• Spotify's CEO responds to Taylor Swift pulling her album, apparently $6 million a year isn't enough
    75 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Taylor Swift is absolutely right: music is art, art has real value, and artists deserve to be paid for it. We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it. So all the talk swirling around lately about how Spotify is making money on the backs of artists upsets me big time. Our whole reason for existence is to help fans find music and help artists connect with fans through a platform that protects them from piracy and pays them for their amazing work. Quincy Jones posted on Facebook that “Spotify is not the enemy; piracy is the enemy”. You know why? Two numbers: Zero and Two Billion. Piracy doesn’t pay artists a penny – nothing, zilch, zero. Spotify has paid more than two billion dollars to labels, publishers and collecting societies for distribution to songwriters and recording artists. A billion dollars from the time we started Spotify in 2008 to last year and another billion dollars since then. And that’s two billion dollars’ worth of listening that would have happened with zero or little compensation to artists and songwriters through piracy or practically equivalent services if there was no Spotify – we’re working day and night to recover money for artists and the music business that piracy was stealing away.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]We were right. Our free service drives our paid service. Today we have more than 50 million active users of whom 12.5 million are subscribers each paying $120 per year. That’s three times more than the average paying music consumer spent in the past. What’s more, the majority of these paying users are under the age of 27, fans who grew up with piracy and never expected to pay for music. But here’s the key fact: more than 80% of our subscribers started as free users. If you take away only one thing, it should be this: No free, no paid, no two billion dollars.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]At our current size, payouts for a top artist like Taylor Swift (before she pulled her catalog) are on track to exceed $6 million a year, and that’s only growing – we expect that number to double again in a year. Any way you cut it, one thing is clear – we’re paying an enormous amount of money to labels and publishers for distribution to artists and songwriters, and significantly more than any other streaming service.[/QUOTE] [url]https://press.spotify.com/en/2014/11/11/2-billion-and-counting/[/url]
Taylor Swift is a moron
what a greedy cunt
I never expected to start using Spotify, nevertheless pay for Premium. But here I am, having paid for Premium happily for 1,5 years. Spotify is a very user friendly service, and so far I haven't noticed any major shortages in terms of selection. I have no opinion on Taylor Swift, but I hope fans of all type of music could find it on Spotify. This means artists need to stop doing ass-backwards stuff like this.
Better with than without, you'd be a idiot to ignore the sorta deal Spotify is giving you. Actually yeah, What kind of person would you be to ignore that deal?
I don't agree with her decision, but she's not pulling her music because she thinks she herself is not getting enough, she's doing it because she doesn't think it fairly compensates [I]any[/I] artist, and she doesn't want to support such a service. How much she gets out of it herself is irrelevant.
He has worded this somewhat carefully; he didn't say "money paid to Taylor Swift", he said "payouts for a top artist like Taylor Swift". While they may well have changed things around since I last heard about this, Spotify's business model doesn't actually give a whole lot of their revenue to the artists themselves (I recall Daft Punk only made ~$20,000 from Get Lucky on Spotify, despite it becoming the most listened to song on the service in a matter of weeks). While Spotify may well have paid six million to Swift's label for her discography, there's a good chance that her actual earnings from it were far, far lower.
[QUOTE=EvacX;46470902]Taylor Swift is a moron[/QUOTE] That's what people say, mm mm
[QUOTE=Yahnich;46470953]6 million isn't that much compared to other means of revenue for famous artists; 6 million is a lot for us but if a top artist like taylor only gets 6 million i can imagine other smaller artists get way less and that's why she pulled out maybe? idk[/QUOTE] I'd say 6 million a year is pretty good for an artist like herself. She also owns two penthouses, a three-bedroom and an eight-bedroom summerhouses, a private jet, and a mansion for her parents. As for how much money she has actually made is from about $18 million in 2008 up to [I]$64 million[/I] in 2014.
[QUOTE=Showgun;46470922]what a greedy cunt[/QUOTE] That's pretty harsh.
this whole statement is a bunch of baseless assumptions and lesser of two evils shit "we're better than piracy" does not make you a good and fair service
[QUOTE=Yahnich;46470953]6 million isn't that much compared to other means of revenue for famous artists; 6 million is a lot for us but if a top artist like taylor only gets 6 million i can imagine other smaller artists get way less and that's why she pulled out maybe? idk[/QUOTE] Yeah but it's not like Spotify is her only source of income. It's on top of concerts and regular sales n shit.
What margin does Spotify operate with? Because old time record labels gave so incredibly shit margins I find it hard to believe spotify is anywhere near as bad.
[QUOTE=Askaris;46470950]He has worded this somewhat carefully; he didn't say "money paid to Taylor Swift", he said "payouts for a top artist like Taylor Swift". While they may well have changed things around since I last heard about this, Spotify's business model doesn't actually give a whole lot of their revenue to the artists themselves (I recall Daft Punk only made ~$20,000 from Get Lucky on Spotify, despite it becoming the most listened to song on the service in a matter of weeks). While Spotify may well have paid six million to Swift's label for her discography, there's a good chance that her actual earnings from it were far, far lower.[/QUOTE] And that would be because record labels are shit
Spotify has prevented me from going to other lengths to get music, I love it I think $11 a month for years upon years of music is wonderful Combined with soundcloud, the two platforms are amazing
[QUOTE=millan;46471258]What margin does Spotify operate with? Because old time record labels gave so incredibly shit margins I find it hard to believe spotify is anywhere near as bad.[/QUOTE] 70/30 as far as I know, where I don't really know anything about anything. They use all kinda different variables, so no fixed "per-play" rate either. Artists, or the "rights holders", average out about an 8th of a cent per stream.
Joke's on her tbh.
I don't support spotify either. So good on Taylor Swift for the decision?
Of course it's really user friendly, you pay hardly anything.
i mean couldn't it also just be her lawyers or record label that pulls that shit?
[QUOTE=KingKombat;46471592]i mean couldn't it also just be her lawyers or record label that pulls that shit?[/QUOTE] The public statements have all been worded to imply that it's Taylor's own choice, whether that's a PR decision or not is a bit harder to tell I guess.
She pulls her music from Spotify in protest of piracy... but leaves her videos on YouTube... T Swift, do you not know that YouTube is probably the easiest way people pirate music?
[QUOTE=Code3Response;46471999]She pulls her music from Spotify in protest of piracy... but leaves her videos on YouTube... T Swift, do you not know that YouTube is probably the easiest way people pirate music?[/QUOTE] Yeah but youtube is so accessible, most just make vevo playlist instead of using device storage for mp3's. I could definitely see a vevo/youtube partnership to end iTunes just like Windows' old media service on XP.
Tbh I haven't spent a cent on music until I discovered Spotify and I decided to subscribe to Premium so I could use Spotify on my iPod without being having to be connected to the internet. Spotify is great for people that want to listen to music with ease, but terrible for the artists that make the music apparently. That's unfortunate, but it's definitely better than artists having all their music pirated. What do you guys think of Pandora?
[QUOTE=~Kiwi~v2;46471073]"hey spotify we will never ever ever be back together!" [video=youtube;WA4iX5D9Z64]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64[/video] pretty much this song tells the story exactly[/QUOTE] This just reminded me.. Are all of Taylor Swift's songs about being an angry ex?
[QUOTE=Swilly;46472213]This just reminded me.. Are all of Taylor Swift's songs about being an angry ex?[/QUOTE] Yes
[QUOTE]We started Spotify because we love music and piracy was killing it.[/QUOTE] Coming from a founding member of Napster.
Who the hell is Taylor Swift?
[QUOTE=Oicani Gonzales;46472463]no. she's pulling it because she's one of the few artists out there that can still sell albums in a meaninful volume. spotify has to give the money to the labels, instead of directly to the artists, and any label managing taylor swift is going to want to have people buy her music instead of streaming because they'll have bigger profit margins. dont be so naive, dude.[/QUOTE] That might be the case, but I'm not going to outright state that it is. Maybe I just like to think people aren't that cynical. What I think makes no difference either way, so I might as well think the best of people.
[QUOTE=Grimhound;46472513]Who the hell is Taylor Swift?[/QUOTE] Country/Country Rock vocalist. I think she writes her own songs too but 90% of them are about ex-boyfriends. :v:
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