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Spotify Punishing Artists Who Offer Apple Music Exclusives [Updated]

Abazigal said:
Well, it's no secret that Spotify has yet to turn a profit.

So in theory, Apple doesn't really need to do anything but stand in one corner and wait for Spotify to simply run out of cash.
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I do hope that Spotify continues for a few more years, if nothing else other than to provide competition for Apple Music (and competition is the only thing that can make Apple Music better).

IMHO, the rush to Spotify IPO is really dumb, since the company is still struggling to turn a profit. If they go IPO while still bleeding money, that makes the SPOT stock value very volatile….. which means a sudden crash in its post-IPO stock value makes it a prime target for acquisition by a giant company like Apple/Google/MS.
 
Shirasaki said:
I missed the Chance to reply in first few pages.
But if possible I would like to pay ARTIST outright, and pay nothing to labels and publishers. Artist is the only side which is eligible to receive payments from album buyers.
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While I agree with this general idea... remember that the artist is an EMPLOYEE of the record label.

If the artist signed a contract with the label... they are beholden to the label. That's how it works.

There is more than just the person behind the microphone. What about agents and managers, the musicians, songwriters, producers, sound engineers, publicists, marketing, promotion, distribution, etc?

A decent music video can cost tens of thousands of dollars all the way up to millions. Lots of people involved: the camera operators, lighting crew, video editors, etc. Don't they all deserve to get paid? And who paid for it in the first place?

Unless you're literally talking about one guy with a guitar... the "artist" is a part of a much bigger system.

And the record labels are the facilitators of this system.
 
Dave245 said:
Spotify would do well not to start a fight with a company who is bigger, has a lot more money and more pull within the music industry than they do.
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Yup, and this also definitely seems like a very petty move. Additionally, how are they not hurting their own business simply by giving their users another reason to defect to other streaming services?
 
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developer13245 said:
Apple is notorious for punishing others. Ask any iOS developer. The even go so far as publicly stating they will punish you if your app gets rejected and you complain to the press.
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Citation needed
[doublepost=1472283712][/doublepost]
bretfoster said:
I honestly know no one that is a serious music lover
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I believe it.

Also...you should go out and meet people. I've met random strangers that are subbed to different streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. So the fact that you don't know even one? I don't know. Either you don't have many friends or you just happen to know people that don't have it. Doesn't make Apple Music any less popular or good just because you personally don't know a lot of people
 
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Michael Scrip said:
While I agree with this general idea... remember that the artist is an EMPLOYEE of the record label.

If the artist signed a contract with the label... they are beholden to the label. That's how it works.

There is more than just the person behind the microphone. What about agents and managers, the musicians, songwriters, producers, sound engineers, publicists, marketing, promotion, distribution, etc?

A decent music video can cost tens of thousands of dollars all the way up to millions. Lots of people involved: the camera operators, lighting crew, video editors, etc. Don't they all deserve to get paid? And who paid for it in the first place?

Unless you're literally talking about one guy with a guitar... the "artist" is a part of a much bigger system.

And the record labels are the facilitators of this system.
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Well, my artist also include musicians, songwriters, sound engineers, and a few more you have mentioned. Perhaps the one should receive the least salary is those in management structure...ahh...I am wrong again. :(
Short-sighted comments.
 
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Quu said:
Well whatever, it used to be cheaper so it can go cheaper again. Price war please!
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no it was always 9.99.

they used to have a 4.99 tier which excluded mobile i think
 

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Abazigal said:
The irony here is that you are likely costing Spotify more money than you are bringing in for them. So yes, continue to love and support Spotify more in your free, ad-supported way. It will just hasten Spotify's demise.
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Then what about the other billion users who don't even care about Spotify at all? They don't use Spotify and they are costing Spotify more money? Oh, you can say they don't bring money to Spotify.
Don't need to say Spotify ads are mostly about their own premium subscription.
 
Shirasaki said:
Then what about the other billion users who don't even care about Spotify at all? They don't use Spotify and they are costing Spotify more money? Oh, you can say they don't bring money to Spotify.
Don't need to say Spotify ads are mostly about their own premium subscription.
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Confused. Why would people that don't use Spotify cost them money? They don't use up server space and don't play songs that Spotify has to then pay record labels for
 
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GreyOS said:
no it was always 9.99.

they used to have a 4.99 tier which excluded mobile i think
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Yes it used to be cheaper if you didn't listen on Mobile. I only really want it for my Mac anyway so for me the £4.99 tier was perfect. I'm not paying £9.99 to get only some of the music. It would work out a better deal just to buy the music each month for £9.99 on CD/MP3 from iTunes than to pay the subscription. And then I'd actually own it forever.
 
If you look at children in playgrounds fighting over who gets to pay with whom without adult supervision, the music industry starts to make sense.
 
Quu said:
Yes it used to be cheaper if you didn't listen on Mobile. I only really want it for my Mac anyway so for me the £4.99 tier was perfect. I'm not paying £9.99 to get only some of the music. It would work out a better deal just to buy the music each month for £9.99 on CD/MP3 from iTunes than to pay the subscription. And then I'd actually own it forever.
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sure, if you only listen to one new album a month.
interestingly spotify actually say themselves that most people spend less than a spotify subscription per month on purchasing music. so for most people it's not economical to get a sub. but for those who listen to lots it's pretty good!
 
Abazigal said:
Well, it's no secret that Spotify has yet to turn a profit.
Click to expand...
It's quite likely that Apple Music isn't profitable either at this point.
So in theory, Apple doesn't really need to do anything but stand in one corner and wait for Spotify to simply run out of cash.
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Given the probably large amounts of money they are paying for those high-profile exclusives, Apple seems to think otherwise.
The irony here is that you are likely costing Spotify more money than you are bringing in for them. So yes, continue to love and support Spotify more in your free, ad-supported way. It will just hasten Spotify's demise.
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That's a myth. Spotify is not losing money per ad-supported user, since their payments to the rightsholders are calculated as a share of the revenue they receive, which is the ad revenue in case of the free subscribers. That revenue is much lower than the one generated by paying subscribers of course, which is why the labels are pressing them to make the free tier less attractive (e.g. by removing newer content). But they still at least break even for each user. The reason they aren't making profit overall at the moment is that they are investing in growth. Whether they will be successful with that remains to be seen.
 
A summary of the pro-Apple arguments here:
  • Exclusives are fine because they've been done for a long time! (Link)
  • Exclusives are fine because they do that on games consoles too! (Link)
  • Exclusives aren't a monopoly! (Figures that this user has been suspended...) (Link)
  • Exclusives are fine because they're only for two weeks! (Link)
  • Exclusives drive competition! (Link) (Boy that's a good one, I do love it when massive corporations use their money to restrict supply of a product, it's just far better for us as consumers. o_O)
And my personal favourite...
  • Exclusives aren't exclusives because you can still buy... wait for it... PHYSICAL MEDIA! (Link) Oh my, exquisite. Same argument: how can you say the water company is ripping you off when there's a river in the next town!? :D
Exclusives are bad, and none of these reasons justify them.
 
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Gasu E. said:
Now in the music case, exclusives are very limited. The exclusive deals generally hold for just a week or two, after which the music is available on all services. That's much more limited than in TV, where exclusiveness can last for months, years, or forever.

Why is this such a problem in the music business that you can't wait two weeks; or that you aren't willing to pay for both services if you just can't wait?
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You just explained the problem and the difference between TV and music exclusives.
For TV exclusives make sense cause exclusiveness lasts for a big percentage of timeframe while in music is for one or two weeks so what's the point then if it's gonna be for such a short time?
 
This sounds perfectly reasonable to me, with the exception of altering the search results. Search results should be objective. They've said that it's not true about them "burying" them in search results though, so that's fine.

Excuslivity is crap.
 
No one wants to see something on a service u cannot get on any other at the time ?

I don't see people going after Amazon...
 
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Brookzy said:
snip
And my personal favourite...
  • Exclusives aren't exclusives because you can still buy... wait for it... PHYSICAL MEDIA! (Link) Oh my, exquisite. Same argument: how can you say the water company is ripping you off when there's a river in the next town!? :D
Exclusives are bad, and none of these reasons justify them.
Click to expand...

And yet, exclusives are a fact of life and it won't be changing anytime soon. We see exclusives everywhere and as long as the parties involved are fine with it, I see no issue with signing exclusive deals.

I also see nothing wrong with Spotify wanting to "punish" artists that sign exclusives elsewhere. The artists have made their bed, now it's time to sleep.
 
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Brookzy said:
A summary of the pro-Apple arguments here:
  • Exclusives are fine because they've been done for a long time! (Link)
  • Exclusives are fine because they do that on games consoles too! (Link)
  • Exclusives aren't a monopoly! (Figures that this user has been suspended...) (Link)
  • Exclusives are fine because they're only for two weeks! (Link)
  • Exclusives drive competition! (Link) (Boy that's a good one, I do love it when massive corporations use their money to restrict supply of a product, it's just far better for us as consumers. o_O)
And my personal favourite...
  • Exclusives aren't exclusives because you can still buy... wait for it... PHYSICAL MEDIA! (Link) Oh my, exquisite. Same argument: how can you say the water company is ripping you off when there's a river in the next town!? :D
Exclusives are bad, and none of these reasons justify them.
Click to expand...
Those arguments you made don't strike me as being pro-Apple, as they could just as easily apply to any company dealing with exclusives.

I am okay with Apple using exclusives to attract subscribers the same way I am fine with Tidal doing them. At the end of the day, nobody owes me anything. Assuming no laws are broken, I don't see why each company shouldn't be allowed to compete in whatever way they deem fit.

It's not a matter of fairness or right or wrong. It's just life. Life is filled with trade-offs, and this simply represents another tradeoff to be made.
 
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If spotify is doing this it's going to hurt the smaller artists and hurt spotify in the long run.

It's kinda interesting that spotify has the largest market share while it's still one of the smallest company's competing in the music subscription space.
 
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