Warner Music Remains Optimistic on Streaming Music, as Long as It's Paid

[kyjaotkb]

"Free" now with Amazon prime. Soon it will be free with your Lexus, netflix, t-mobile, or come in your box of crackerjacks. Songwriters are screwed and it will never get better.

Do you realize that Amazon pays labels and publishing companies for each stream on Prime Music?

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I've never understood why people would pay to stream music. Just put your music collection in iTunes and synch to your iPhone or Google Music on Android. May be a little time consuming, but it's free and you get to listen to what you actually want to hear.

If, in the course of 10 years, you've listened to 10,000 different tracks, it'll have cost you $1,200 on Spotify in 320kbps vs $5,000-$10,000 on iTunes in 256 kbps.

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Personally, I like to own my own stuff and still purchase and download. My wife goes back and forth between Spotify and my music library, but hates having to wade through my 14,000 songs.

I think that streaming could work if --
1. Better options for selecting music; I still find that it plays a lot of junk for me.

Have you tried the Beats "sentence"? Deezer's "Hear this"? Spotify's recommendations? Following your favourite artists, friends or labels? It works pretty well. Way better recommendation engine IMHO than iTunes or Amazon.

2. Better options for listening when not connected to Wi-Fi.

All streaming services offer offline synching as well as streaming over cellular if needed.

3. Reasonable prices.

$9.99 is an album a month... hard to go lower than that... you've spent 80x that amount of money for the device you're using to play music... And there are now family plans, student discounts and ad-free interactive radios for $3.99/$4.99...

4. Protects the artist - if they don't make money, they can't create the product we want to hear.

So you want to pay less but get the artists to earn more ;-)

None of the options out there seems to do this right now.

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Here's a good guess at what Warner Bros. does with most of their money from music... Image

Warner Bros. is a movie studio.

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Just give me a streaming service where I can choose any song I want to listen to at anytime.

Spotify?
Google Play?
Youtube Music Key?
Deezer?
WiMP?
Tidal?
Rhapsody?
Napster?
Rdio?
Guvera?
Sony Music Unlimited?
Juke?
Xbox Music?
Qobuz?
Rara?
...

 

[Cromulent]

I've never understood why people would pay to stream music. Just put your music collection in iTunes and synch to your iPhone or Google Music on Android. May be a little time consuming, but it's free and you get to listen to what you actually want to hear.

Because streaming services like Spotify have a much larger collection of music than your own personal collection.

Plus there are no adverts, you can make your own playlists (or just listen to albums if you prefer) and you can find new music that you have never heard of before.

Oh and you never need to worry about syncing your music. Just about everything you could ever want music wise is always on phone all the time. So you don't need to spend loads of money to get the phone with 64GB of space just to fit your music collection on. You can make do with the 16GB model and stream everything.

Spotify is no brainer for anyone who is really into music. The amount of niche music that is available is amazing. There are some bands that you simply cannot buy a CD or a Vinyl of because they only made limited edition demo tapes. Chances are they'll be on Spotify though.

 

[Paradoxally]

And exactly where it is the propaganda? I also can do that selective maths.

You could, but you'd just be denying facts.

When you have many big artists taking their music off Spotify, it's not because of "selective math". There is clearly a problem with the revenue stream.

Don't follow the crowd and believe what Spotify or any streaming service tells you. They are just in it for the $$$. They can give you a huge number they say they pay to artists, but a huge figure divided by thousands of artists is....yep, an insignificant number.

 

[Paradoxally]

Spotify is no brainer for anyone who is really into music. The amount of niche music that is available is amazing. There are some bands that you simply cannot buy a CD or a Vinyl of because they only made limited edition demo tapes. Chances are they'll be on Spotify though.

I absolutely disagree. Audiophiles and music lovers alike will never use Spotify as their music source.

First. music quality is dubious. Sure, they advertise "higher quality with Premium", but how much is higher? That's entirely subjective! Of course, they don't state 320 kbps audio because most people who use Spotify don't care or know about bitrates. All they say is, and I quote:

Better sound quality.

Listen in high definition. When you love music, audio quality matters. Premium always sounds amazing

For an audophile, that's nothing. It's like going to a tech enthusiast and saying "buy this phone/computer/whatever, it's really modern and has a ton of power!"

Second, the importance of owning a music library. Audiophiles and music lovers love to have their own collection - because it's personal. This is preferable in physical format, but if you don't have enough space, digital works too. I know no one who loves music seriously that would ever want their collection only in the cloud or forfeit their collection for "40 million songs" they don't even own.

Many audiophiles refuse to listen to anything if it's not perfect lossless audio (I know a couple). I know that's a bit much, and I personally don't mind listening to lossy audio at all, but I have my favorite albums in FLAC (ripped from a vinyl source), and trust me, they sound a lot better with a pair of very nice headphones. Why do you think some artists still release vinyl records nowadays?

Spotify is great for casuals and people who like to discover new stuff easily: convenience over quality and time spent on building your own library of tunes. For discovery, I use iTunes and go to the relevant genre. Much neater, and I discovered a lot of artists through there with no need for Spotify. iTunes Radio now exists, and I use that for discovery if needed.

Nothing will ever match the joy and pleasure of owning a physical album - the cover art, the disc itself, ripping it, etc...call me old-fashioned, but that experience cannot be matched - ever - with digital media and much less streaming services.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I absolutely disagree. Audiophiles and music lovers alike will never use Spotify as their music source.

IMO music lover and audiophile are not interchangeable terms. Audiophiles love the audio (the sound itself) where as music lovers lover music (whether it sounds 'perfect' or not). Someone can be both, or just one or the other, but the terms describe different things.

 

[Paradoxally]

IMO music lover and audiophile are not interchangeable terms. Audiophiles love the audio (the sound itself) where as music lovers lover music (whether it sounds 'perfect' or not). Someone can be both, or just one or the other, but the terms describe different things.

I said both because I have friends who are audophiles and music lovers (not the same people, some don't care about the audio itself), yet still don't like or use streaming services because they like having their collection with them. I am not an audiophile myself, but I love music.

YMMV, of course. Spotify is used by many people, and that's fine.

 

[Cromulent]

I absolutely disagree. Audiophiles and music lovers alike will never use Spotify as their music source.

First. music quality is dubious. Sure, they advertise "higher quality with Premium", but how much is higher? That's entirely subjective! Of course, they don't state 320 kbps audio because most people who use Spotify don't care or know about bitrates. All they say is, and I quote:

Better sound quality.

Listen in high definition. When you love music, audio quality matters. Premium always sounds amazing

For an audophile, that's nothing. It's like going to a tech enthusiast and saying "buy this phone/computer/whatever, it's really modern and has a ton of power!"

Spotify Premium use 320kbps Ogg Vorbis audio files which is good enough for audiophiles. Most double blind tests show that people can't tell the difference between that and FLAC.

Oh and they do say on their website what bitrate they use.

https://support.spotify.com/uk/learn-more/faq/#!/article/What-bitrate-does-Spotify-use-for-streaming

Second, the importance of owning a music library. Audiophiles and music lovers love to have their own collection - because it's personal. This is preferable in physical format, but if you don't have enough space, digital works too. I know no one who loves music seriously that would ever want their collection only in the cloud or forfeit their collection for "40 million songs" they don't even own.

Many audiophiles refuse to listen to anything if it's not perfect lossless audio (I know a couple). I know that's a bit much, and I personally don't mind listening to lossy audio at all, but I have my favorite albums in FLAC (ripped from a vinyl source), and trust me, they sound a lot better with a pair of very nice headphones. Why do you think some artists still release vinyl records nowadays?

Quote any double blind test that shows users can tell the difference between 320kbps Ogg Vorbis and FLAC and I'll be amazed. I take music incredibly seriously and have a decent pair of headphones. I've also ripped my entire CD collection into FLAC and the difference between the FLAC rips and listening to it on Spotify are indiscernible.

I used to spend £100 a month on music. Now I only need to spend £10 a month on music. Such a big saving in money.

Spotify is great for casuals and people who like to discover new stuff easily: convenience over quality and time spent on building your own library of tunes. For discovery, I use iTunes and go to the relevant genre. Much neater, and I discovered a lot of artists through there with no need for Spotify. iTunes Radio now exists, and I use that for discovery if needed.

Nothing will ever match the joy and pleasure of owning a physical album - the cover art, the disc itself, ripping it, etc...call me old-fashioned, but that experience cannot be matched - ever - with digital media and much less streaming services.

I agree owning a CD is nice. I have a sizeable collection myself. But I'd rather spend my money on bands which don't have the resources behind them of big music labels and don't have the distribution available to have CDs available easily. For me as someone who listens to a lot of niche music that just isn't available on CD or Vinyl then Spotify is the best choice.

 

[lederermc]

Personally, I like to own my own stuff and still purchase and download. My wife goes back and forth between Spotify and my music library, but hates having to wade through my 14,000 songs.

I think that streaming could work if --
1. Better options for selecting music; I still find that it plays a lot of junk for me.
2. Better options for listening when not connected to Wi-Fi.
3. Reasonable prices.
4. Protects the artist - if they don't make money, they can't create the product we want to hear.

None of the options out there seems to do this right now.

Show her how to use "Genius" to make a pseudo radio station.

 

[thalazy]

I always buy my cd's and then rip them into itunes. I would never pay to stream music when I can go to a store or online and buy cd's and enjoy them physically or digitally.