On the other hand, Spotify also solved the industry’s problem of having to pay artists.
https://loudandclear.byspotify.com/
I think they solved the problem of paying artists quite well, 70% of their revenue goes to the copyright holders (if those aren't the artists, that is a different problem Spotify can't really address).
It's hard to see a record store or different streaming service do better than that ratio.
Spotify 'negotiated' a deal with the record labels that maximised how much money that went to the labels and minimised the money that went to song writers and artists.
If a stream was considered a radio play the far, far more money would go to the artists.
Doesn't that still imply that the problem is really just the labels negotiating contracts that are exceedingly in their favor?
Artists are getting screwed over because they signed away their distribution rights but there's not a lot Spotify can do about that. Spotify doesn't know where the money goes when they send it to the only place that can legally sell the rights to the content, and it probably shouldn't.
Artists across the board need to stand up for themselves and make better deals. More and more big names are standing up against the industry and causing a ruckus, so we may see a revolution in that space in a few short years. Until then, the music labels will continue to profit from their artists as they always have.
They knew they would be funelling money to the labels over the artists by adopting the ludicrous notion that they were making the equivalent of a mechanical reproduction over the equivalent of a radio play when a user streamed a song.
The major labels are big share holders in Spotify. It was a complete stitch up of the artists. Spotify were not a neutral party.
Boom, instantly performers and writers get more money and the labels less.
When Spotify started whether the big labels would even licence anything to such a service was far from a given. Many digital music platforms had failed in the previous 10+ years cos the labels wouldn’t work with them.
The way I see it a Spotify subscription is about the price of a CD per month. So the spend is probably similar for most people as the amount they would have spent on music previously.
The difference now is that people listen to a much much larger number of songs in total in any month. They don’t listen to one album over and over and over again like before. So that same spend gets spread way more thinly than previously.
Lastly on the label issue the labels power is significantly undermined. You don’t need a million dollars to build a recording studio and make a record any more. There is much more scope to put out your own shit and get 100% of the streaming revenue.
New times, new reality. The labels treating streams revenue like they did CD revenue shouldn’t surprise anyone, and is not Spotify’s fault.
The labels own the rights. Yes they fleece artists, no it’s not new nor something anyone who wants to deal with them can directly influence.
Look at the the evidence nce goven to thr British Parliament on this topic.
With Spotify, I can listen to hundreds of new songs every month for $10. That would cost a fortune with CDs or buying digital downloads.
My gut feeling (that might be completely wrong) is that the total value extracted probably stays roughly the same or goes up with an increase in disposable income.
Spotify wasn't available in the US until almost 2.5 years after its initial launch.
TV shows and movies are very different.