The Fan, The Musician And Streaming Music...A reflection.

"Whenever you listen to a streamed song, like it but don't buy it and instead stream it again, you are casting a vote for the future nonexistence of professional musicians, writes Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith." (Chau, 2018)

While there are many definitions of who is a fan accompanied by just as many actions, one thing fans all share is we want our favourites to keep on doing what they do best, so they make a comfortable living and are happy professionally and personally and we can enjoy the results of their labour.

I was reminded recently that some people who call themselves fans of particular artists, musicians and groups find it acceptable to listen to music only via music streaming services. These fans seem to find it acceptable that they do not pay for albums and be rewarded for listening to Spotify and other streaming services in which their favourites get little income for their music.

Maybe I am just old school, but I don't really care how much money any of my favourite artists and musicians make, I want to pay them for their services whether they be television shows, movies, books, albums, concerts or merchandise. And that is we have to pay them for their creative services we enjoy at a fair price. Nothing we wouldn't want from our own working lives.

It is well documented artists and musicians are finding it more and more difficult to make a living in the digital age including competing not only with illegal means like music piracy and bootlegging, but also the legal means such as music streaming services and other content streaming services.

I don't support music streaming or any kind of streaming because I don't like paying for content I don't own outright. I don't know anything about music steaming services except they pay artists and musicians next to nothing for their content.

So I went in search of how much money do music streaming services like Spotify pay artists and musicians.

The first article I found 'Spotify sued for $2b in copyright infringement lawsuit' by David Chau published on 3 January, 2018 at abc.net.au is an excellent article that provides an overview of the recent copyright infringement lawsuit brought against Spotify. The article describes how Spotify was being sued for not getting some of the correct licenses and not paying artists and musicians any compensation at all.

The second article I found 'What Do The Major Streaming Services Pay Per Stream?' by Hugh McIntyre published on the 27 July, 2017 at forbes.com is also an excellent article that outlines the difficulties in collecting reliable data on how much each of the music streaming service pays artists and musicians. Spotify, Pandora and YouTube were at the bottom of the list with the lowest rates. Spotify paid $0.0038 US per stream.

I have copied the two articles here for interested fans. No copyright infringement intended.

'Spotify sued for $2b in copyright infringement lawsuit' by David Chau published on 3 January, 2018 at abc.net.au below. (No copyright infringement intended).

Music streaming company Spotify has been sued for at least $US1.6 billion ($2 billion) for copyright infringement.

California-based Wixen Music Publishing alleges 10,784 of its songs were streamed or downloaded "billions of times" via Spotify's app — without a licence or compensation being paid to the music publisher.

Wixen describes itself as an independent publisher which "administers" more than 50,000 songs by "some of the most popular and acclaimed music artists of the last 100 years".

It is the exclusive licensee of songs by artists like Tom Petty, Neil Young, Janis Joplin and the Doors.

"While Spotify has become a multi-billion-dollar company, songwriters and their publishers, such as Wixen, have not been able to fairly and rightfully shares in Spotify's success," Wixen stated in documents filed at the United States District Court.

Spotify, which is planning a stock market listing this year, claims to have over 140 million active users and more than 30 million songs in its playlists.

Despite rapid growth in users and revenue, Spotify is not making a profit, primarily because of large licensing payments to record labels.

The Stockholm-based music company said it has paid $US5 billion ($6.4 billion) in revenue to music rightsholders (as of September 2016).

But Spotify "took a shortcut" to win the "race to be first to market", according to Wixen.

"In 2011, Spotify faced a choice to either obtain all the required rights to the songs and significantly delay its US launch, or move forward without proper licenses and face the legal ramifications later," the publisher stated.

"As a result, Spotify has built a billion dollar business on the backs of songwriters and publishers whose music Spotify is using, in many cases without obtaining and paying for the necessary licenses."

In May, Spotify agreed to pay more than $US43 million ($55 million) to settle a class action from a group of American songwriters including David Lowery and Melissa Ferrick — who alleged the company failed to pay them royalties.

But Wixen has criticised that settlement for being "grossly insufficient to compensate songwriters and publishers for Spotify's actions".

Spotify has declined to comment.



'What Do The Major Streaming Services Pay Per Stream?' by Hugh McIntyre published on 27 July, 2017 at forbes.com.

While streaming has completely taken over the music industry, that doesn’t mean all is going well for everyone involved. In fact, nobody seems to be making quite enough money from the growing format, and almost all of the businesses trying to survive are losing incredible amounts of cash. It’s a rough game to be in, and it can be especially difficult for up-and-coming musicians trying to making a living off of their art.

The discussion of how much each service pays per stream is a tricky one for a number of reasons. Many companies won’t release exact numbers and several artists have come forward to share their payouts, which sometimes conflict with what others have stated—but no matter the company or the reason, every firm has an extremely low payout scale that only adds up to a liveable wage if the artist or band is attracting some serious attention.

Data collection and visualization blog Information Is Beautiful has updated its infographic outlining what the most popular streaming services pay per stream to reflect some changes, using a number of sources to compile the data. These numbers probably aren’t perfect, and the actual amount artists earn from streaming sites can vary widely, but these figures can give some insight to those that may not have any idea what even the most popular streaming outlets are paying.

Coming in a somewhat surprising first place is Napster, which was the brand that helped usher in the era of people stealing music en masse online. The company merged with streaming platform Rhapsody a few years back, and eventually, the latter name was discarded in favor of Napster, which was already a legitimate streaming platform in some territories around the world by that time. That company pays $0.0167 per play, and if that sounds like it’s too small to matter to anyone, the numbers only drop from there.

Jay-Z-owned platform Tidal is the second-best for artists according to the report, which states that the relative newcomer to the scene is one of only two options that pay, on average, at least one penny for every stream. The rest of the streaming sites included in the roundup all offer only fractions of cents for the music millions are listening to.

The three most popular options in the world of streaming—Spotify, Pandora and YouTube—are at the bottom of the list with the lowest rates, though artists often see their music played on those sites far more often than on platforms like Tidal or Napster, which haven’t yet been able to rack up the same kind of user numbers as the largest in the industry.

Here are the estimated payout rates per stream for eight of the most-used streaming companies in music, according to Information is Beautiful.

Napster - $0.0167

Tidal - $0.0110

Apple Music - $0.0064

Google Play - $0.0059

Deezer - $0.0056

Spotify - $0.0038

Pandora - $0.0011

YouTube - $0.0006