Lately I consume my music almost entirely via Spotify, and its increasingly apparent that there are a number of artists I love who are not a part of their catalog. As a consumer its frustrating, but then again I'm using the free service...<p>I really wonder what the future holds for cloud based entertainment in this regard. I now consume all entertainment via cloud services and Netflix / Hulu etc have very similar if not worse problems when it comes to movie and TV catalogs. You'd think that now we're several years into it that these problems would have ironed themselves out by now, but it seems to be getting worse. For the consumers we're all just screwed
Musician, Spotify user, and Radiohead fan here. Spotify fulfills my dream of working in a record store so I can spend all day discovering music. This argument is behind the scenes paperwork between the service and the content owners. They should figure it out without bothering me the end user. If they can't, then they're both at fault.
Boilerplate response. One would think that they would want to nip this in the but. At least cite some specifics, there are clearly lots out there...<p><i>Writing or speaking about streaming music screwing artists? Read these articles first</i>
<a href="http://musically.com/2013/02/13/streaming-music-screwing-artists/" rel="nofollow">http://musically.com/2013/02/13/streaming-music-screwing-art...</a>
Its kind of the same problem like pirating video games for example.<p>People dont pirate games they really want to have, they pirate those they wouldnt be buying anyway..most atleast.<p>For music its the same for me.. I might listen to the Radiohead stuff on spotify (which i pay for). But would i pay for it if they take it away ? No.
What is the inherent value of a listen (as in, of a song)? I assume the music industry has been trying to prop that up but with the democratization of musical content creation that price has to have been driven down. I've heard new music from new bands that I wouldn't have had a chance to in the 90's.<p>There are so many songs to listen to on Spotify that I can generally find something to listen to nowadays. If some artist I like withholds their catalog that does hurt me initially. I adapt and move on and listen to something else. Their loss.
It's an ironic fact of history that the easier it has become to be an artist the more entitled these artists feel like.<p>Everyone else is forced to change their business models to just make a reasonable amount of money but somehow musicians feel like they should be exempt from this phenomena.<p>The reality is that it has never been easier to make money, just not as many as you used to. The people they should complain to is the record labels not Spotify. They are the ones taking the big cuts without providing any value.<p>Spotify is fundamentally a radio station with a few fundamental diferences.<p>So welcome to the digital economy. It's not easy but at least you can make money performing. A luxury most other in this economy don't have.
Whilst I don't see this being resolved any time soon, the whole thing is getting a little stale. It's the major record labels and the artists who've had (often big) pre Internet successes that are complaining the loudest.<p>Things change (for some better, for some worse) - but you have to adapt and get on with it. Artists are still making (and enjoying making) music and labels are still releasing music. The ones that go the furthest are the ones that embrace the situation, take advantage of it and work towards making the most of it.<p>Hell, a lot of the younger artists and labels don't know any different.
I have to respect Thom Yorke's decision. These services only have their own profit in mind and do not come even close to fairly compensating artists. Thom's work is pretty niche to begin with and he probably doesn't see more than a few hundred dollars a month from streaming. For the number of plays he gets, this is probably not worth his time. Plus, hipsters love it when their bands turn down mainstream services. Makes them edgy and exclusive. This is a good business move for them
I pretty much exclusively use Spotify to listen to music. It's incredibly convenient. I love it.<p>It annoys me when artists decide not to participate. With Radiohead I at least 'kinda get it' in that their new album is a pay-your-price album, so sure whatever, fine. But for example, Taylor Swift's Red album is not there. What does she want me to do? Buy it on iTunes?? No thanks. If anything, it might make me want to pirate it.<p>What Spotify <i>should</i> do for these cases is what Xbox Music already does. If the song is not available for free (a-la Radiohead, or Taylor Swift) then you can purchase it just like on iTunes. Except that you get the benefit that it acts like any other song on their free catalog (syncing playlists etc. etc. etc.)<p>The only problem I see with this is that if it becomes an option, what would make an artist want to go the free route rather than the "pay to have" route? Then again, Xbox Music seems to be doing fine. Everything that is free on Spotify is free on Xbox Music (+ some others) and then Xbox Music gets the advantage in that many songs which just are not on Spotify are at least able to be purchased for ~1 dollar on Xbox Music.
This is not new. Spotify have been screwing artists for a long time.<p>"Got paid £8 for 90,000 plays. Fuck spotify."
<a href="https://twitter.com/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Jon_Hopkins_/status/137147753829646336</a>
Spotfiy et. al need to evolve to cut out the middle man. Just as app developers can publish directly into the App Store, musicians need to own their work and publish it directly to different marketplaces.