Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

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The author makes three errors, one of which he stipulates (the he doesn't know the revenue split). The other two are:

1. Streaming is basically a perpetual source of revenue. If 1 download is equivalent to 200 streams then ask yourself how many times on average does someone listen to a purchased song?

2. The comparison you should be making isn't to digital music purchasing but to radio royalties. The formulae for this are complicated (flat fees to BMI, ASCAP, etc and then a complex formula after that for distribution to writers but currently not performers, except for Internet "radio").

Of course streaming (renting) earns you less than a purchase.

The recording industry likes to paint this as the artists are getting screwed. And they are getting screwed but not by streaming services. They're getting screwed by the recording industry [1].

Fact is, very few artists can survive on CD sales and digital downloads alone. Most artists survive by performing and even that's being eroded by the recording industry who uses fall guys like Ticketmaster to charge "fees" that fall outside of the revenue split with the artist on ticket sales. The public hates Ticketmaster. Artists hate Ticketmaster. The industry loves Ticketmaster.

[1]: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml

> The recording industry likes to paint this as the artists are getting screwed. And they are getting screwed but not by streaming services. They're getting screwed by the recording industry [1].

This isn't an or proposition. Artists are being screwed by both. Yes, the industry takes the lion's share of revenue from artists. That doesn't mean that on-demand streaming services aren't a joke in terms of compensating artists.

And you're wrong about your #2. The comparison should not be made to radio royalties because radio play has been shown to increase sales, since if you want to hear a specific song you heard on the radio, you still have to buy it or sit around waiting for it to come on. People compare Spotify revenue to purchasing because, if your music is on Spotify, there is no reason for anyone to buy it anymore. If it replaces purchasing for most people, the revenue needs to stack up by comparison.

That doesn't invalidate my point because curation, which you can argue radio is, and promotion (radio stations are paid to pay particular songs) is still possible with streaming. Just look at Pandora, last.fm, etc.

Also there are different definitions of streaming. The purest definition is where you have to have an Internet connection to listen. There will be various levels of caching involved here. For example, the service might cache the entire song--possibly several songs--to avoid stuttering and service interruptions.

Another model might better be called "cloud management" of music where you have a cloud-like iTunes interface (or even a non-sucky interface) that would sync that playlist to your device for offline listening, something I think iCloud will either be or quickly become.

Bandwidth and service issues are going to make local storage of music a superior solution for some time to come (IMHO).

I wasn't arguing for or against the article or your overall argument. I was simply pointing out some issues with two of the things you said.

How does the music business differ from the book business? Authors do not plan on supporting themselves by touring. Why is this more or less expected for musicians?

Are authors worse off for not having a viable touring option?

I'm mainly curious about assorted business models that work well for musicians for whom live performances are not practical. If one person with a pc and some electronics makes an album, live gigs may be nonstarter.

In some regards it's even worse for authors. A lot of authors, especially of technical non-fiction books, have day jobs.

Regardless, the reason why this is so is simply because it has become the norm. There is nothing about it that is particularly good except the degree to which it concentrates wealth in the hands of publishers (which they certainly enjoy). Over the long term I expect the norm will change to self-publishing or very low-overhead mostly self-service publishing.

> If 1 download is equivalent to 200 streams then ask yourself how many times on average does someone listen to a purchased song?

For most downloaded songs, a couple of times.

Most people just amass mp3 collections they rarely listen to in their entirety.

A couple times?? Surely some people do that, but I doubt it's the majority. This is way too broad of a generalization.

I'd say, anecdotally from my own experience, that it's more of a power law distribution. Some songs/albums I listen to quite frequently, while others I listen to once and then forget about.

Suffice to say using this sort of subscription model, the hits would still be big money spinners, but for the vast majority - the long tail so to speak - wouldn't make enough to live on.

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