Hacker News Reader

Comment by porkbeer | Hacker News Reader

What is destroying musicians is not copywright, but the oligarchy of distribution and lack of artist representation. For food for thought, look up what Ed makes on Spotify per play, vs what the average person would, and how much of that goes to the labels and distributors.

View on HN

Well, part of what props up the “oligarchy” is copyright law.

I think if you want to change the outcomes of the system, we should adjust the laws and incentives underlying the system.

Limit the copyright to the commercial viability of the work. Get rid of all the intermediary performance rights bullshit. Don't allow copyright to be sold or transferred, only the original creator of the work can retain it and seek legal action if damaged.

> look up what Ed makes on Spotify per play, vs what the average person would

I don't know where to look any of this up. Can you just give us the data?

Sheeran gets 75,665,830 monthly Spotify listeners based on recent Spotify data. Spotify pays artists about $0.003 per stream, which is $3 for one thousand monthly listeners. Using those numbers, you can estimate that Sheeran earns at least $226,997.49 monthly from Spotify streams alone

source: https://www.musicindustryhowto.com/ed-sheeran-net-worth/

alt source: https://edm.com/industry/spotify-highest-earning-artists

The question was

>look up what Ed makes on Spotify per play, vs what the average person would

How does Ed Sheeran make per play, and how does that compare to the $0.003 that (I assume) the average person makes?

This calculation is done using that $0.003 number for Ed Sheeran.

Spotify spent a long time in negations to get that price, and I'm not aware of any credible claims they pay higher rates to popular artists (outside perhaps limited time launch promotions)

I think the more interesting question is how much Sheeran gets vs his record company, but that isn't a Spotify thing.

I think the point was my $0.003/play for me singing in the shower(^) vs. Sheeran's fraction of that after everyone else's cut.

But I don't really know what the point of that is - sure maybe now he could go on his own and take it all, and coast for a while with existing fan base, no marketing or major concerts, etc. - but he presumably (at least at the time he last locked in to x years) thinks that's value for money.

^not actually on Spotify, sorry to disappoint!

> Spotify spent a long time in negations to get that price, and I'm not aware of any credible claims they pay higher rates to popular artists

https://artists.spotify.com/en/help/article/royalties

From there, the rightsholder’s share of net revenue is determined by streamshare.

We calculate streamshare by tallying the total number of streams in a given month and determining what proportion of those streams were people listening to music owned or controlled by a particular rightsholder.

https://indepentia.com/blog/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-st...

For example: if Billie Eilish receives 2% of all Spotify streams in a month, she will receive 2% of that month’s available streaming royalties.

So the more streams you do, the higher your streamshare, the higher your average pay per steam.

Yes it annoys the hell out of me that I support so many underground bands and realise that 60% of my subscription fee is probably going to pop artists.

I'm not sure how Ed Sheeran distribute his music, but I think you're making a mistake in the calculations. Ed Sheeran doesn't make $226,997.49 per month from Spotify, that is the amount they pay the record company to stream his music.

Artist frequently complain that Spotify isn't paying them enough, but forgetting that the record companies take a very large chuck of the profits, just to act as an increasingly irrelevant middleman.

Comparing against playing the song on radio (divided by how many listeners the station has), Spotify doesn’t look too bad.

This actually true. Radio stations don’t pay anything to the singer. There is a compulsory fee paid to the song writer and composer.

Yes, and almost no radio stations program indie artists, so they make pretty much zero from radio. They make a little from streaming, but mostly make money from live gigs and fan merchandise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com