My thoughts on Spotify CEO's comments on Content| Utkarsh Mohan on Music #49:
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- Musicians have been exploited in a sinister way by big business ever since the music industry started. In this video, we delve into Spotify CEO Daniel Ek's comments, the pushback and take a bigger look at the industry. We explain the real mechanisms in place which exploit the dreaming nature of musicians to extract maximum value for business's with minimum risk
No such thing as non-exploitative capitalism.
Period.
he's not wrong about any of this...the Music Industry has "always" been exploitive, and it is because musicians are mostly not thinking hard about how they're being "supported"...and the fact that music is basically "worthless" doesn't seem to effect the bottom line of entities like Spotify...the answer is to be "wise as serpents" (smart in protecting your value), while remaining gentle as doves (dreamers)...
I remember when in primary school everyone was listening to Linkin Park... The band was highly promoted on Mtv but also in Bravo so even girls listening to Britney Spear knew who were boys from Linkin Park , and they looked a bit like a "boy band" (very 90s term) . Few weeks ago I heard an interview with a manager from those year and he said that in the 90s the look was a lot more important than the music - whether it was Britney Spears or Marilyn Manson . They were even trained to look on musicians like a potential new heroes not as the best musicians. So even back then the look was more important than the actual music . This strategy is now dead because today's strategy is - "we are signing only bands popular on youtube and spotify to avoid overthinking and overspending "
true..MTV made that trend in the 80s when now band image and dress was more important..but the music still mattered..
I didn’t have access to MTV in those days but often, when there was a popular song I didn’t like, I’d get a glimpse of the artist and think “That explains it!”
Im a professional graphic artist and no artist is paid what they deserve. They are either over paid or under paid.
Bottom line; It's Bidness. (Purposely misspelled).
7:48
I don't know about where you live, but in America, those dollars spent in research and development are usually tax-supported from the taxpayers of the country. This is a slap in the face to these taxpayers, who are essentially paying for these drugs TWICE; see the classic tome "The Ralph Nader Reader".
Musicians are a dime dozen. There are so many, they just don't matter.
most all of them not worthy to remember ...
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. it is less of a case that musicians/bands are dreamers and happy to get anything, but rather it is that if THEY don't agree to those terms, there are many thousands of other musicians and bands who WILL accept the terms offered, and objectively their music product isn't "worse" or "better."
I am a musician for over 40 years, till 2019 i recieved good money, from than on its about dry bread each day......
Same here man. Sometimes it feels like someone “threw a switch” and shut it off. It’s crazy.
@@carlreijer4478 what makes his comment suspicious?
Yes I know! I am married to one!!
And that makes you better than us?
Making content for spotify (music) is "essentially free" the same way writing the code that runs Spotify is "essentially free". But for some reason Spotify thinks the people who do the latter are worth 6 figures per year and the people who do the former are worth approximately zero.
Ek doesn’t pay any money at all for artists that have less than 1000 plays per year. He can go to hell.
While he gets rich. With technology, they know exactly how many plays each artist has and could simply pay out based on that. But they use the excuse that the costs and "risk" takes a certain amount etc.
@@Scott__C Absolutely!
I really guess you had Spotify all right after Napster, what about Subito, instead?! I don't know. Namastè.
Spotify is about to learn how I think the cost of running their business is approaching zero and as a result I will cancel my subscription to Spotify. They don't know what to do with my subscription $$ so they pay EK $billions when he only deserves $300,000/yr max.
Love your work mate!
Thank you
Well no one should put all their eggs in one basket
Am a indie musician i live my life to the fullest 😅
Very true about exploiting of musicians, most of them are sucked dry by record companies. Look at Black Sabbath they were superstars in the 1970s, yet had no money. Musicians are not business savvy and are quite happy when they get a bit of pocket money, but miss on making it big financially.
Spot on
Thank you for this excellent video!! This was very interesting and instructive. I wish you all the best!!
Thank you. Appreciate your kind wishes
Hopefully... AI will end this exploitation.
Oh sir. It will make it worse
@@ministryofguitar Wait... Really? I thought it would because then the Music Business wouldn't have to exploit musicians that much anymore when they can use AI(which can even withstand exploitation as it does not feel any pain).
1. You have great hair
2. When 'The Mob' ran things, better bets were made.
3. I am constantly impressed by your tact saliency & taste. [i disagree w/folks who are being precious per pride over 'comment' in question] But not w/you.
4. I'll look forward to future videos!
5. Long Live RocknRoll!
Brilliant perspective! not that I know much about financing but am definitely guilty of the musician mentality, regretfully.
Spotify loves the AI generated content.
We will see much more in the coming years.
In all art forms.
You are a "voice of reason" to the Emotional World of Musicians - and that is the problem with "Emotional intelligence", it has a hard time with "Reason" !
Good video! You made a lot of valid points for consideration! Greetings from Canada!
Terrific observations as always!
Great points Utkarsh. But I think there's one more significant issue. I don't have the data but I'm willing to bet the additional problem is that the demand-supply situation for musicians v/s entrepreneurs is overwhelmingly in favour of entrepreneurs. My guess is it is much easier for investors to separate the wheat from the chaff in the entrepreneurship world, than to figure out which musician amongst an entire slew of candidates will capture the attention of the masses...and in all fairness we are talking much more chaff in the music world. Apologies to musicians across the world (and yes, I'm one too when I have time on the side from my world of finance) but that's how the market operates....believe, when I take an entrepreneur with a meaningful business proposition to investors, there's huge interest...how many start up musicians can say that?
Yes you are precisely right. I wanted to also talk about relative market sizes for new businesses vs new pure music ventures. I was going to do it in this video but decided to it in a seperate upcoming video
You're very right man! I work in finance too. I also play guitar in my free time. Rocking out is sure better than golfing with the "finance bros". Haha
Mine is that I’m always buying guitars 😂
Music was always over priced when they could trap it in a box. Once that box broke, the true value was reflected.
Is it though? Imagine living with no music whatsoever. No music in movies, TV shows, commercials, retail stores, restaurants, in your car, no music anywhere. I'm sure you would find out pretty quick just how important music is. People need to create that music, and learning how to make music and actually making the music itself takes a ton of time and work, and people want to be paid for their work. $10 for an album you love isn't going to kill you, it's actually pretty cheap.
@@MichaelSheaAudio $10? In 1994, 30 years ago, they were $30 Australian. And then you had to buy it to see what it was like to find it was mostly rubbish. The amount of money I wasted was astonishing, and I was poor, and they were loaded. That is no service to humanity. Today’s system is far superior.
@@Bluepillphil-d1w I don't think I've ever paid more than $15 for an album in the past 20+ years. Canadian dollars. Spotify is great for finding new music. Once I find that music, I put it in my list of music to buy, or if I really like it, it goes right to the front. If you just want the singles, then pay the 99 cents for it and give the artist many times more than they make from streaming.
@@MichaelSheaAudio The moral argument you’re pushing is a false morality. Do you pay the artist when you listen to a song on the radio?
@@Bluepillphil-d1w Bro I ain't listened to the radio in years. But to get radio play, the stations pay the artist or label a royalty or licensing fee. Radio was more relevant before streaming became popular, which meant people would hear the radio singles and then go buy the album. Streaming platforms generate fractions of cents per play. To make the artist $1 on Spotify, the equivalent of just buying a song, you'd have to listen to that song over 200 times.
My job in the finance industry and my music hobby just intersected in this video haha. I cannot wait to finish my FINRA Series 7 certification. It's a bearcat for sure. Looking forward to getting my free time back and having more time to play guitar.
well said
I see nothing to disagree with in Ek's tweet. Relatively speaking, the cost of making a recording is zero, whereas the practical minimum was about 250k prior to the 90s. He's merely asking a universal question pertinent to all art- what makes something resonate vs the sea of material that doesn't, and I think we must rule out the amount of money, time, and effort that goes into the recording as the primary elements- as recordings from both ends of that scale have found huge audiences. This is a net positive for me, because it means there is intrinsic value in art, and if it's "good" enough, it will eventually resonate.
On the exploitative deals, the main leverage held by the big companies at that time was distribution. It was extremely laborious to try to get your product into retail shops, or find independent distribution. Record companies offered the ability to help ensure your recording didn't suck, to help identify the marketing plan and put capital into those areas, and essentially "make you famous". In return for that, initial deals were about 5% of 90% sold. I think whether that's exploitative depends on the behavior of the company- Often they were throwing lavish AnR parties and spending frivolously on the band's tab. That would suck, but if the company helped to keep those initial costs low, many bands could truly make bank on the road on the strength of the company's investments. Some bands who were dropped from labels were able to capitalize from the exposure and began releasing their own product and still seeing highly profitable concert sales. They may only sell 20k copies, which would get you dropped from a label at 4%, but is a nice income at 100%.
Conclusion: it's up to the artist to create something that resonates, and to read and understand contracts. If your music is good enough, there will be attorneys arguing about the details enough that something fair is going to happen. If not, who cares?
Thank you for sharing and taking the time to write. This is very comprehensive. Let me take the time to digest some of your points and perhaps address them in future videos
I don't think the relative cost of making a recording is zero. No, it is the marginal cost for each additional copy of a recording that is now zero. The costs involved with making the master recording - the studio time, mastering, etc., have not disappeared, and if you think the musicians should be compensated for their effort that cost hasn't disappeared either. Now, you may think that cost has come down from 250k in the 90's (and it is true that some costs have indeed come down) those costs aren't exactly zero, if nothing else there's the opportunity cost: the artist could have maybe made $50 bucks that day on a paper route or as an extra on a porno set. And there were plenty of artists in the 90's making records econo. I think Nirvana's first record was something like $400 or so? The whole indie and lo-fi scene was always on the budget. Daniel Johnston recorded on a cheap Radio Shack recorder and gave his early tapes away. But that's not the point. Recording costs have not come down to zero. And once the record was made- be it $400 or $250k, each additional copy had to be pressed at the record plant, and the jacket had to be printed, and someone had to put the records in a box and the box on the truck.
Unlike a traditional record label, the cost to Spotify is roughly the same if a song is streamed once or a million times. They are not pressing, warehousing, and distributing product. They aren't even marketing it. Yes they probably have overhead like web hosting fees or server farms, but their business model - which is cheap or even free music for subscribers - relies on treating the underlying commodity - the song - as something which costs nothing to them and so is therefore essentially valueless. It's like they've found a way to sell air, but without having to go to the expense of putting it in cylinders first.
This was never the case before: until Napster, if you wanted a record you had to plunk down cold hard cash to buy a physical object. Yes, the good old days were exploitative to anyone not named David Bowie or Paul McCartney, but at least it followed the standard Capitalist model whereby everyone who had a share in creating that physical object had a share in the eventual returns on that cash. That model is now broken- since there is no longer any cash changing hands at point of sale, it's difficult to assess what everyone's share of that zero cash is. Ek, of course, is of the opinion that the artist should get as little of that zero cash as possible. Why wouldn't he? After all there isn't any cash! And so that's exactly what he doesn't pay them (or more accurately what he doesn't pay the label or the owner of the copyright).
@@brokenrecord3095 If people are arguing for a bigger cut from Spotify, why the long route?
When I was sitting in front of the Neve console surrounded by millions of dollars in tube compressors and equalizers, I had no idea you could replace all of it in a few years with free software, but you literally can. A cheap computer, audio I/O device, and software like "Reaper' gives nearly anyone (yes, homeless peeing themselves in a pool of their own vomit are excluded) the opportunity to prove how much better they are than the artists and engineers of the 70s. Some people seem to shit gold no matter what they do, and others can pay all the dues in the world and nobody cares.
Ek isn't selling air, he's providing a platform where artists can determine whether anyone wants to listen to their output, and is splitting revenue with those who are generating streams. What that cut should be is worth debating, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the guy's tweet.