Although those numbers seem good, here lies the issue: While paid music subscriptions have more than doubled since last year, this has only led to an 11% marginal increase in industry revenue. The music industry is going to have to get used to low user dues for its content
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U.S. Music Industry Revenue Grew 11% in 2016 Thanks to Streaming Music Services
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Yeah, a big part of why people pay (other than you can't listen to specific songs whenever you want, you have to listen to radios that could have the song) for streaming services is downloading, no way in hell I could pay for the data for the music I listen toAh, ok, to me streaming is just that, it streams/buffers the song each and every time you listen to a song or the same song, unlike downloading.
I thought that it wasn't possible with any of the above mentioned services, guess I am misinformed.
And here I was hoping the MAFIAA would be dismantled soon enough with the new ability to self-publish. Guess I was wrong.
I used to pirate like 95% of my music. Now I pay apple music 14.99 for a family membership, since it's actually easier than pirating. before MP3s I just listened to the radio, I may have bought 5 cds in my lifetime. I'm sure I'm not the only one with a similar story (even if people won't admit it.) So In a way they can grow into a market of people that weren't paying for music even when it was only on physical media, and you guys who want to buy albums for 10$? More power to you!
Tldr: streaming music services are cheap enough and convenient enough to be better than pirating mp3s...
Tldr: streaming music services are cheap enough and convenient enough to be better than pirating mp3s...
1. Music revenues might be down because the quality of the music is worse. I finally had to stop listening to the radio/late release music as it was crap.
2. Interesting that they made more money when people owned the hard music. The experiment to turn everything into a monthly subscription free-for-all lucrative revenue nirvana hasn't gone to well.
3. Seems like high music sales correlated to a pre-mobile internet era when music was a primary form of entertainment. Now people are pacified with their mobile phone doing a lot of other things.
2. Interesting that they made more money when people owned the hard music. The experiment to turn everything into a monthly subscription free-for-all lucrative revenue nirvana hasn't gone to well.
3. Seems like high music sales correlated to a pre-mobile internet era when music was a primary form of entertainment. Now people are pacified with their mobile phone doing a lot of other things.
I absolutely love streaming and listen to more music than ever before. With that said I will not pay more than about $10/month. And I have watched/read many interviews where artist say touring is where they really make their money. Streaming should help this as it gets their music to more people which brings me to my next point. I listen to way more new music than ever before so these artist are making money from me where they would have never made a dime the old way.
Uh, something being played on the radio at set times is not at all the same as something streamed on demand whenever one wants.
So no, you're totally incorrect. And having the #1 most streamed song on Spotify nets you $3,000. That doesn't even cover the recording costs.
So no, you're totally incorrect. And having the #1 most streamed song on Spotify nets you $3,000. That doesn't even cover the recording costs.
[doublepost=1490907197][/doublepost]The music labels don't charge anyone royalties. The government sets the royalty rate and it is pittance. This is why having the #1 most streamed song on Spotify only nets you $3k
I'm glad I'm not alone in my thinking. I signed up to the Apple Music trial and I just ended up listening to stuff I already own plus a few new artists. All I did was cancel and the buy CD's for the music I was missing. My main frustration is the missing artists or certain tracks from streaming services.
Not quite sure I agree about the sound quality, I've been doing recent sound tests and I find it really difficult to tell the difference between my lossless rips v AM & Spotify. Sometimes I thought Spotify sounded better
I just feel I've invested too much time and money into owning so it seems a shame to abandon it now
It's still royalties dude. Someone is getting paid and I bet my ass the artist is getting paid. So what difference does it make how much they get paid? If they have a problem, find a new ****ing job. The artist makes more in royalties than I did in the Navy and these ******* have the gaul to complain? Cry me a ****ing river.
No, SOME artists make a lot of royalties, most of the good ones make jack ****.
Try E1 enlisted pay in the military. Wanna tell me who makes more? Keep crying me a river.
Look man, I wasn't dissing you nor your history. I'm just pointing out that it's the bland pop garbage that brings in the most cash, and the good musicians do it out of love for the art (and thus make hardly any money compared to the share that the record companies take).
Take a chill pill.
I am thinking about cancelling my iTunes Match, and dropping iTunes completely. I am still annoyed that Apple removed iTunes Radio access from Match accounts.
Plus, I will probably never try Apple Music, iTunes is horrible and has been for years, and the Music app totally sucks.
I am just going to buy CDs, and stream stuff from Amazon Music. I am already paying for a Prime account, might as well use the music service that is included.
They weren't making anything before streaming services either, as everyone was just stealing the songs. Artist revenue comes primarily from live shows and has for a several years now.
That's nothing new. Most musicians barely make a living, if they even do that. Always been like that.
There is a balance that must be struck between what recording companies want to get from users and what users will actually pay. You can get satellite music for less than $15 per month. I realize I can't pick my playlist on satellite, but if I listen for three hours per day the music industry is still getting the same overall amount of royalties since I listen to the same number of songs.
If you don't get the balance right then users will be drawn to something else to replace it. I can get either Hulu or Netflix premium services for $12/month. People are certainly going to compare music to other entertainment options and $20 or $30 per month starts sounding like a bad value pretty quickly for something that is just a piece of a person's overall entertainment package.
The music industry needs to focus on broad adoption of streaming music and increase revenue through a greater number of users. It would be even worse to cripple the streaming music industry with unsustainable royalty rates and choke off the only area of revenue growth in the industry.
It's too bad the RIAA didn't adopt a more proactive attitude to music streaming etc. years ago. Maybe they wouldn't be complaining so much about the decrease in sales. Artists should get a bigger piece of the pie for the content they create.
My band played over 500 shows, opened for some of the biggest names imaginable for a couple of years (2007-2010). We worked day and night to songwrite, record, design, market, hussle, etc... Our live shows were killer, we got offered record deals, took a chance, quit our jobs, and really did 1000x better than our fellow Bay Area bands did, even got songs into TV, and a few major films. Despite all of our work, the money we made rarely even covered cheap motels, gas, oil changes on the van, replacement cables, and maybe eating subway once a day. Once it became obvious that there was nothing physical to sell anymore at live shows, we had to give up, for those 10-20 cd sales each night meant the difference between a motel vs. sleeping in the van. Being in a band is amazing, but streaming services are a joke to 99.9% of musicians.
Half the income comes from streaming now? Wow.
Glad apple is paying the artists. Love finding so many. I still buy the digital downloads of my favorites hoping they get a little extra cash. They make my life so much more better.
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What genre?
Glad apple is paying the artists. Love finding so many. I still buy the digital downloads of my favorites hoping they get a little extra cash. They make my life so much more better.
[doublepost=1490910863][/doublepost]
This is one of the saddest posts I have ever seen. I love music. I am disappointed the artists do so poorly with so much effort - even when being big and getting into so many venues.
What genre?
People vary quite dramatically in how they consume music. Some of that is individual variation, some is generational.
I'm a bit older and I am not interested in a "radio-like" music experience. I usually listen to an entire album when I listen and I have very specific taste in music, and I don't really want to be served marginal music in hopes of finding something new.
Other people's tastes may be broader and so steaming might work just fine. But I wonder if in twenty years these people will be complaining that the music they grew up on is so much better that the crap that is streaming now. Hopefully, it will still be there to find.
For me owning is the way to go. I rip lossless so that I can listen on an expensive home system and use match to listen on devices where quality is by the nature of the device and environment irrelevant.
Not saying that it is for everyone, but I sure hope that the industry doesn't abandon the ability to get media in a high-quality format that I can control myself.
I'm a bit older and I am not interested in a "radio-like" music experience. I usually listen to an entire album when I listen and I have very specific taste in music, and I don't really want to be served marginal music in hopes of finding something new.
Other people's tastes may be broader and so steaming might work just fine. But I wonder if in twenty years these people will be complaining that the music they grew up on is so much better that the crap that is streaming now. Hopefully, it will still be there to find.
For me owning is the way to go. I rip lossless so that I can listen on an expensive home system and use match to listen on devices where quality is by the nature of the device and environment irrelevant.
Not saying that it is for everyone, but I sure hope that the industry doesn't abandon the ability to get media in a high-quality format that I can control myself.
Agreed. I want to switch and have tried several times, but I can't give up Discover Weekly and Release Radar.
And, US is still way behind. If you're really into streaming music here in Sweden, you could go for "Tre" as operator. They give you 70GB/month free data for streaming music from Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Google Music, SoundCloud and Apple Music.
Their plans start at $25/month and you get unlimited calls, texts and MMS, 70GB music streaming and 1GB of data for other things (they have plans with more data, of course).