JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Spotify Breakdown

My CPA Magazine, Pivot. did an article on the state of live entertainment which included some interesting stats

There has been stuff said about the Spotify revenue share model that may stand corrected here for some

29.38 % retained by Spotify for operations and profits
58.50% goes to content owners...labels, publishers, artists
6.44% to PROs
6% for mechanical royalties


It also ranks these kinds of services.by subscribers...who collectively pay about 341 Million in subscriptions......and show the industry collected 11.4 Billion from advertisers

Subscriber base
144 mill for Spotify
72 Mill for Apple
56 Mill for Amazon Music
43 mill for Tencent
30 mill for Youtube

If all services plits are roughly the same, we can assume about 70% of of this 11.75 billion goes back to content owners in one way or another...and more importantly, most of that goes to the directly identified artists and content owners..only the PRO share gets allocated according to algorithms skewed toward the heavily rotated artists

All in all not at all predatory or unfair in my books....but then again, music is not my bread and butter...

So all those who have a dog in this hunt will have a far better opinion of what is fair

To me the unfairness is not the distribution of it, that may be fine, whats unfair is how little the artist makes per listen.

1000 streams about 2 dollars

on youtube 1000 views pays about 15 bucks, massive difference, particularly when views can be had by the stupidest of things such as how to floss properly, that can make way more money than one of the finest of a singer songwriter song.

On Spotify its all music, maybe talk or comedy streams i dont know, but i concern myself more with the indie, and they are usually publisher artist and everything all rolled into one, and yet they get a quarter of a penny.

I guess the lesson if any, is to put your music on youtube and not so much spotify.

Youtube starts to pay when you accumulate subscribers who contine to come back. I think it's like 1000 subscribers allows you to enroll. It's definitely a lucrative gig to broadcast on Youtube

And anecdotally we know there are people getting very rich on Youtube, particularly gamers whose followers are there in real time watching his\her every more

Its also easy. A smartphone is an all in one record upload setup using wifi, but real cameras can also be used with superior audio equipment and technology for post production editing

Youtube is entirely virtual and simply allocates server space according to defined routines that make uploading content a snap

Spotify is a different animal with a different operating model, so they are not quite comparable. They need subscribers or at least ad fed users with fewer privileges and a way to feed you their content. Youtube only needs eyeballs and time to monetise that with advertising and what they can learn of user behaviour. Registration is not mandatory for users, only if they want to upload content,

Spotify has to pay for their content as shown above. They take 30% in rough numbers and the rest goes to various parts of the music industry that made that song happen and artist possible
That is of subscriber and advertising revenue and it does go to artists in proportion to their participation in making the song a hit.

Not sure where you got your $2prK streams, but yeah 1 million is then only $2000 which does not sound like a lot to me either

Do agree with your conclusion to publish on Youtube and turn yourself into a business there.

I dont know what you consider lucrative and I dont know the exact numbers but I remember reading an article a few months ago about the payout and being underwhelmed by the creator's payout until a creator hits millions upon millions of views.

The most important truth about all of this was conveniently left out (not by you, by whoever reported this).

Spotify negotiated in bad faith towards creators in favor only of the publisher/labels. They pulled a fast one. Instead of market value in royalties they got stupid low rates in exchange for ownership stock that does NOT trickle down to the creators. So (as only a functional example, not literal numbers) instead of getting $1 dollar in royalties (market value) they took .50 cents but ALSO got stock shares to the label publisher corporations (only a few companies control all of the lions share of publishing at this point). Artists and writers do not benefit which means your publisher and label partners negotiated against you and independent entities were unrepresented in this negotiation which screwed you in every way and is enforced by your government. Bad deal all around.

I don't have time to look for the data I used when I posted on this subject a while ago. However, I do recall that YouTube in fact pays far less per stream than the others. By this I mean just streaming the music in the same way as Spotify, etc. not publishing videos that get you over the 1000 follower mark and get you a share of ad revenue from those ads shown in your videos - that's a lot more complicated, and John describes the basics above.

it's more complicated, but still offers something. You can make videos out of your tracks and you can do live video versions of your music.

Getting followers will absolutely be tough, but at least there is SOMETHING to be had. But it shows that people are way more interested than other things than music. a great song will almost never go viral, but a terrible one might.

People are way more interested in STORIES from musicians than their actual music. That's why the best singer songwriter storytellers rake it compared to their straight song playing peers. Videos about making music also do better than the music made by the same people.

It's always baffling that people don't care that the rates were negotiated in bad faith by the labels and publishers like it never happened. It did. I just got off the phone with the guy who built Googles first mp3 player who agreed that he too didn't understand why artists and writers just took it on the chin with little uproar. He also created the players several major cell phones use for media and was explaining that the amount of music added daily by Spotify etc. (though most is dumped on Fridays) is so high that programmers and software search technology really struggle to handle it. Spotify's search is garbage so at least it seems that it's simply unavoidable right now.

Definitely agree with you there, Brian. Way back in the 70s Billy Connolly was a slightly successful folk musician and was in a duo with Gerry Rafferty of Baker Street fame. At some point he realized that people loved his rambling and hilarious introductions to the songs more than the songs themselves, so he decided to focus on that and not long afterwards was packing large venues as a comedian, becoming a huge star in the UK. On a smaller scale, in any live setting the people who draw you in by their engaging stories have a far better chance of getting you to listen to their songs. They know how to make the whole package entertaining.

You Couldnt have VH-1 story tellers, without stories....

You Can tell the whole story of a song, without actually playing it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Gav2Rsucg

It's because there was never a choice. Before the Internet was as omnipresent as it is now, file sharing and song theft had already become rampant to a point that people were not going to pay for music. I found this out from a panel discussion in 1998. Basically it was "this is what is going to happen and there is really not a damn thing that anyone can do about it. Music was going to be FREE. If you wanted your music "out there" you were going to go through these platforms, Pandora ,Spotify, Apple music, etc. The established artists, and companies with large legal enforcement wings were going to be able to enforce their music being paid for. The indpendents would not. I always love these break downs and why people are surprised why it is that way.

Just like the "Jaquar commercial that is a new service that Jaguar is offering that is supposed to be the "wave of things to come" and the commercial starts. 'There used to be a time when people PAID for music..." Find the artists and companies that are the beneficiaries of all these payouts that the companies supposedly pay. I'd like to match that up with the checks for .000002 that most of the hit writers are getting.

Why do the people not care about rates? Because they don't care about paying for music. It doesn't even enter into their vocabulary. Why do artists, writers and companies not stand up? Exactly how do you do that. They are the only game there is. But hey, all the artists and writers can go out on strike and not put their music on any platform. There are only about a thousand years worth of music out there. So nobody has to even participate at all. But if you want to particpate, guess where you gotta go. These same platforms.

Face it folks, music is now an after thought. Something that is everywhere. Want to make money at it? Go into the stock market.

MAB

It was never easy to make money at music, before any of this happened. I recall having a "business plan" in High school, ill make a record for x amount of dollars, and surely everybody i know will buy it, classmates, family, neighbors, hell theyll even mention it in church and everybody there will buy it in the lobby, ill double my money easily.

Nobody cares, you might get a few faithful to buy it, but not enough to do anything.

It was never easy to make it as an indie, it was never easy to get cuts, never easy to have a hit, nothing new here.

I do believe you can make SOMETHING on youtube, but you have to be offering something people want, you need talent, not just musical but gift of the gab, you need a presence that people want to see you.

There are hundreds of people on youtube getting 100 k views per day, every day of the week, some make two or three videos per day, talking about politics, talking about covid, talking about current affairs, talking about lockdowns and the economy. Stimulus videos make a killing and have been since the idea of stimulus came along, and its going to draw people cause they wanna know if they are getting a stimulus check, it always comes down to whats in it for the person watching.

If you are going to have that kind of viewership for money, you'd better be good, entertaining, funny, and be original. One dancing bear is gonna be all there is.

Take a look at Rick Beato, i get emails from friends all saying, man you gotta check out this guys channel, im like i know...i know
https://www.youtube.com/c/RickBeato

This guy if not already, will make millions doing this, and techically its with music. You can make videos demoing different recording gear, or doing reviews of new guitars, amps, there are so many people doing reaction videos

this kid gets hundreds of thousands of views just for giving his reaction to songs.... he apparently has never heard before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpNAWISs0bc

.

When I was a kid I would mow yards just to buy record albums. Then all my friends would beg me to make tape recordings for them lol.

The digital age just made that sort of thing far too easy...

I suppose there should be no surprise that of the 70% that goes to content [providers to Spotify, that the lions share goes to those able to use their leverage to get what they want

Mark, if I hear you right, the record labels and distribution side of the industry actually had the ability and leverage to cut the Spotify deal...and since they press no vinyl or CDs, Spotify for them is almost a pure licensing fee there....AND they are a position to force the perforers, writers, publishers along for the ride according to whatever formula existed for say a CD before Spotify existed

Have I got that right?

Spotify was created in 2006. In 2011, it had 1,000,000 subscribers, a pittance compared to now. When digital first came out, one of the selling points for listeners was that the sound was cleaner (records scratch and hiss), not to mention that you could share it for free (the old Napster, etc.). To my reading, old and new music listeners have driven this, not the record labels. Some indies and prominent groups thought it would be advantageous to give their music away. Spotify has about 3,000 playlists that they curate and control. There are thousands and thousands of independent playlists. One of Spotify’s top playlists has about 25,000,000 subscribers. If you’re featured on that, or rap caviar, independent playlists will pick you up. You only need 30 seconds to qualify as a play. But you’re still giving your songs to Spotify. Spotify curators are the gatekeepers. You can submit music directly to them. Good luck with that and many artists are willing to live with it and have adapted. I just listen to radio. I still pay for music through SiriusXM, keeping it on oldies (nothing past the ‘80s). I’m not keen on today’s musical sounds. Getting too old. Who doesn’t remember their dad hating the Beatles? There are companies who take money to allegedly get a song on playlists. This is not recommended, I don’t think, and many caution that they create listeners through bots. This is against Spotify’s terms and could result in music being delisted or banned. Why? Because Spotify is in control. Other big streamers have tried to copy their model to limited appeal. And why would those now in control of the industry want to give artists a better deal? They never have before. One day in your music world a guy is a prince and honest broker; the next you know, he’s a snake in the grass.

You always needed a semi large, sustainable audience, in 1981,and in 2021,

Today we have it all figured out, we can bypass the label and DIY, we can bypass the radio and put it on spotify and numerous places, we can bypass media by putting it on facebook and twitter, we can bypass the recording studio and record it all at home, we can bypass musicians and have samples play it for us.

Its not Spotifys fault, you could never make money as a songwriter.... nobodies dad ever wanted their daughter to marry a musician, and the jokes about musicians were plentiful even in 1981.... whats the difference between a musician and a small pizza? The small pizza can feed a family of four....

These arguments are nothing new, and they didnt even have audio right, vinyl is a better audio medium than digital, scratches aside. And, vinyl represented a physical product, something people didnt mind paying for.

YouTube decided recently to run ads on my channel and will not share that revenue with me, which I feel is kind of shady. They said I have to have 1,000 subs and 4,000 hours watched before they will share revenue with me. If they feel I'm unworthy of revenue, then why do they run ads on my channel? They have no issue jumping to make money on behalf of my original content.

I think when they start running ads, they are at least starting to know you exist, they dont really think they are going to make anything off of you, it's how they run their business.

Feel good that they know you exist, they dont know many exist on there. If you get the subs you can start making money. Beer Money.