Music format discussion

[Gavras]

Streaming sites are only marginally better than illegal downloads, the royalties they pay artists is a pittance.

I much prefer to own a hard copy of something then record. Do not even use the free Amazon downloads that come with purchases as much prefer FLAC to mp3.

Still got quite a bit of old vinyl to get recorded and need a new stylus for the 78 rpm discs.

What about the lack of royalties musicians where from Vinyl or CD’s, that used to a regular moan in 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.

Lack of royalties, dodgy contracts have always been an issue.


it’s a pittance, they are struggling with living with streaming, how they put food on the table.

I mean look at poor old Ariana Grande.

Christmas came early for Ariana Grande who clocked up 5.7 billion streams on Spotify this year. That comes to a tidy figure of about A$36 million.9 Dec 2019

 

[Stephen M]

Not all artists make masses like that and yes most/all are ripped off but money earned from record deals is far better than that paid by streaming sites.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Not all artists make masses like that and yes most/all are ripped off but money earned from record deals is far better than that paid by streaming sites.

I totally agree. I tend to buy records from Bandcamp where I can, they regularly do waivers on their fees (which are far lower than other marketplaces in the first place) and all proceeds go to the artists.
During the pandemic a lot of artists have self released through Bandcamp to maximise the returns they get rather than going through their label.
They release small runs but at high cost, I’d much rather that though than them starving, without music I’d be lost!

 

[SpyderTracks]

Furthermore, with respect to Bandcamp, they've just launched a worldwide vinyl pressing service for the artists, so it's even easier - and hopefully cheaper - for them to get their stuff pressed to vinyl, bandcamp take care of all the shipping and cover printing etc...

Create Vinyl Records with Bandcamp | Bandcamp

It's a great step in the right direction. Bandcamp are quite literally just about surviving, they certainly aren't doing it for profit as they barely make any. I do get the impression they really really care about the artists and want to do everything they can to make releasing music easier and more profitable for them. We'll see how the quality stacks up, but I'm very hopeful we'll see smaller outfits releasing on vinyl whereas before it would have been out of their budget to put up the upfront fees to do so:

Bandcamp Will Make Vinyl Records For 10,000 Indie Artists - Rolling Stone

Bandcamp Vinyl Pressing Service Expands | Billboard

 

[Gavras]

Not all artists make masses like that and yes most/all are ripped off but money earned from record deals is far better than that paid by streaming sites.

Does streaming music (including YouTube) reduce or increase the number of people producing music?

So to get a record pressed, you nearly always needed a main or indie label to do it.

less people making more money versus more people making less.


now just say you increased it to 1p per stream, that would put some (a lot) of top 10 musicians up in the billions $?


The problem is there is no fair way to pay musicians.

it’s the grain of sand on a chess board thing.


the other bit is (like you tubers) a lot expect to get rich quick, buts it’s a mix of luck and hard work, mainly luck.


a lad that used to work for me works in a music / video studio and while he believes they needs to be a rethink on it.

These days you have more people able to make music that other people get to hear, than when you had to cut a disc, try and get on local radio etc.

I listen to a lot of new music (part of music club), there is a huge amount of it.

Far more than when I was growing up, and I was fairly involved in music listening when growing up, one mates sister was dating / engaged to bloke from Venom and another’s to guitarist from Tygers Pang tang.


the hard bit is getting more cash to those that do not hit 10 million streams and less to those that do... but at the same time keeping streaming services low cost for people to use and listen.

Ive got quite a few TB of music and could spend next year listening to it without buying anything new (if did not stream). That is another of the problems, people with TB’s of music and not bought anything new in last year or maybe 2 CD’s in last 2 years, they do even less for music industry.

 

[Stephen M]

I buy less than I used to purely because there is less around that appeals to me. Still probably get about 20 to 30 new cds or vinyls a year.

 

[Deleted member 41971]

With streaming it would be a good idea to rethink the algorithms so there not pushing people in a certain direction that benefits big popular artists, also below is info of how much streaming sites pay per stream, perhaps they could increase their rates or allowing consumers to for example choose a set amount of their subscription fee to one particular artist.

Streaming Royalties Calculator: What Your Streams Are Worth

Find out how much music streaming platforms pay artists, learn the factors that affect royalty payments & use our Music Streaming Royalties Calculator.

www.dittomusic.com