Streaming pays ...

TTony

There was a thread here somewhere (can't find it now) that touched on the value that accrued to artists from sales of their music through different media.

And then this appeared in my inbox this morning (Economist Espresso if you're wondering) ...




... which shows how much revenue is generated from streaming now - about half of total music revenues.

It *feels* like we all consume more music now than 10 years ago (just look at the number of people who walk around with earphones in), so $revenue per listen might be lower now than in the past, but streaming is generating a large chunk of overall revenue.

The other point is how little music we now "own" vs "rent".

redrighthand

Interesting. Would love to see the chart over a longer time period, and with associated revenue (touring, merch, etc) added.

Moe_Zambeek

Would be interesting to see a similar graph for revenue accruing to the actual artists.

UnclePsychosis

Streaming is obviously generating a lot of income. I'm not convinced that the income is being distributed particularly widely. Would love to see some stats as to where it goes. 

digitalscream

Moe_Zambeek said:

Would be interesting to see a similar graph for revenue accruing to the actual artists.

Do you mean independent artists, or signed artists? The latter see only a tiny amount of the streaming revenue, because their labels snag most of it (like 95%, if the numbers from the artists who are complaining are to be believed). That's at the root of the complaints about Spotify et al, it's just that famous musicians appear not to be able to do maths.

axisus

I still think that streaming is a massive rip off. Take streaming from the equation and everything else goes up.

ICBM

Moe_Zambeek said:

Would be interesting to see a similar graph for revenue accruing to the actual artists.

Probably not a lot different from the early days of the 'old model'. I think I remember reading that the Beatles received less than 1% of the revenue from their record sales... and since they did quite well themselves, that means EMI made an absolute killing.

digitalscream

axisus said:

I still think that streaming is a massive rip off. Take streaming from the equation and everything else goes up.

That's patently not true. You're neatly excising from history the fact that streaming was the solution to a problem that everybody was complaining about.

1990s: Artists complain that the labels are taking all their money
2000s: Artists complain that P2P is taking all their money
2010s: Streaming removes piracy from the equation and allows everybody to skip the labels if they want, and then artists complain that they're not making enough money from it

A popular complaint is that it would take millions of streams just to hit minimum wage in the US - the simple fact is that if an artist is relying solely on any single channel to make a living, they're going to fail anyway. That's why literally nobody relies just on CD sales, or merch sales, or live performances etc etc for their living.

You make more money from Spotify streaming than you would from the highest combined writing and performance royalties available from a play on any radio station in the UK - at least 10 times as much, in fact. Given that Spotify is to audio what Netflix/Sky Go/iPlayer is to TV, and that nobody's complaining about the poor rights holders in the TV world, the popularity of complaining about Spotify is either deliberately disingenuous (particularly the comparison to CD sales) or the result of too many people listening to the uninformed complaints of the top 1%.

I find it interesting that those same people blindly supporting the 1% in this argument are also usually the first to complain about the inequality of the 1% in the wider world.

axisus

digitalscream said:

axisus said:

I still think that streaming is a massive rip off. Take streaming from the equation and everything else goes up.

That's patently not true. You're neatly excising from history the fact that streaming was the solution to a problem that everybody was complaining about.

1990s: Artists complain that the labels are taking all their money
2000s: Artists complain that P2P is taking all their money
2010s: Streaming removes piracy from the equation and allows everybody to skip the labels if they want, and then artists complain that they're not making enough money from it

A popular complaint is that it would take millions of streams just to hit minimum wage in the US - the simple fact is that if an artist is relying solely on any single channel to make a living, they're going to fail anyway. That's why literally nobody relies just on CD sales, or merch sales, or live performances etc etc for their living.

You make more money from Spotify streaming than you would from the highest combined writing and performance royalties available from a play on any radio station in the UK - at least 10 times as much, in fact. Given that Spotify is to audio what Netflix/Sky Go/iPlayer is to TV, and that nobody's complaining about the poor rights holders in the TV world, the popularity of complaining about Spotify is either deliberately disingenuous (particularly the comparison to CD sales) or the result of too many people listening to the uninformed complaints of the top 1%.

I find it interesting that those same people blindly supporting the 1% in this argument are also usually the first to complain about the inequality of the 1% in the wider world.

Meh. I know plenty of musicians via Facebook who say that Streaming is killing them. Proper established bands. 

camf

Could that be because they're in agreements with labels or publishers who are taking the main share of the streaming income?

digitalscream

axisus said:

digitalscream said:

axisus said:

I still think that streaming is a massive rip off. Take streaming from the equation and everything else goes up.

That's patently not true. You're neatly excising from history the fact that streaming was the solution to a problem that everybody was complaining about.

1990s: Artists complain that the labels are taking all their money
2000s: Artists complain that P2P is taking all their money
2010s: Streaming removes piracy from the equation and allows everybody to skip the labels if they want, and then artists complain that they're not making enough money from it

A popular complaint is that it would take millions of streams just to hit minimum wage in the US - the simple fact is that if an artist is relying solely on any single channel to make a living, they're going to fail anyway. That's why literally nobody relies just on CD sales, or merch sales, or live performances etc etc for their living.

You make more money from Spotify streaming than you would from the highest combined writing and performance royalties available from a play on any radio station in the UK - at least 10 times as much, in fact. Given that Spotify is to audio what Netflix/Sky Go/iPlayer is to TV, and that nobody's complaining about the poor rights holders in the TV world, the popularity of complaining about Spotify is either deliberately disingenuous (particularly the comparison to CD sales) or the result of too many people listening to the uninformed complaints of the top 1%.

I find it interesting that those same people blindly supporting the 1% in this argument are also usually the first to complain about the inequality of the 1% in the wider world.

Meh. I know plenty of musicians via Facebook who say that Streaming is killing them. Proper established bands. 

OK, so which of the previous situations would they prefer - the one from the 2000s where everybody was just using P2P to get everything for free, or the one from the '90s where nobody could get a look-in because the labels decided who had a career?

If they're signed, I'm guessing the latter. It's just plain old self-interest, but...musicians not being the best at economics or history, I'm guessing they forgot the bit in the middle.

Streaming was the solution they all begged for, because the Internet genie was out of the bottle and the music industry kept acting the same way they have since the 1950s. They're just complaining now because they thought it'd make them rich, when it's only making their labels and distributors rich, and that's all down to the fact that they signed the shittiest deals in history.

Also, they forget that a streamed play isn't worth anything like as much as a bought physical copy. They like to make that comparison because they're idiots.

ICBM

If you took away legal streaming the only thing that would go up is illegal downloading.

Physical purchases are dead for most consumers, and even legal downloads aren't attractive when the unit cost is so relatively high. To get people to pay, you need to make the unit cost so low that they don't think about it, which is what subscribing to a streaming service does.

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

If you took away legal streaming the only thing that would go up is illegal downloading.

Physical purchases are dead for most consumers, and even legal downloads aren't attractive when the unit cost is so relatively high. To get people to pay, you need to make the unit cost so low that they don't think about it, which is what subscribing to a streaming service does.

My 19 year-old son who is off to do music related stuff at University in September owns one CD and even that he's lost somewhere. I don't think he sees any financial future in 'releasing records' and that any income from music is all about how it's used in other media. 
On the other hand the world of streaming means that he can get his stuff online and find an audience for it ( even if that's mostly just me...) which would have been very difficult or at least very costly in any previous format.
And whilst I still buy the odd CD if I'm buying 70s reggae I'm fairly sure there is no money going to the original artists as they got screwed over years ago. 

TTony

I guess the problem (for the artist) is that they've always been dependant on intermediaries to get through to their consumers.  Whether that's management companies and record labels, or promoters and ticketing agencies, or the likes of Amazon and Apple - all those intermediaries are in business to take a cut, and have to take it from the revenue generated by the artist.

I find the renting model "odd", mainly because when I was growing up, renting is what you did when you couldn't afford to buy (the TV, the washing machine, or whatever).  But you always ended up paying a load more over the rental period than if you'd bought outright and that fed the profits of the finance providers.  Is that the model we're re-adopting now, driven by the convenience of consumption (cars, music), but with the same result - ie we end up paying more over the longer term?

With high-ticket items (cars), the profit still accrues to the finance providers - though the model is ensuring that manufacturers can still shift cars.

With lower-price items (music), Apple/Amazon et al effectively financed it by investing in the model and creating the market, and so they're the ones taking the profit.

(I still buy a good number of CDs every month - 10-20 depending on what I spot - I'm probably just old!).

digitalscream

TTony said:

I find the renting model "odd", mainly because when I was growing up, renting is what you did when you couldn't afford to buy (the TV, the washing machine, or whatever).  But you always ended up paying a load more over the rental period than if you'd bought outright and that fed the profits of the finance providers.  Is that the model we're re-adopting now, driven by the convenience of consumption (cars, music), but with the same result - ie we end up paying more over the longer term?

It's not really "renting" - more "paying for a service", rather like paying the TV licence or using Sky. Hell, I pay more in a year for Spotify than I ever did on albums, but I end up listening to a lot more artists than I would normally via the curated playlists.

Music began to be considered a bulk commodity by the public a (relatively) long time ago - around 2003, I think - just like most other forms of entertainment. It's odd that the music industry was the first to get hit by it, but it's also the last to understand the implications.

TTony

digitalscream said:

It's not really "renting" - more "paying for a service", rather like paying the TV licence or using Sky.

Kind of ...


Do I want to own a washing machine?  No, not really, I just want to be able to clean my clothes - ie to have access to the service.

But, as of today, buying still makes sense because it's (a) cheaper (provided you don't buy a dud) and (b) more convenient.  There are suggestions that will change though - driven primarily by the need to recycle more rather than anything else.


Do I want to own a car?  No, not really, I just want to be able to get from A to B - ie the transportation service.

Except there's still a chunk of the population that *do* want to own their car, or are excluded from the "rental" option by not having the credit history or not wanting to spend £399 every month for the next 3 years.


Do I want to own a guitar, or just be able to pick one up to play when I feel the urge?

OK, that's a dumb analogy  


The TV licence isn't a means of consumption, it's an entry fee to be able to consume, from whatever media (DVD or streaming).

digitalscream said:

Music began to be considered a bulk commodity by the public a (relatively) long time ago - around 2003, I think

As you said early, P2P (etc) really undermined the purchasing model of the music industry.  The internet was the destroyer by offering the opportunity to have without paying.  From there, I guess it was stream-or-die.  I realise that I'm a relic, still buying physical media, but then I still *buy* my cars (though that's getting ever more difficult) and my guitars.

digitalscream

TTony said:

digitalscream said:

Music began to be considered a bulk commodity by the public a (relatively) long time ago - around 2003, I think

As you said early, P2P (etc) really undermined the purchasing model of the music industry.  The internet was the destroyer by offering the opportunity to have without paying.  From there, I guess it was stream-or-die.  I realise that I'm a relic, still buying physical media, but then I still *buy* my cars (though that's getting ever more difficult) and my guitars.

I'll just respond to this bit, 'cos the other bit is going to get weird

That's true enough, but there's an in-between "state" for media products - that of a file that you own. I don't even own a CD player, so the "physical" bit is much less-so for me; however, for bands I like I'll buy a FLAC (or MP3 if they're really not with the times) copy of the album. For bands I really like, I'll pledge on their chosen crowdfunding, usually far more than they'd ever have made out of me if they'd only tried to sell me an album.

There are plenty of ways for musicians to make money out there...it's just that none of them involve squirting their output at Spotify and then sitting back to watch the money roll in.