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Thom Yorke blasts Spotify
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/15/thom-yorke-spotify-twitter
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has pulled his solo songs and those with his group Atoms For Peace from music streaming service Spotify, complaining that "new artists get paid f*ck all with this model".
Yorke and producer Nigel Godrich took to Twitter to express their annoyance at the business model for new artists, and explain their reasoning.
"The numbers don't even add up for Spotify yet. But it's not about that. It's about establishing the model which will be extremely valuable," Godrich, whose production credits include albums for Radiohead and Paul McCartney, tweeted. "Meanwhile small labels and new artists can't even keep their lights on. It's just not right."
He continued: "Streaming suits [back] catalogue. But [it] cannot work as a way of supporting new artists' work. Spotify and the like either have to address that fact and change the model for new releases or else all new music producers should be bold and vote with their feet. [Streaming services] have no power without new music.
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As it is, if I were an artist I wouldn't want unlimited streaming. I would want it limited to a certain number of plays per user. The way some artists stream a new album free for a week before release (on a website or soundcloud etc.) is also a good idea imo. As streaming doesn't really pay I would only use it to allow people to preview the music for a limited time. If they don't pay for it after that they were probably never going to anyway.
They won't? So, King Charles, Beth Jeans Houghton, Taffy, The History of Apple Pie and The Lovely Eggs, for example - all of whom I discovered on Spotify - won't get paid? Well, that doesn't seem right at all. I've bought all their CDs and gone to see them live and they're not getting any of my money?! That's a scandal! Where the hell is it going?!
Streaming for a limited time as a try before you buy makes sense. I'm pretty sure it's the business model of unlimited streaming with a tiny amount given to artists that Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich aren't happy with.
You buy a track off itunes, you play it hundereds of time but the artist only get's money for the single time you bought it, where if you play that track hundreds of times of spotify they earn money for everytime you play it, but they should probably earn more
Wow, those are some great/random band names.
PIAS have their own spotify app and I think Warners and Domino both have one as well
Yeah. Most artists signed to major labels are told not to advertise Spotify on things like Twitter, etc, because the royalty rates are so low. They always link to iTunes because they make more money out of that.
But I'm not surprised Spotify has taken off, it's not a great deal for the artist, but it's a great deal for normal people. To legally download all the songs I like, it would've cost me hundreds and hundreds a year. I don't have that money, especially as a child, when you rely on your parents for money. It was a huge struggle to get just a few pounds from my parents most of the time, and it's the same with a lot of children, how on Earth can they download music legally, if they get such a limited amount of money from their parents each month, which they'd prefer to save up for a new video game, or use to go to the cinema with their friends.
But my Spotify subscription is £5 a month (because I'm a student). I can afford that.
YouTube used to only pay $1,000(£662.08) for a million views a few years back. Since the US official chart counts streaming now, Spotify is doing more favors for artists than not. Personally, I like Pandora better since I don't have to pay in order to use the mobile version, unlike Spotify.
I suppose that many artists don't actually have a choice and once the labels see that they can make money by taking a nice chunk of the pie then it was always going to thrive.
As always with these arguments it's a matter of fairness towards all artists. Most people will look at how well the top selling artists are doing and how things like this doesn't really affect them and so think it can't be a much of a problem. For most artists millions of streams is pie in the sky stuff so getting paid fairly for the much smaller amounts they generate is much more important for them.
To be fair, that's a bit different, in that R1 pays per play, not per listener. So they pay about £60 every time they play something to the PRS, which is split between the record company, writers and artists.
The £60 per million listens is a bit misleading if millions of people are listening when its played, which isn't the case with Spotify.
But then it cuts both ways.
As someone who prefers to own CDs rather than stream music i have discovered a lot of bands through Spotify that I would have never have heard of without Spotify and, as a consequence, purchased their CDs.
Devin Townsend, Clutch, Airbourne, Gogol Bordello (well december), Steel Panther are a handful of artists Ive spent money on, and they probably have received a lot more that they would had i just bought a crappy cd.
So if Thom Yorke wants to cut his nose of to spite his face thats up to him, most other bands probably appreciate the indirect promotion.