That would be true except for the fact that music consumption is at an all time high.
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U.S. Music Industry Revenue Grew 11% in 2016 Thanks to Streaming Music Services
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So the only way, according to the geniuses on these forums, that musicians get paid, is through streaming over a cellular network, everything else doesn't count? Otherwise, why continue to bitch about how much they don't get paid through royalties through streaming? It's not like they lose money. I pay for Google Music and if I listen to Without Me by Eminem for 24 hours a day, does Marshall Mathers lose money?
If two people running a business suddenly become one guy running a business, things will change. But I really think the outside world has over reacted (especially some users here) because Steve kept saying things like "I had this idea that you could get rid of the keyboard and type on a multitouch glass screen" when things weren't his idea. It left this impression he had all the good ideas.
Netflix is $10/month and is doing swimmingly- actors/directors, those involved aren't complaining, more recent video game streaming costs roughly the same. The $10 model works well for many types of media and albums or blue rays people love are still purchased, (Even Vinyl has had a resurgence lately)
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What I do is subscribe to Apple Music and buy CDs for albums that I really love. It's not rocket science.
Ownership means more than just having unlimited access to a subject whenever you want at no additional cost. For music, film, and software, you can never "own" them, thus, having a personal perpetual license has no benefit over having access to a subject whenever you want. You cannot resale a piece of software or otherwise monetize it, you don't really own the software. Let alone those kinda things are depreciable.
You want to know how much Spotify pays per spin? $0.00058. That is 5.8/100ths of a cent. That is split between the publisher and the writer, so now we're at 2.9/100ths. I'll let you do the rest of the math on how many spins it would take for an artist to equal your E1 paycheck. Hint: You make waaaay more. 99.9 percent of artists could never hope to reach that number in a year. Of course maybe they could all go find new jobs, leaving not much to listen to except you stating your misguided opinions. At least learn some facts before you spout bull****.
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That is some odd logic. Of course ONE play on radio pays more than ONE play by any streaming user.
One play on radio can reach millions of listeners though. 1 million plays on Spotify gives a payout of around $4000, a radio station reaching 1 million listeners doesn't even pay a fraction of that to play a song reaching the same number of listeners.
A million plays is not that much in streaming today. A quick look at Spotifys current top 50 reveals that every single song there has at least 1.3 million plays a day.
Radio play is way at the bottom of the income stream for artists, have always been. In a lot of countries airplay isn't even compensated.
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Spotify doesn't have a set rate. It fluctuates and is based on number of subscribers and number of plays. A million plays on Spotify is roughly worth $4000 today, several artists that have shared their statements from Spotify recently ends up in that range.
The deal an artist has with rights holders or a record company is none of Spotifys business. Their job both legally and ethically is to pay the ones owning the rights to the song, no-one else.
If you own your recordings and have written the songs yourself you get to keep 100% of the payout from Spotify. If you have traded you rights, typically to have someone else pay for the recording and promotion, your cut is whatever that deal says. That deal might be ******, but that really has nothing to do with Spotify.
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While the actual consumption is high (largely fueled by 'all you can eat' streaming services that leads lots of people to just have music streaming in the background from massive playlists all day instead of listening to radio), the actual amount of money spent on music is still far from what it was.
Towards the end of the 90s the music revenue in the US was close to $15 billion in the best years. In 2016 it was around half of that at less than $8 billion. 'Consumption' is not the same as 'money spent'.
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I don't know where you got that rate from, but even the statutory rate that some kinds of streaming services qualify for is higher than that. And that rate is only for the master / recording rights, it isn't for the publishing / musical work / songwriter rights. That rate, which is $0.0017 per performance for non-subscription services and $0.0022 per performance for subscription services, only applies to non-interactive services.
Services which are interactive - which, e.g., let the customer pick which songs they want to listen to - don't qualify for that automatic rate. They have to negotiate an arrangement with rights-holders (or, at least, with master rights holders). Spotify and Apple are reportedly paying around 70% of total service revenues (in Spotify's case, for its interactive subscription service) to those rights-holders. Most of that goes for master rights. A smaller portion (typically about 10% of total service revenues in accordance with statutory rate structures) goes for publishing rights.
For those services, the amount that is paid to rights-holders depends on how many songs are streamed. The size of the pool is determined by the number of subscribers and what each pays. If a set number of subscribers streams more songs, the per-stream rate is lower. But the total received by rights-holders remains the same. And, based on all reports I've ever seen, the average rate is considerably higher than even the statutory rate for non-interactive services (of $0.0017 per stream) which I referred to above. Spotify's average per-stream rate, blending both models, is quite a bit higher than $0.00058 - closer to an order of magnitude higher.
There are a lot of pieces to the music licensing puzzle - different kinds of right-holders, different kinds of rights for each kind of right-holder, different ways of determining royalty rates (as being established by law or needing to be agreed upon by the parties involved), different rules depending on how services work. It's complicated and I don't want to get lost in all the considerations, but the bottom line is... Spotify and Apple are paying more than $0.00058 per stream to rights-holders, quite a bit more.
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Because users put content on YouTube, YouTube is to some extent protected (by the DMCA) from liability for copyright infringement. It has to do certain things, e.g. have a process for reporting copyrighted material that isn't authorized and for removing it. But it is protected in ways that, e.g., Spotify - because it controls what content is available itself - isn't.
So the accusation is something like this (I'm not asserting this accusation is accurate or fair, just describing what it generally is): Because YouTube is protected in that way, it offers rights-holders a very low rate (or portion of revenues) and basically says... take it or leave it. YouTube and rights-holders know that the content is gong to be available whether those rights-holders take whatever YouTube offers or not. YouTube can take down content as it is reported, but users will keep putting it up. So rights-holders take whatever they can get because they can't stop the content from being available through YouTube regardless - something is better than nothing.
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It's complicated and varies a great deal depending on, among other things, the nature of the service.
But to address just one kind of content delivery model - the way Apple Music and one of Spotify's services work: For interactive subscription services, you can ballpark how it typically works by saying that...
Apple or Spotify keeps $3 out of your $10 monthly fee (out of which they obviously have expenses to pay).
The other $7 goes into a pool and from that pool the owners of recording rights (e.g. the artists that performed the songs or their labels) get around $6 and the owners of publishing rights (e.g. the songwriters) get around $1. How much each rights-holder gets depends on how often their songs are streamed relative to all the other songs which are streamed. If there are a billion streams then each stream is worth ($7 times the number of subscribers) divided by a billion.
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But each play on terrestrial radio can be heard by 100 or 2,000 or 30,000 people (as can the associated advertising). A song can be played orders of magnitude more times through streaming services than it can be on terrestrial radio.
And terrestrial radio doesn't have to pay for master / recording rights, only for publishing / songwriter rights.
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Then they should create something worth lsitening. You can't just create crap and expect to become millionare?
Music ownership is overrated. Do you ever own your data plan? Do you ever own your internet and cable subscription? Or your utilities, electricity and all public services? If you don't pay, your service will be suspended. No matter how long you have been subscribed.
The benefit of music membership is big, considering the benefit of accessing millions of songs, all you can eat with $10 a month. Like it or not, it's the way to move forward.
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Spotify is vastly available on many platforms. Mac, PC, tablet, phones, smart tvs, PS4, even my relatively old Marantz AVR has one. All of them tied to one account along with your playlist, preferences and history. And each app can work as remote for ongoing spotify playback.
Can't do that on Apple Music, can you?
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You understand wrong...
in 1995 you had to buy the album... no singles. In fact, you couldn't buy a single until iTunes store opened store which is after the invention of the iPod AFAIK.
Which was suck. Most albums has only 20 - 30% good tunes I enjoyed. The rest is just garbage fillers. Not to mention there were a lot of double dips with "Deluxe Edition" of the same album with one, maybe two extra tracks.
Well music streaming get rid of that problems. Any artist could go with all deluxe limited super alien edition as much as they want. If it's listed than you could just tune in. Bye bye double dips!!
Because you don't own music and software anyway.
You get a (in most cases permanent) licence for non-commercial use, that's it.
But... you DO own a physical product that sits on your shelf. When people talk about ownership with music, that's what they're referring to. When I buy a CD or vinyl record, it's mine. No one is legally able to take it away without my permission. That is vastly different than streaming.
Well maybe look at it like your utilities. You never own public services, you need to pay for them monthly and you're going to do it for the rest of your life. No bonuses or late ownership.
Physical music can be tedious. It can break or lose somehow. If you archive it in digital format you'll need to tag and ID them manually. And maybe your hard drive break down and take all your digital music with it. In which case you're f***ed.
Yes you'll be dead with nothing in your name. But hey it's just music. Your children will subscribe if they want. Like they would with their utilities.
I find this line of reasoning intriguing but personally I wouldn't go with it.
From an economic POV, the things typically produced by utilities are strictly consumables, i.e. gas, electricity, water, etc. Music can't be considered a utility product because the music can be captured in a (semi)permanent format and reused. While traditional utility output can be stored for later use, it can only be used once. Music is more properly a capital good, in that an initial investment can be used repeatedly and add value to the owner's existence.
From a semantical POV, music isn't a consumable good, nor are music listeners "consumers". If you buy a product that isn't single use, how are you "consuming" it? The federal government and their paid research shills turned humans, citizens, customers, into essentially a locust concept as part of their long term campaign against individual liberty. I think it was the late 1960s when they started pushing that term "consumer" as applied to everyday people. Its interesting seeing the reactions of people when I bring this up, because those born prior to 1970 readily agree with my statement, whereas those born afterwards roll their eyes and say "I think you're reading far too much into a word".
You are correct. Public utilities mostly considered as consumables and basic human need which needs regulation. Well maybe I was broadening "music subscription" a bit too far.
But I still think music has been a "consumable" in modern society. Maybe not public or government-regulated, but utility in a private sector.
Something like gym membership, or golf club, or public library monthly subscription is more like it. You can "consume" the tradmill in there over and over (it's a semi permanent format, like you said) but you just rent it like forever. And I personally think it's a good business model.
You may choose to build and own your own fitness center, golf course, or even home library. Just like you can own and manage physical music formats. But I think for most mortals, renting is not so bad, economically. Having paid access to millions of music for a wee bit dollars per month is a sustainable membership, in my opinion.
But don't you think you're conflating the terms "use" and "consumption"? While consuming something means you get to use it once, to use something doesn't necessarily mean consuming it. While I can make a scrapbook by using glue and you could say you've "consumed" the glue, you still have the end product of a scrapbook with the glue permanently part of it, therefore you now have a capital good consisting of the "consumables" that you used. So are they really consumed?
Your gym example simply means the person is using the treadmill, not consuming it. The energy used in the treadmill is consumed, but the physical good isn't. And while the person using it may be renting it and their use of it is according to subscription model (good example of that model, btw), the gym owner owns a non-consumable capital good and is enjoying income from that good as well as a depreciation benefit. Referring back to the statement that a utility is a subscription model, the energy that drives that treadmill is purchased outright from the utility and consumed by the gym operator, whereas the services that generated and carried that power is actually what the gym owner is "subscribed to".
Thanks very much for your well-considered response, btw. This is turning into a very Socratic-method discussion and its actually helping me clarify some things for myself.
PC, Mac, phone and tablet yes, don't have a smart TV, and don't use my PS4, and wtf is some AVR thing
No I can't do some on Apple Music, but do I need to? Do I really need Spotify on everything?
Well my point was, even if it costs more Spotify has something which AM has not. More availability is one of them.
Of course you dont have to own every gadget with spotify in it. But it never hurt to have it readily available. AVR is AV receiver, like a head unit in your car but for home theater.
There was one thing spotify could not do though. Integration with Siri. I'd love Siri to be able to control the playback. But hey that would mean Apple helps competitor.