←back to thread

I ditched Spotify and set up my own music stack

(leshicodes.github.io)
275 points starkparker | 3 comments | 04 Sep 25 22:47 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
cortesoft ◴[04 Sep 25 23:21 UTC] No.45133347[source]▶
So the author talks about how little money per stream artists make... but how much SHOULD they be making? What is fair compensation for writing a song?

In the old days, artists would join a label and put out an album. The artist would earn about 10% of sales or so (varies of course, but on average). So a $15 CD would earn an artist $1.50.

The article lists the 'price per stream' as about $0.005. So it would take about 300 streams of a song to earn the same amount as selling a CD used to make.

I feel like that isn't categorically less money than artists used to make per song listen? There are many albums I own that I have listened to way more than 30 times, which is what it would take for a 10 song album to get 300 song 'streams'

Is that a fair compensation? Why or why not?

I think artists should be able to earn money from creating music, but I don't know how we decide how much they actually deserve if we aren't just going based on the price the market sets.

replies(26): >>45133369 #>>45133399 #>>45133409 #>>45133428 #>>45133431 #>>45133438 #>>45133449 #>>45133951 #>>45134199 #>>45134553 #>>45134767 #>>45134905 #>>45135002 #>>45135123 #>>45135321 #>>45135900 #>>45135940 #>>45136005 #>>45136506 #>>45136530 #>>45136544 #>>45138425 #>>45140193 #>>45140370 #>>45141747 #>>45146960 #
1. mingus88 ◴[04 Sep 25 23:27 UTC] No.45133399[source]▶
I’m not sure about this accounting. I know some artists with very successful songs and they made nothing substantial from millions of streams

Could it be that the streaming platform pays 0.005 which then gets divided amongst the whole band, and then the label takes their cut for producing and marketing it?

Whereas before, the label was simply giving 10%?

replies(2): >>45133603 #>>45135021 #
2. brentm ◴[04 Sep 25 23:57 UTC] No.45133603[source]▶
I managed a few artists in the past. Usually Spotify paid something like $0.0035 per stream but it ranges based on where the listen took place. One artist owned part of their catalog so earned the 100% on those streams. The rest of their catalog was owned by a major label where they were credited 15% of the streaming take (which was slightly higher than the direct rate) towards their unrecouped major label account.

I'd say overall though, streaming can be good for artists. It helps keep them fresh in fans ears (via auto-generated & editorial playlists) and provides a revenue stream for the older stuff that would never be selling in stores or iTunes now.

3. brewdad ◴[05 Sep 25 04:41 UTC] No.45135021[source]▶
Question (You may or may not have insight): What happens when I download a playlist and listen to it offline in my car on an hours long roadtrip? Do my “streams” get counted once I get back online? Does the artist get credit for an estimated number of streams based on typical patterns? Does the artist get bupkis since I might play a song ten times but it wasn’t technically streamed to me?