albums from select musicians according to the enjoyment they derive from their works, or buy concert tickets or merch, and decides to pirate the rest of their music listening, what changes? For the consumer, they are now left with actual, irrevocable access (legal and illegal) to the same music you had rented access to before, and have spent the same amount of money. For the musicians, the ones who received the purchases are left with much more of your dedicated music spend, and the rest will have marginally less (their share based on total streams of your monthly subscription x12). For Spotify and Taylor Swift, they receive marginally less money (but more than the artists you actually listen to) of which they should probably not have received to begin with.
I’m guessing this is more about preserving culture and art. I find it unlikely that this post would be someone’s first clue that they could listen to music for free, and listening to music out of this dump would be way harder than any other method.
You underestimate people and their motivation to listen for free no matter what.
Who’s fault is it that there’s no fair systems one could use (except maybe bandcamp)? Not mine at least, I don’t use Spotify at all. I would not sell my music there if I would be an artist.
Bandcamp is good. Bands still have websites and mailing lists too. There was never anything wrong with these but big tech wants to keep you in their walled garden and forget the TRUE internet still exists out there.
Also, record stores bro.
I don’t use Spotify, either. And do what you want to do, nobody is forcing your to put your music on Spotify.