Think Taylor Swift was dumb taking her music off Spotify? I think not.
According to analytics firm OpenSlate, who estimate YouTube earnings using a formula including total monthly views and subscriptions, Swift and company earned $4,110,788.52 based on 341711430 monthly views on her Vevo channel. Her new release “Blank Spaces” had over 250 million views.
Basically, Spotify is EVIL.
The Hypebot had a link and analysis of an article David Byrne wrote for The Guardian. It is depressing, and really makes me apathetic to the whole “piracy” question. Spotify is obviously NOT paying artists, but rather the “middle man”.
“The amounts these services pay per stream is miniscule…The major record labels usually siphon off most of this income, and then they dribble about 15-20% of what’s left down to their artists. Indie labels are often a lot fairer – sometimes sharing the income 50/50.”
It’s laughable how much these streaming services pay artists. (They DON’T PAY…..One Million Pandora Plays = $16.89)
I think a better model is needed. I think Apple’s new iTunes Radio is a step in the right direction. If you hear something, you can buy it right there. Boom. And way more profit comes from the SALE of music rather than the streaming of it. I imagine that the labels are still raping artists on iTunes Radio, but for people who have put their own music on there, the chance of getting purchases off of people using iTunes Radio seems quite a bit more likely than off of Pandora or Spotify.
Do we really need these middle men anymore??
Today, Apple released a BUNCH of stuff, including iTunes 11.1 with iTunes Radio. Now, a lot of you will say “big deal, we have had Spotify and Pandora for years. And that is true, these have been around for years……
But sit down Johnny. Have a juice box. iTunes Radio actually is good. I’ve NEVER liked Pandora’s “jazz” selection. Spending a few hours this morning with iTunes Radio’s stations, there are tons of jazz stations. And they play good stuff. AND it is brain dead simple to buy the song, or even tell it that you LIKE stuff like what is playing. AND there is a great little history thing that tells you what you’ve listened to (completely listened to, which I think should be changed to have everything you’ve listened to and the percentage of the song you listened to…..so maybe you can go back and listen again).
The cost of this? FREE…..plus an occasional ad. Though if you subscribe to iTunes Match ($24 a year) there are NO ads.
Oh, and the Radio stations sync to ALL your Apple Devices (iOS 7 needs to be on them). So if you have 3 Macs, and 3 iOS 7 devices, whatever stations you add show up on them. Pretty cool.
So go download the new iTunes, and try the Radio. It’s really good.