My uncle with his 499$ headphones and a BMW for each of his daughters refuses to pay 99 cent for iCloud storage. People are weird when it comes to digital goods
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New Ruling Raises Music Streaming Royalties for Songwriters on Apple Music, Spotify, and More
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My uncle with his 499$ headphones and a BMW for each of his daughters refuses to pay 99 cent for iCloud storage. People are weird when it comes to digital goods
Is it a matter of paying a monthly fee? If you look at the market of just about everything, it’s not about a final, one-time price anymore, it’s all about monthly payments. It’s not just mortgages or car payments or monthly utility usage, but car leases, cell phone financing, video streaming services, game service subscriptions, music services, cloud storage, etc. Some make sense, but seemly everyone just wants a few of your dollars each month for a privilege. When you back out of the agreement, you’re often left holding nothing. Because there are so many “monthly” items to chose from, I guess people start drawing the line somewhere just to stay sane.
Stop that fake news. The minimum rates are set by this review group. They periodically review the rates. Apple already pays more than the other streaming services. Indeed, Spotify was complaining that Apple was pushing to pay artists more.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/20...sed-songwriter-royalties-can-spotify-survive/
Pro tip: If you live to hate on Apple, take the time to do basic research so fake news is a little more believable.
Those listening ads bring in very little money. Certainly not enough to even pay the royalties they owe on the songs they play.
Unless you're willing to a dozen ads for every song you listen to, ads aren't going to pay their bills. Heck, even if they get rid of the free tier completely they wouldn't be making money. They're going to need something totally different to become profitable.
Add to that the HUGE lawsuit they were just hit with and they're in trouble. Their attempt to go IPO is likely to get some cash in order to be prepared if they end up having to pay out the hundreds of millions this lawsuit seeks (they paid out over $100 million recently in a similar suit). This company is not in a good place at all.
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So, why aren't we seeing tons of artists going the self-published route? The tools are all there. Anyone can use some free software and YouTube to become a sensation. It's available to everyone.
Labels aren't going anywhere. They provide a service to artists which the artists find very valuable. That's why they sign.
I think 'labels' are necessary, but their power and hunger for money has gotten way out of hand. There are many songs out there about how grotesque the record labels have gotten over the years. And a list of acts that have been bankrupted by the shenanigans of the accounting people at labels. Granted, some of that could be the acts themselves, but the exorbitant fees and such they extort from artists is ridiculous.
AND, having seen a smattering of Milli Vanilli articles last week, and suppressing my gag reflex, I also cringe at the power of record labels, and the wretched industry themselves to take us back to that time, with 'manufactured music'. I see it happening right now. SO many 'new acts' are the same old tired plot, find some cute girl, or boy, hop them up on lessons and money, and extort them all the way to a record profit year. Just look at all the girl singer acts that are swamping the airwaves, not to mention the 'reality TV' vomitoriums producing the next wave of over produced crap singers.
Hearing that the Stones, Elton John, Neal Diamond, etc, have stopped touring, and so many original rock act members dying leaves me profoundly depressed because the formulaic 'music' coming out of the labels, and industry, is junk!
Labels should be about assisting artists and helping them distribute their product. Simple...
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I was rather surprised after buying an Xbox One, that I also then had to cough up cash every month I wanted to play it. It sits, unused... Eventually the people will get tired of the extortion. What, it could happen...
There's inertia and there's preying on the vulnerability and ignorance of young people new to the industry. There's a lottery mentality of "I'll get signed and then I'll have it made" that a lot of the image portrayed by modern acts just perpetuates (not that previous acts didn't). Look at videos full of cash, cars, jewelry, houses that are all on loan for the video. It makes others think that these new acts can live like billionaires flying around in private jets (news flash, Gulfstream won't speak with you unless you have verified assets north of $250MM) and partying on their mega-yachts. But you have a long line of big names that went bust from MC Hammer to 50 Cent to George Clinton, the list goes on and on. You CAN get rich in the music business as an artist but doing so is nearly like winning Powerball. Recording industry contracts are horrendous, breakage fees (the original version) remained in contracts from vinyl to very recently in a digital download era. People are getting taken, it's shameful.
Indie music is really picking up though and longer term some combination of indie associations (for purposes of getting into streaming services) and discovery tech improvements will force the labels to go the route of the dinosaurs they are.
Keep dreaming. That's like saying long term people will start building their own cars and put car makers out of business. It's not going to happen.
When indie music becomes even 0.1% of the market it won't even be reason to pay attention much less bet on them displacing the current standard and giants.
Spotify, reportedly, isn't planning on doing an IPO. It's planning on doing a direct listing, in which case it wouldn't be raising additional capital. Spotify still has a good bit of cash, likely enough to last until it decides to become profitable (and it's reached a scale with its paid service such that, I suspect, it won't delay that decision much longer - maybe until next year). Indeed, part of the reason it would do a direct listing is that it doesn't need more cash. So it can get away with not doing an equity offering, and instead go public without diluting existing shareholders.
The raised rates for songwriter's rights don't help Spotify. But, in the long run, those raised rates will likely, effectively, largely come out of the share of revenues which recording rights-holders get. Spotify is gaining more and more leverage in its negotiations with them.
Spotify's free, ad-based, service does lose a little bit of money (i.e. generates gross losses). But this rate increase shouldn't greatly increase those losses. For 2018 it will add maybe $5 million to the cost of revenues for Spotify's free service. That free tier probably still makes sense as a relatively inexpensive way of funneling customers into Spotify's paid service.
What are you talking about? Artist royalties and label payments are not related at all. Cutting the later does not impact the former.
I don't think it is going away. Originally, only Xbox had the "Gold" subscription service, but Sony followed suit with PS+ on the PS4. Neither console allows for online multiplayer without the premium service. At least now they give away games each month to subscribers, so you do recover your fees if they happen to give away games you'd be interested in.
And when I buy a CD, I own that copy forever. No further payment, no royalty, no subscription. So many benefits that we cannot ignore. Labels should cut their revenue by at least 80% and give them to producer, songwriter and such.
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The source of which labels provide service for are those artists. Without them, labels will run out of business eventually. L
You'll never see enough artists abandon labels to cause them to fail. They are the artists access to promotion, radio play, venues, and much more. Without the labels, it's incredibly hard to grow popular.
Give 20 examples of top artists that have made it without a label. If it's such a viable option, that shouldn't be hard to provide.
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that so many acts have stated they make nothing from record sales or downloads and make all of their money touring and from merchandise. Best current case in point is likely Weeknd.
David Byrne,late of the Talking Heads, has written a brutal book on the lack of help labels actually are.
If there were not so many stories of rock and roll legends living on the cusp of poverty while their labels are worth billions people might see a truly symbiotic relationship as opposed to a parasitic one.
Apple wasn’t altruistic in wanting to help artists, the labels came to Steve Jobs at the height of Napster’s usage and basically said help us, do anything, but please help us or we’ll be bankrupt.
So the record stores are gone, music on the radio is as dead as Media Play or a Virgin Superstore, streaming services are likely not far behind and we’ll be left discovering new artists on YouTube.
XBL is only needed for online multiplayer. You don't need it for the vast majority of games on the xbox and none of the other features are behind the paywall. It's also typically a yearly sub. Virtually no one pays for XBL monthly. That would be enormously wasteful.
Well then, the small-fries are going to be out of business soon enough. Spotify hasn't even been profitable to date….. it's interesting to see how they can survive this.
Equipment to use is easy. Promotion and touring is a labels strength. Cost $$$. Something that unestablished bands can’t afford or do properly.
It's like the fees that the airlines gouge fliers with. They likely aren't going away either. But when I read that one airline was instituting, or contemplating installing, pay-toilet locks on their planes so people had to literally PAY TO PEE, I nearly lost my lunch! Vendors are figuring out that they have a 'captive audience', and can charge their customers to use their services. That, at the base isn't new, but to charge for blankets, pillows, water, cups, restroom access (to continue the airline angle) is USER ABUSIVE! To have a game device where people are paying close to $100 for some games, and then HAVE to pay money to use those games at all is asinine! It's downright gouging and exploiting their users.
Sure, there are people that would go without food to play their coveted game, but at some point, they will price themselves out of their market, and as the economy tanks farther, their market will shrink, and as apparently is inevitable, they will likely raise prices, or find more areas to shakedown their customers.
I'm digging out my old Nintendo machine. I can play Diablo without being shaken down... What is old is new again...
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I'll have to dig for the game, but I bought a game that mentioned nothing about needed a subscription, and when I started it, required a subscription. It would not let me run the game without having a subscription. Period. I have been 'out of the loop' for a few years, but this 'feature' was surprising. I bought the game, I expected to be able to PLAY the game I bought, and I have to cough up cash for a 'subscription' to a service that I'll probably never ever use. Online gaming? I'm 60. Why the hell would I want to play an online game? I'd be road kill. I guess I should sell the Xbox One and the games I have. Like I said earlier, I'm digging out my Nintendo game and will try to hook it up and play Diablo in peace and quiet.
Yeah, I have no idea what you're referencing. I know of no XBox One game that requires a subscription outside of a couple of multiplayer only games and you said you don't do those. I think you may be mistaken. I've been an XBL member for 11 years and have never heard of what you're describing.
congratulations, you have reason to start paying attention...
https://www.billboard.com/articles/...rd-labels-global-market-share-2016-win-report
(if you don't want to read the article, indies have 38% of revenue)