Tension Is Building Between Spotify and the Music Industry

[boscy]

September 5, 2018

The Tension Is Building Between Spotify and the Music Industry
By Lucas Shaw

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/tension-builds-between-spotify-music-industry-in-war-of-wills

Marc Cimino is frustrated. The Universal Music Publishing executive oversees one of the largest song catalogs in the world, collecting royalties for Nicki Minaj, Adele and Justin Bieber.

Since songwriters have long complained about how little they make, Cimino is accustomed to arguing for more money. But Spotify Technology SA, the world’s largest paid online music service, is testing his patience.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Tale as old as time...

[Au$tin]

It's always funny to me how Spotify always gets the brunt of this discussion when Apple Music barely pays more and YouTube pays way less. Google Play does't pay all that much more than Spotify either. It really seems to just be the standard for streaming services outside of Tidal, which isn't exactly thriving.

[jenglisbe]

Spotify pushes an Uber-like model for independent artists
When Spotify pursues Uber’s tactics—convincing independent artists to become “free agents” by working directly with streaming services—our alarm bells should sound. It means that streaming services have absorbed and rebranded the platform economy’s diabolical approach to labor, selling it back to financially compromised artist-workers whose lack of power companies like Uber were first designed to exploit.

[wayneashleymusic]

Oct 1, 2018 14:17:12 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Spotify pushes an Uber-like model for independent artists
When Spotify pursues Uber’s tactics—convincing independent artists to become “free agents” by working directly with streaming services—our alarm bells should sound. It means that streaming services have absorbed and rebranded the platform economy’s diabolical approach to labor, selling it back to financially compromised artist-workers whose lack of power companies like Uber were first designed to exploit.

To quote Ms. Jackson... What Have "You" (The Music Industry) Done For "Me" (Artists) Lately??



It ain't A&R... the industry would much rather sign artists that already have "everything together" and then just left to develop themselves. Recent evidence suggests that the days of truly investing in raw talent have long passed.



It ain't supporting artists for calculated and comprehensive promo tours. Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey are legends with tons of mega-hits, but they didn't get there alone. People were out there constantly working to make sure their singles were in everyone's hands, and that all the tickets to their tours got sold. Instead, artists are expected to figure how to recruit their own fans, and in a lot of cases create their own promo strategy.  

Of course these are general comments, but I think it's disingenuous to assign all the blame on streaming services simply because they see an opportunity to help artists.  It's a vacuum the industry created for itself by abandoning the practices which made it.  

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Exactly. If you watch any videoes of up and coming artists on YouTube who are trying to break into the industry, they'll say themselves that the labels aren't interested unless you can already show a certain level of fan engagement with your content. They aren't interested in developing talent anymore, they just want in on the monetization