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Another Person posted:Yeah, the artist is supposedly the one that suffers. I've read reports of them getting back pennies on the pound for thousands and thousands of streams You know, I hate this argument by the artists. It's a new concept. Why does "thousands and thousands" of streams mean anything monetarily? Are we trying to equate those with purchases? How many streams equals a ONE DOLLLAR track sale? Nobody's really done a good job of quantifying, because Spotify seems to think it's in their best interest to be completely opaque about performance and payments. If we'd see a figure that says 210,000 streams is absolutely nothing and should be paid accordingly, despite that number being massive to someone with no idea of the actual scale of the service, maybe the conversation would be different. Instead we think 'a million streams is a lot' when the new Jay Z or whatever gets a hundred million streams in the same time period. Some artists are getting a false sense of popularity I think. Spotify's not profitable, but artists are already demanding more than what they're getting so it's all going to go to poo poo unless Spotify grows up and offers some transparency to what they're doing, so that artists can be educated and not rail against the service if they're really doing all they can to give as much back to the artists as possible in a decently fair way. edit: also to stay profitable they use your client as a p2p server for your tracks to other people, hope that helps. It sure helps spotify.
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Aug 4, 2013 18:51
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E: ^^^ I agree with you entirely, Telex. I was just posting what I had gathered from the reports I'd read.^^^precision posted:There are also artists that do like it because it's better than nothing. By that I mean, pennies on the pound is much better than literally nothing, which these days is what a very large number of people are willing to pay for music. Even the biggest fans of bands are always downloading the album leak instead of waiting for the release and buying it. Yeah, I have the same feeling about it which makes me feel conflicted about the likes of Thom Yorke leading a coup over it. Aside from the pennies paid per the thousand listens compared to the nothing they receive from a torrent, there are a lot of artists who I would never have known had it not been for Spotify. These days I follow IDM and regularly listen to artists within the genre, whilst also pursuing many other genres with a lesser, but still strong interest. I don't read music journalism (lol its poo poo) and only in the past year and a half have taken a real interest in following it on here with any dedication. The only way I got into these genres is through Spotify, as many artists inside my current genres find no mainstream commercial attention. The 'Related Artists' column has probably had the single biggest impact on my listening habits in the past three or four years, as that was the only means I had to get exposed to them. They weren't local, they typically are not popular and in many cases are not even current. Spotify is the single straightest path to finding new music for me. As such, while I understand Yorke gripes with the service, I am also annoyed with him somewhat. He doesn't need the attention that smaller artists receive from Spotify and really, he never did. Major label, MTV and mainstream radio attention, 22 on the charts and platinum soon after. That is just for Pablo Honey. There are artists who are well into their career with strong material consisting of multiple albums and EPs who for whatever reason, be it circumstance or a personal choice, do not get that attention they might deserve for their creative abilities. Another Person fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Aug 4, 2013 |
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Aug 4, 2013 18:55
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Another Person posted:Yeah, I have the same feeling about it which makes me feel conflicted about the likes of Thom Yorke leading a coup over it. Aside from the pennies paid per the thousand listens compared to the nothing they receive from a torrent, there are a lot of artists who I would never have known had it not been for Spotify. These days I follow IDM and regularly listen to artists within the genre, whilst also pursuing many other genres with a lesser, but still strong interest. I don't know your experience with the software has gone, but mine always recommends the dumbest loving most mainstream stuff and has been totally useless for discovery. that's really the argument. It's a way to avoid buying music for pennies on the dollar and also avoids noticing any new music at all if you're not actively going to find it on purpose. The whole thing probably needs a revamp conceptually, otherwise I don't see Spotify or the rest sticking around since there's nothing in it for the artists that need it.
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Aug 4, 2013 19:23
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precision posted:I need some more long awesome playlists. Someone post their Starred Tracks? Here's mine. A lot of drone/black metal/weird poo poo. http://open.spotify.com/user/cosmicnavel/starred
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Aug 4, 2013 19:25
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Yeah I'll probably keep my last.fm subscription active for finding new music since it's been great for that.
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Aug 4, 2013 19:27
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Telex posted:You know, I hate this argument by the artists. If we use the comparison of radio streams, then spotify is actually an excellent deal. The issue is that stream numbers are low, so the absolute value the artists get is lower than radio. On a per listen basis, spotify absolutely crushes radio--however on a per-play basis, radio is king (Since it reaches so many more people/play) See: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/17/spotify-royalties-appear-to-be-awfully-high-despite-what-thom-yorke-says/ Spotify apparently pays out 16x more than the best of radio systems, and that's if you can get radio spins. For the tiny bands it's very unlikely you'll get anything from radio. And Thom Yorke turned around and started a competing service: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...eaming-service/ Malcolm XML fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Aug 4, 2013 |
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Aug 4, 2013 20:17
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Malcolm XML posted:Spotify apparently pays out 16x more than the best of radio systems, and that's if you can get radio spins. For the tiny bands it's very unlikely you'll get anything from radio. in America, artists get absolutely nothing for normal radio. (XM/Sirius is a different story as it's a subscription service thing). I understand it's different elsewhere, but not here.
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Aug 4, 2013 20:31
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Malcolm XML posted:And Thom Yorke turned around and started a competing service: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timwors...eaming-service/ That thing doesn't compare to spotify at all really. The shows are overpriced and under quality for what they're offering. (the Forbes guy makes a poo poo comparison IMO) Their credit card system actually got my account flagged for CC theft, so that's fun. They sell live shows, but they're absolute poo poo at what they do and don't appear to have bothered even figuring out what other people are actually paying for from other sites, how much the other sites charge and attempting to come up to that level of quality. You get m4a files, so gently caress that. You don't get FLAC, so gently caress that. The files aren't even uncut, so you're getting clips of a show, not an entire show in a seamless set of files. The files themselves are un-numbered and you can't just download the whole show at once so it's a pain to even bother. It's a very half-assed operation so far. I can pay $12 and get a full, unedited FLAC show from Pearl Jam, or $15 from these guys for a decent quality but chopped and lovely format show? Nah. Not even gonna go back.
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Aug 4, 2013 20:42
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I absolutely agree with the whole discovering new artists thing. As much music as I listen to (Last.fm says I've scrobbled over 1,000 unique artists, and that's not counting what has to be another thousand bands I've never listened to on my computer  ) I still find lots of new artists on Spotify.Bottom line it's a great service and I hope they find a way to make everyone happy.
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Aug 4, 2013 21:11
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Telex posted:in America, artists get absolutely nothing for normal radio. (XM/Sirius is a different story as it's a subscription service thing). I understand it's different elsewhere, but not here. This makes spotify even better by comparison so I really dont get why he's bitching unless he's really that dense and can't understand how his own contracts work
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Aug 4, 2013 21:13
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Telex posted:I don't know your experience with the software has gone, but mine always recommends the dumbest loving most mainstream stuff and has been totally useless for discovery. I do use it to find new music with purpose, and I find it works pretty well for doing that. You just click the recommended names that you don't recognise. It does me well for that. Once you break past the mainstream artists within a genre, you will find less and less recommendations that take you back to the tip of the iceberg, or so I find.
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Aug 4, 2013 21:28
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edit: ^^^^ Related Artists also often leads you to things you wouldn't normally look at, especially with smaller bands.Malcolm XML posted:This makes spotify even better by comparison so I really dont get why he's bitching unless he's really that dense and can't understand how his own contracts work The really great thing is how college radio works. Without getting into a big FCC derailment, artists get even less from college radio airplay - in fact they get exactly nothing at all - and college stations can play tracks that commercial stations literally can't. And guess who's most likely to play Radiohead in the current radio climate? Haha. Thom Yorke, I like your music but you are a silly man.
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Aug 4, 2013 22:09
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Does anyone know what bitrate comes through on the Roku channel?
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Aug 8, 2013 00:40
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me your dad posted:Does anyone know what bitrate comes through on the Roku channel? Like negative a million, my roku always shits out on me v  v
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Aug 8, 2013 08:38
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Yeeeesss, looks like a way to "collect" your favorite albums is finally coming to Spotify: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Please-restore-View-as-Album-List-feature/idi-p/368022quote:Hello everyone! Spotify here. After much deliberating, we don't have plans to add back the CMD+G feature at this time. We know the album artwork view in playlists was a nifty trick. However, we're working on some cool improvements in our upcoming Collection product which we think everyone here will like. We'll post here as soon as we have an update. Stay tuned
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Aug 9, 2013 11:25
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They've announced that last December. They have been "working on it" ever since. You'll probably have to wait another year for it.
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Aug 9, 2013 22:47
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Considering I use Spotify pretty much nonstop whenever I'm online - which is, at minimum, 40-50 hours a week since I'm online at work close enough to 100% of the time as makes no difference - I've often wondered if the $5 a month I'm giving them is functionally doing more good than listening to ads would be. Considering my level of use, I think I wouldn't mind at all paying $20/month for the service. Cable television costs a lot more than that and gives access to a lot less of value to me. Are people really so used to "free music" that they feel like they have to set the bar at $5 for Unlimited? Would people really balk if they had set it at $10 for Unlimited and $15 for Premium, for example? I'm just thinking they may have shot themselves in the foot when they rolled out the price in the first place and now they "can't" raise the price. I'd really hate for the service to go away. It's actually pretty crazy how much music it gives you access to if you were to compare it to something like Netflix - almost every new album I want to listen to gets put on Spotify, whereas Netflix is lucky to have a show or movie I watched 2 years ago available.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:34
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I agree. It should cost more, but they already started charging at the current price. People would throw a fit if it suddenly went up. Really, they also need a new tier to charge (logically, $15) for as well, but I cannot think of what that tier would get you. They kind of need to if they plan to continue working. Maybe split Premium up into other things. Another Person fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Aug 12, 2013 |
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Aug 12, 2013 20:22
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I wouldn't mind paying an extra $10/mo if 100% of that went to the artists I listened to in that month on a pro-rated basis. But then you'd end up with squabbles over who's been in a band for how long and their contribution and that leads to management and we're back to this bullshit
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Aug 12, 2013 20:39
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Something like a "benefactor level" which gives you access to a few minor new features and has a built-in clause about how the extra money you're paying goes entirely to keeping labels/artists happy would, I think, actually be pretty effective. We're in the age of people throwing extra money at Kickstarters because they "believe", it doesn't seem to me that odd to have some kind of "Gold level" subscription where they basically say "This level is for people who want to help us not fail and support the musicians more".
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Aug 12, 2013 21:36
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precision posted:Considering I use Spotify pretty much nonstop whenever I'm online - which is, at minimum, 40-50 hours a week since I'm online at work close enough to 100% of the time as makes no difference - I've often wondered if the $5 a month I'm giving them is functionally doing more good than listening to ads would be. Considering my level of use, I think I wouldn't mind at all paying $20/month for the service. Cable television costs a lot more than that and gives access to a lot less of value to me. Are people really so used to "free music" that they feel like they have to set the bar at $5 for Unlimited? Would people really balk if they had set it at $10 for Unlimited and $15 for Premium, for example? I think you're grossly overestimating how much online advertisements pay out. Even if you use the service 24/7/365 (and you can't because there's a 10 hour limit to free accounts), Spotify would be lucky to get $2/month out of all the adverts you listen to. This probably won't be enough to satisfy the demands of the labels for the music you listened to in the meantime (hence the time limit on free accounts). [Edit] In fact, back-of-a-napkin calculation time: Assume you get two adverts every 20 minutes, which works out at 144 adverts per day of constant use, or 4320 per 30 day month. Let's say the rate is $10/1000 views, which works out at a theoretical maximum of $43.20/month. Welp, looks like my assumptions were wrong. But what about the limits? Well, 10 hours would result in 60 adverts, which at the same rate would mean that a free user would generate $0.6/month. In the quoted example, 50 hours a week over four weeks would be 1200 adverts, which would be $12/month. Of course, the question which should be asked is "would this be enough to cover the licensing costs of the music listened to at this time?" Let's assume that the royalty rate for a single track is half a cent per stream, and that you can fit in 12 tracks per hour, including adverts. For the free trial, that would work out at $0.6/month, for the 50 hrs/week scenario that would work out at $12/month, and for the 24/7/365 scenario that would be $43.20/month. No wonder Spotify isn't making any money. Delusibeta fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Aug 13, 2013 |
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Aug 13, 2013 18:31
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There's no limit on streaming Free Spotify in the US. I streamed something like 300 hours when I forgot to pay a couple months ago.
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Aug 13, 2013 19:45
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precision posted:There's no limit on streaming Free Spotify in the US. I streamed something like 300 hours when I forgot to pay a couple months ago. Bah humbug, it's restricted to the point of uselessness over here (you can only play each track a maximum of five times on a free account, for example).
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Aug 13, 2013 21:18
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I was under the impression they removed that five times limit when they chopped the amount of free music you can listen to on a weekly basis in half. Or maybe they just reset the limits whenever your account switches between free-paid and back.
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Aug 13, 2013 21:25
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The people who jumped on the Spotify bandwagon for advertising dollars are weird, too. I remember hearing nothing but ads for Advance Auto Parts (I don't even own a car anymore, don't even need to where I live) and Planter's Peanuts (which are admittedly tasty). Oh, and McDonald's.
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Aug 13, 2013 21:30
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Another Person posted:Really, they also need a new tier to charge (logically, $15) for as well, but I cannot think of what that tier would get you. They kind of need to if they plan to continue working. Maybe split Premium up into other things. 15€ for a Family Plan, I would like that.
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Aug 14, 2013 08:12
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I would pay €15 if they made their Android app as good as Rdio's is. And get something like Rdio's Collection tab, but i guess the last one is in the works. Until then im sticking with Rdio, although i do miss Spotify's apps.
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Aug 14, 2013 08:18
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One bizarrely specific problem I've had with Spotify is that it absolutely refuses to play the song Neon Falls by Drexciya, no matter what I do, update/revert to an older version, anything. It's not even about licensing because the track is available and the rest of the collection it's on plays normally. Has anyone encountered something like this?
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Aug 16, 2013 11:49
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Torka posted:I just got into Spotify Premium and it's great but I don't understand how it's profitable for anyone at the price they're charging me. Spotify pays out the majority (approaching 70%) of ALL of our revenue (advertising and subscription fees) to rights holders: artists, labels, publishers, and performing rights societies (e.g. ASCAP, BMI, etc.). In just three years since launching, Spotify has paid out over 500M USD in royalties. Spotify has direct agreements with record labels, digital distributors, aggregators and publisher collecting societies, to whom we regularly pay royalties, and who then pay recording artists and songwriters according to their specific contractual agreements. These agreements are subject to strict confidentiality requirements, but we recommend that artists reach out to their distributors to better understand the specific economics that apply to them. In general, however, Spotify pays royalties in relation to an artist's popularity on the service. For example, we will pay out approximately 2% of our gross royalties for an artist whose music represents approximately 2% of what our users stream. A popular song or album can generate far more revenue for an artist over time than it historically would have from upfront unit sales. In just three years since launching in select countries, we’ve already paid out royalties of more than $500 million USD. These royalty payouts are growing dramatically each year, reflecting our rapidly increasing popularity. (read more...)
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Aug 16, 2013 16:09
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Is there an explanation somewhere as to why their radio is so terrible at adapting? I know I've read complaints here a dozen times over already for this exact issue, but it's infuriating when I thumbs-down the same artist repeatedly and they keep coming up.
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Aug 17, 2013 02:30
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Admin Understudy posted:Is there an explanation somewhere as to why their radio is so terrible at adapting? I know I've read complaints here a dozen times over already for this exact issue, but it's infuriating when I thumbs-down the same artist repeatedly and they keep coming up. Last.fm had the same exact issue so I'm assuming the answer is that writing truly good algorithms is hard.
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Aug 17, 2013 04:06
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Has the downloadable client been crashing for anyone else? A few days ago I installed an EQ plugin, and it began crashing very frequently. I removed the .dll for the plugin, but it didn't reflect in the client that it had been removed. This morning I uninstalled the client and reinstalled but I'm still getting crashes.
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Sep 16, 2013 15:53
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I'm still waiting on a way to delete radio stations.
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Sep 16, 2013 16:01
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I really want them to add in a feature to the browser based version that allows you to move tracks around on playlists. You can add to playlists, but now move them up and down the playlist, which doesn't make sense.
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Sep 19, 2013 21:53
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Hoping they update the iOS app soon so it'll fit better in with the new design. Well, I guess the design is the least of the problems with the app, but you know...
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Sep 20, 2013 07:54
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Another Person posted:I really want them to add in a feature to the browser based version that allows you to move tracks around on playlists. You can add to playlists, but now move them up and down the playlist, which doesn't make sense.
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Sep 20, 2013 08:22
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My favorite thing is when you make a playlist of local files, and it sometimes decides to download their version instead of the one you put on there. I had to rename a couple of tracks after I bought Blast Tyrant, because Spotify insisted on using the live versions it had. The album name and song length were both different, it was only the artist and song title that matched, but it just would not stop clobbering my files. I like the service other than that, though. The app has some problems, but it's basically the only way I listen to music in the car anymore.
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Sep 20, 2013 14:25
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I find that listening to ambient music helps me concentrate at work. At the moment I'm listening to The Social Network OST and the Mass Effect OST, but during a 9-10 hour shift they get a bit stale on repeat. I'm looking for music with no lyrics, something fairly upbeat and modern. Does anyone have any playlists they listen to or perhaps recommendations?
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Sep 30, 2013 11:43
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Some I have from this subforum... https://play.spotify.com/user/mmd3/playlist/4xMCwePRXs9pqyJkCkDKiY https://play.spotify.com/user/moscowcentre/playlist/5vHRRCIC9vd0ZLEhgH61An E: Not too sure about upbeat, though. E: Some other good stuff... Moon Soundtrack https://play.spotify.com/album/0ux9vxJhJoFKaD66UH3160 Deus Ex Soundtrack https://play.spotify.com/album/4LuVQCHTgUZjuWgUQ7lQbl Another Person fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Sep 30, 2013 |
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Sep 30, 2013 11:51
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Another Person posted:Some I have from this subforum... That's great thanks dude 
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Sep 30, 2013 12:46
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