Musicians Increasingly Realizing That Streaming Services Are Actually A Really Good Thing

from the oh,-look-at-that... dept

For over four years now, we've been somewhat mystified by the hatred from some musicians and labels towards streaming services like Spotify. The general complaint seems to be that "it doesn't pay enough," but "enough" is often at ridiculously high standards. I've now seen three separate analyses that show that, on a per listener-per play basis, Spotify pays more than any other source. The problem, it often seems, is one of expectations. Part of it is simply that musicians seem to forget that their labels take a giant chunk of their earnings, and that the payments that eventually trickle down to musicians are often months or years late. Also, those doing the complaining often seem unable to comprehend that these services take time to grow, and as they grow, the payouts get bigger and bigger. But the biggest mistake of all seems to be the idea that not having your music where your fans want it is somehow a good idea. We've pointed out repeatedly that making music disappear from where people are looking for it only harms the musicians.

Furthermore, as we've seen over and over again, as these services get bigger and start to catch on, artist are realizing all sorts of ways they can profit from them. Two recent examples are quite handy. First up, we have independent musician Ron Pope (music here), who has written a fantastic piece for the Huffington Post about just how wonderful Spotify has been for his career.

My music was added to Spotify in September of 2010; through the most recent report, which runs through November 2013, I've had over 57 million plays and they've paid me out $334,636 with over $200,000 of that coming in 2013.

That seems quite a bit different than those stories you hear from some whiners, claiming that Spotify pays peanuts for each million plays or whatever.

But, even more important, is that Pope has noticed that it's not just about the money directly paid by Spotify. Instead, as many have suggested for years, Spotify makes his fans even more attached to him, opening up all sorts of other opportunities. For example, he describes how it opened doors to large shows -- where the fans are totally knowledgeable about his entire catalog:

I'm getting over a million streams in Sweden alone most months. As a result of this, I was offered a very respectable guarantee to play at the Bravalla festival there last summer, where singalongs like this happened during every song:

"One Grain of Sand" Sing-a-long at Bråvalla Festival in Sweden

I have an extensive catalog; Spotify allows fans to take in all of my music so that they can become a fan of me as an artist, rather than directing them to one particular single. That's why my Swedish fans are able to sing along to songs that are eight years old the same way they sing along to songs that are eight months old. With Spotify, it's not about a single; the fans can pour over my entire catalog and follow my journey from my first album all the way through to today.

Similarly, he notes that when he last played shows in Norway, he could only sell about 100 tickets. But there has been an explosion in people from Norway listening to his music on Spotify lately, so his upcoming show in Norway sold out of its 450 tickets three months in advance.

Of course, it's notable that, despite being an American, a lot of what he discusses is the money he's been making from Sweden and Norway -- two countries where Spotify is absolutely dominant. One could argue that he's lucky that folks in Scandanavia apparently really like him, but a better point might just be that once streaming services are really mainstream, there's plenty of money to be made by artists. Flipping out now in other countries, where streaming is just building up an audience, seems counterproductive in the extreme.

A second story, courtesy of TorrentFreak, is from another musician, Benn Jordan (music here), who wrote up a fascinating post suggesting other musicians get over the whole Spotify hate thing, because it's misplaced. He notes the same things that we've already noted above -- about bad contracts and the fact that Spotify is still really just getting started in the US and other places -- but also notes that Spotify is beginning to stand out as a significant revenue source for himself.

So just short of publicly divulging my income, I can tell you that Spotify has made me about 30% more than iTunes, Pandora, Amazon, Xbox Music, Google Play, eMusic, Rhapsody, Rdio, Deezer, MediaNet, Simky, Nokia, and Myspace Music combined in that period. Even if you tack on my checks from ASCAP to that long list, Spotify is still ahead.

I can tell you that Spotify alone, for the last 9 months or so, has paid for my rent in a 2 floor coach house with garage. But what is predictably notable, is that the numbers for Spotify are growing monthly, and have actually doubled from the first month to the last while sales on other platforms remained the same.

He also notes that people who really love his music now generate a lot more money for him -- since before they'd just buy an album, and he'd never be able to get more than the $7 from that album. But if they stream it over and over again, it can add up to much, much more.

Obviously, these are just two stories -- and we've heard stories from other musicians who still think that they're not getting "enough" from Spotify. However, as we see more musicians noticing that streaming revenue is increasing, it seems like a lot of the old premature kneejerk "hate" is likely to dissipate.