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Gouging Again?

#21
Just one of many reasons to completely ditch Spotify. They pay most artists absolutely nothing, others fractions of a penny, and their profits directly support AI warfare technology (Helsing). So yeah, if you want to keep supporting a profit-stealing platform which isn't really about music at all - just leasing recordings for fractions of a penny while lying to consumers about where their subscription fees are going.... then carry on. But the choice is clear. If you want to support a much better platform and BUY music from artists (which includes streaming what you buy), then use BandCamp. But Spotify is hot garbage that needs to be dismantled.
 
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#22
cannedsardines said:
Before streaming, CDs were about $16. Now you can listen to almost anything anyone ever recorded for a paltry monthly fee. Excessive? If you bought more than 12 albums a year you probably spent more than you spend on streaming. And now music is dying.
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And NOT ONE PENNY goes to support those artists, since the vast majority of music on Spotify has been de-monetized for creators. Before streaming, you had to actually commit to the music which spoke to you, and which you went out of your way to buy and own. Now you are being lied to and told that your subscription fee is actually going to creators - it's not. Music used to be about buying and owning what really spoke to you. Now, with streaming, people see quantity as the sole determining factor over what is 'valuable.' Having almost everything anyone ever recorded at your fingertips is actually a bad thing. It means you commit to nothing, and largely let the algorithm choose what you're listening to. I'll take the 'old days' any day.
 
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#23
Admiral Akbar said:
I own about 1500 CD’s. Shouldn’t be a problem.
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#25
FullumMusic said:
"Pay us more to help us figure out how to pay musicians less and put them out of business." 🤷‍♂️
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JazznFunk said:
Just one of many reasons to completely ditch Spotify. They pay most artists absolutely nothing, others fractions of a penny, and their profits directly support AI warfare technology (Helsing). So yeah, if you want to keep supporting a profit-stealing platform which isn't really about music at all - just leasing recordings for fractions of a penny while lying to consumers about where their subscription fees are going.... then carry on. But the choice is clear. If you want to support a much better platform and BUY music from artists (which includes streaming what you buy), then use BandCamp. But Spotify is hot garbage that needs to be dismantled.
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JazznFunk said:
And NOT ONE PENNY goes to support those artists, since the vast majority of music on Spotify has been de-monetized for creators. Before streaming, you had to actually commit to the music which spoke to you, and which you went out of your way to buy and own. Now you are being lied to and told that your subscription fee is actually going to creators - it's not. Music used to be about buying and owning what really spoke to you. Now, with streaming, people see quantity as the sole determining factor over what is 'valuable.' Having almost everything anyone ever recorded at your fingertips is actually a bad thing. It means you commit to nothing, and largely let the algorithm choose what you're listening to. I'll take the 'old days' any day.
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It's amazing, record labels have long been known as the scum of the scum, ripping off artists, paying them next to nothing while lining their own pockets.

From paying sonwriters next to nothing to buy their music, and paying no royalties if their writing became a hit, to giving recording artists nothing for sales (look! You get a 12% royalty! But were're doing you a favor manufacturing the records, so you've got to pay 10.5% for manufacturing and packaging.) To offering writing and recording deals that expire after 24 hours, and if you want a lawyer to review the contract, you have to hire them and bring them into the record company's building to look over the deal within that 24 hour window. Who can forget the scam Fantastly pulled on John Fogerty? Or how they kept trying to screw him after he got out of his contract? MTV got away with a lot of BS, having never paid a single cent in royalties for decades of airplay. But it was good advertising, so no one ever said anything.

All that pales in comparison to these streamers. They want you, the customer, to download music every single time you listen to it, because it's deleted every time it's done playing. And you get to pay for this priviledge twice, once when you pay your ISP for data access, and once when tou pay the streamer, either through a subscription fee or bu listening to ads. They then turn around and "pay" the artists a fraction of a penny, which the record company still gets a cut of.
 
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#27
Gopherbassist said:
It's amazing, record labels have long been known as the scum of the scum, ripping off artists, paying them next to nothing while lining their own pockets.

From paying sonwriters next to nothing to buy their music, and paying no royalties if their writing became a hit, to giving recording artists nothing for sales (look! You get a 12% royalty! But were're doing you a favor manufacturing the records, so you've got to pay 10.5% for manufacturing and packaging.) To offering writing and recording deals that expire after 24 hours, and if you want a lawyer to review the contract, you have to hire them and bring them into the record company's building to look over the deal within that 24 hour window. Who can forget the scam Fantastly pulled on John Fogerty? Or how they kept trying to screw him after he got out of his contract? MTV got away with a lot of BS, having never paid a single cent in royalties for decades of airplay. But it was good advertising, so no one ever said anything.

All that pales in comparison to these streamers. They want you, the customer, to download music every single time you listen to it, because it's deleted every time it's done playing. And you get to pay for this priviledge twice, once when you pay your ISP for data access, and once when tou pay the streamer, either through a subscription fee or bu listening to ads. They then turn around and "pay" the artists a fraction of a penny, which the record company still gets a cut of.
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'Labels' can mean anything these days, and some 'labels' still screw artists over, even in the streaming era. Retaining ownership of one's masters is a thing regardless of whether or not you are on a label, and THAT is what makes the streaming model even worse if you don't own them. Now, when it's easy to own your own masters from the get-go as an independent artist, you STILL can't make money off of publishing from streaming, and you still usually have to enter into some sort of manufacturing/distributor contract if you want your record produced to any major degree in terms of volume for CDs, vinyl, etc. The culture of labels and contracts is one thing, the ancient laws regarding copyrights, royalties, and compensation are another. None of it is favorable to the artist. Still, legacy artists did come up in a time where record sales mattered and did produce income, and if you didn't blow all of your advance on cars, houses, etc and stay in hock to the label for that advance and all of its associated 'recoupables', then you MIGHT have had a fighting chance at making money. Many did. It's not an argument for the 'old world' necessarily, but it's an observation that at one point, artists did make money off of recorded music.
 
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#29
I'd like to mention Deezer, more respect to the artists ( much better than Spotify) and they created a great AI detection software ( which they made available for all the music industry) allowing them to instantly demonetize AI music and remove them from recommendations, supporting this way real musicians.

newsroom-deezer.com

Deezer: AI-generated tracks now represent 44% of all new uploaded music - Deezer Newsroom

As the only streaming platform tagging AI-generated music, Deezer now reveals that nearly 75,000 AI-tracks are uploaded every day
newsroom-deezer.com newsroom-deezer.com
 
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#33
maxmerx said:
I'd like to mention Deezer, more respect to the artists ( much better than Spotify) and they created a great AI detection software ( which they made available for all the music industry) allowing them to instantly demonetize AI music and remove them from recommendations, supporting this way real musicians.

newsroom-deezer.com

Deezer: AI-generated tracks now represent 44% of all new uploaded music - Deezer Newsroom

As the only streaming platform tagging AI-generated music, Deezer now reveals that nearly 75,000 AI-tracks are uploaded every day
newsroom-deezer.com newsroom-deezer.com
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I didn't know that, thank you. I'm going to look into that.
 
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#36
mapleglo said:
I don't think I'll ever pay for a streaming service. Ever. I've listened to Amazon Music thru my Prime membership which isn't too bad, and it will allow me to play albums and songs I bought through Amazon, and I've listened to Apple Music though my Apple TV, also the free version. And I have about 1000+ CDs, which is still growing. I go to Friends of the Library sales where I get 2 CDs for a buck and load them into my iTunes and play them through my iTunes. That's better than any service.

View attachment 7496372
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Same here, except I don't use iTunes because I also dislike Apple. Most of my CDs are ripped to my computer and a huge number of them are then transferred to my phone via USB cable. When I buy a new CD it gets ripped immediately. My hard drive gets backed up every once in a blue moon.

I still buy the occasional record, but it's harder to rip vinyl and CDs are already digital to begin with.

Now for those of you who don't have a huge physical media library going back 4 decades, or those of you who tossed away all your CDs because streaming was "the wave of the future", I don't know what to tell you. If I had to start from scratch it'd be tough for sure.
 
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