Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says working musicians can no longer release music only “once every three to four years.” Spotify's stock value hit all-time highs of $50 billion this summer.

[ignatius]

1 hour ago, Shimon_Shimon said:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/23/22295315/spotify-ceo-interview-podcast-daniel-ek-music-stream-on

 

 

for some reason this scene popped into my mind when reading that interview

 

[auxien]

Quote

So the number of people that, from the beginning, said, “I’m never, ever going to pay for music,” because they may have come from a pirate environment that then slowly turned into, “This is just an amazing service. I’m getting so much value out of this. It’s a no-brainer to start paying.’”

of course the thing is that those people are still not paying for music. they're paying for Spotify, who isn't actually paying musicians fuck all.

just want to make sure everyone gets a good look at this dork: 

 

[Braintree]

[ignatius]

i wish Tom Green could serve daniel ek a cheese sandwich. 

 

[zlemflolia]

4 hours ago, ignatius said:

bitcoin as well ma dude. 

but how much energy does to take to create millions of DVDs and later put them in landfills with plastic cases etc? everything modern life consumes takes a lot of energy and a lot of it is inefficient and wasteful. 

agreed CDs are a waste, SD cards are much more environmentally efficient due to their storage density and reprogrammability

4 hours ago, zero said:

the trick is to just buy a bigger iphone dood

indeed the trick is to force people to pay more for a product which is nearly identical except for transistor density in one of its parts.  it should be illegal and CEOs imprisoned

[ignatius]

10 minutes ago, cyanobacteria said:

agreed CDs are a waste, SD cards are much more environmentally efficient due to their storage density and reprogrammability

indeed the trick is to force people to pay more for a product which is nearly identical except for transistor density in one of its parts.  it should be illegal and CEOs imprisoned

probably easier to find better energy sources than to hold rich people accountable for shit they do. 

bring on the new modern nuclear power please. 

[zlemflolia]

3 minutes ago, ignatius said:

probably easier to find better energy sources than to hold rich people accountable for shit they do. 

bring on the new modern nuclear power please. 

big disagree, its much better to reduce reliance on energy to begin with by reigning in the anarchy of capitalist market production and rationalizing it through central planning

[ignatius]

1 minute ago, cyanobacteria said:

big disagree, its much better to reduce reliance on energy to begin with by reigning in the anarchy of capitalist market production and rationalizing it through central planning

i'm just being realistic/pessimistic because rich people skate on their crimes frequently as do people in power so was saying it'd be easier to make more better cleaner energy (which will also be hard) than to send CEOs to jail. 

anyway.. i think efficiency in all tech things will come but use will also increase probably at even pace eventually. 

modern nuclear power systems are so much safer and more reliable than anything that exists. the lack of a modern power grid etc is a big problem in USA and probably many countries. 

not to get too side tracked about it.. if you haven't seen "The Nuclear Option" it's worth checking out. you'd probably have to torrent it though since PBS took it off their site. it's an excellent history of nuclear technology and the choices made early on that weren't the right choices imo. 

[zlemflolia]

i don't think nuclear power is safe because it requires a stable sociopolitical climate capable of maintaining nuclear waste for thousands of years which is a difficult

but i dont know shit so ill stop talkin ab iout it lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages

[ignatius]

19 minutes ago, cyanobacteria said:

i don't think nuclear power is safe because it requires a stable sociopolitical climate capable of maintaining nuclear waste for thousands of years which is a difficult

but i dont know shit so ill stop talkin ab iout it lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warning_messages

new nuclear power uses spent nuclear waste as fuel. there's also molten salt reactors and other interesting things. the reason nuclear power in the USA is the way it is is because back at its inception for use as a power source there were two types. USA chose the current type because pentagon wanted it as a power source for big ships and submarines. the other type that was way safer and ran on its own as a proof of concept powering things for like 50+ years and was only decommissioned a few years ago or something. 

there's actually much much safer and efficient nuclear power that doesn't create the waste that current nuclear power plants do. 

edit: here i we transfered "NOVA - The Nuclear Option". you can play the mkv file in VLC. 

https://we.tl/t-3srbQFip9U

 

[zlemflolia]

On 2/23/2021 at 8:15 PM, ignatius said:

new nuclear power uses spent nuclear waste as fuel. there's also molten salt reactors and other interesting things. the reason nuclear power in the USA is the way it is is because back at its inception for use as a power source there were two types. USA chose the current type because pentagon wanted it as a power source for big ships and submarines. the other type that was way safer and ran on its own as a proof of concept powering things for like 50+ years and was only decommissioned a few years ago or something. 

there's actually much much safer and efficient nuclear power that doesn't create the waste that current nuclear power plants do. 

edit: here i we transfered "NOVA - The Nuclear Option". you can play the mkv file in VLC. 

https://we.tl/t-3srbQFip9U

 

this was good it almost sold me.  though i still dont know anything about the topic in comparison to what is needed to be known to have a view on it.  its worrisome for me whether the same research needed for this type of technology may improve nuclear weapon production capabilities, but I guess if so they'd have probably already been doing it

[ignatius]

fucking hell. 

[zlemflolia]

“The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every activity hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe.  It has transformed the doctor, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science into its paid wage-laborers…(intellectuals) live only as long as they find work, and…find work only as long as their labor increases capital.  These workers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market…”

[Cryptowen]

I was saying the other day in the aphex twin Soundcloud thread that I haven't really been into the album format for a few years now. It used to be the case that I'd feel kind of bad about only listening to random tracks by artists, deleting boring bits off albums etc. - like I was disrespecting the album form, or something. but at the end of the day the whole point of the album form (imo) is to facilitate a particular kind of active engagement with sound (as a creator or as a listener). So if adhering to the album form is actually getting in the way of my enjoyment of the music, then why boher? I'm not some sort of dogmatist. Listening to random selections from a giant folder of loose trax has just as much potential for facilitating a particular kind of active engagement with sound (albeit perhaps one that is slightly different in nature)

I feel like the same sort of logic could be applied to the idea of the "track". there is a particular form of commodity logic which attempts to sell you trax/pieces/songs as quantifiable units, and this commodity logic disguises itself as the music form itself. The process of engagement with sound (as a creator/listener) is subsumed under the process of churning out units to sell on the market or by which to cultivate a #brand. IMO what needs to be explored are the emergent potentialities for ways of presenting & engaging with sound that not only break free from the process of commodification, but are in fact directly antagonistic to the process of commodification. i'm not sure how exactly to go about doing this but i imagine it involves attempting as much as possible to personally reconnect, to actively emotionally engage with music, and furthermore to avoid at all costs entering into the increasingly machinic headspace of the marketplace (except for field research, ie as means of achieving creative inspiration)

[zlemflolia]

10 minutes ago, Cryptowen said:

I was saying the other day in the aphex twin Soundcloud thread that I haven't really been into the album format for a few years now. It used to be the case that I'd feel kind of bad about only listening to random tracks by artists, deleting boring bits off albums etc. - like I was disrespecting the album form, or something. but at the end of the day the whole point of the album form (imo) is to facilitate a particular kind of active engagement with sound (as a creator or as a listener). So if adhering to the album form is actually getting in the way of my enjoyment of the music, then why boher? I'm not some sort of dogmatist. Listening to random selections from a giant folder of loose trax has just as much potential for facilitating a particular kind of active engagement with sound (albeit perhaps one that is slightly different in nature)

I feel like the same sort of logic could be applied to the idea of the "track". there is a particular form of commodity logic which attempts to sell you trax/pieces/songs as quantifiable units, and this commodity logic disguises itself as the music form itself. The process of engagement with sound (as a creator/listener) is subsumed under the process of churning out units to sell on the market or by which to cultivate a #brand. IMO what needs to be explored are the emergent potentialities for ways of presenting & engaging with sound that not only break free from the process of commodification, but are in fact directly antagonistic to the process of commodification. i'm not sure how exactly to go about doing this but i imagine it involves attempting as much as possible to personally reconnect, to actively emotionally engage with music, and furthermore to avoid at all costs entering into the increasingly machinic headspace of the marketplace (except for field research, ie as means of achieving creative inspiration)

i think this is fully accurate.  in retrospect the album format is a relic of the mediums over which music used to be distributed.  there was no alternative previously but to create albums, because music was listened to as a linear sequence, often with it difficult to skip from one track to another, when distributed on vinyls.  so the artist was coerced into selecting the order of the tracks to sculpt an album experience.  similar can be said for casettes.  CDs introduced the concept of track seeking being much easier, but even so it is generally a linear seek of forwarding and backwarding through tracks to find the next one unless the CD player has random seek features.  now with computers these entire concepts are made obsolete, presumably forever.  there's no reason for the artist to follow the album concept whatsoever and if they feel it limiting they should avoid it.  im also trying to feel less guilty about listening to a single track from an album.  if the artist wants their album to be listened to in a linear format, they can make the entire album a single hour-long track to represent their intent more explicitly

[no part of it]

I'm not reading 15 pages here, but when this conversation comes up, I always point out that there have been attempts to raise the percentage paid to artists, and there have been lawsuits to stop it from going to 15% from 10 percent (I don't even think spotify pays 1%, but we are also talking Apple and Google, etc).   I think if enough people in power lawyer up, this will be attended to.   I'm not sure why these major labels are bending over, when they used to try everything they could to get a percentage of used CD sales and everything else.  Interscope started trying to sue people caught pirating mp3s in the 2000s, why don't the give streaming services a run for their money?   

And why isn't there a platform that is really competing?   Beats Music could compete, but they don't seem to be interested in expanding their range.  Bandcamp could easily take over a big piece of this market, but they don't, they just charge their revenue share.  What about artists who don't want to sell downloads from their site?   There could easily be a "Bandcamp Plus" for streaming, with advertisements between songs for people who don't have a membership, instead of letting people stream for free, and taking a cut of their revenue.  Imagine if Spotify only took 15%?   Supposedly Spotfiy only began to make a profit in 2019, I'm pretty skeptical of that claim.  Spotify only needs to run their services, they do not need to invest in product.  They don't need to give people money up front.  If they failed to make a profit for 13 years, it is because they were started by rich people with capital who wanted tax breaks.  At least that's the way it looks to me.   

 

"Just this week, Spotify sued music creators after a decision by the US Copyright Royalty Board required Spotify to increase its royalty payments. This isn't just wrong, it represents a real, meaningful and damaging step backwards for the music industry."

 

https://ra.co/news/43455

 

Along with Amazon, Google and Pandora, the streaming platform filed an appeal against a recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board that would increase songwriter royalties from on-demand streaming from 10.5 percent to 15.1 percent—a 44 percent increase—in the US over a five-year period. Spotify used a blog post to attempt to justify the move, which has been slammed by groups representing the interests of songwriters and publishers, especially the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA). While Spotify claims to support a pay rise for songwriters, it goes on to assert that consumers will be "hurt" by an inability to bundle "music and non-music offerings," which it says are vital for "attracting first-time music subscribers so we can keep growing the revenue pie for everyone."

https://ra.co/news/43428

 

 

[ignatius]

31 minutes ago, no part of it said:

I'm not sure why these major labels are bending over,

because spotify gave them stock in spotify in exchange for use of their catalogues. that stock is worth billions and is buried in the label's financial structure in such a way that the artists will see no revenue from this deal. the labels gave spotify the lowest royalty rate in history. 

if you scan through the entire thread there's links to articles with all this information as well as other stuff and of course funny memes. 

 

[auxien]

7 hours ago, no part of it said:

Supposedly Spotfiy only began to make a profit in 2019, I'm pretty skeptical of that claim.  Spotify only needs to run their services, they do not need to invest in product.  They don't need to give people money up front.  If they failed to make a profit for 13 years, it is because they were started by rich people with capital who wanted tax breaks.  At least that's the way it looks to me.   

i'm sure there's some amount of what you're mentioning with the tax breaks/etc, but more to do with what ignatius mentioned with the stocks i'm sure. i see no reason to be skeptical of Spotify's only recent 'profitability' because that's how the vast majority of these interwebz startups work. it only goes to prove that their model vastly devalues the cost of music in a way that hurts the vast majority of actual musicians.

[Alcofribas]

11 hours ago, no part of it said:

“so we keep growing the revenue pie for everyone."

lol

[zlemflolia]

On 2/23/2021 at 4:32 PM, ignatius said:

for some reason this scene popped into my mind when reading that interview

 

>you want me to deprioritize A for B?

>yeah, make B your primary action item

>*does B*

>why isn't A done too?

12 hours ago, no part of it said:

And why isn't there a platform that is really competing?

haha you fell for the market competition meme

[milkface]

4 hours ago, auxien said:

i'm sure there's some amount of what you're mentioning with the tax breaks/etc, but more to do with what ignatius mentioned with the stocks i'm sure. i see no reason to be skeptical of Spotify's only recent 'profitability' because that's how the vast majority of these interwebz startups work. it only goes to prove that their model vastly devalues the cost of music in a way that hurts the vast majority of actual musicians.

i pretty much agree completely with your comment on the devaluation of music. having grown up in the era of streaming i'm extremely accustomed to having extremely easy access to so much music. without cheap streaming services, as bad as this sounds, myself and people i know would definitely resort to music piracy as i cannot afford to spend £5-10 on each album i want to have access to in the event that streaming services all disappeared

Edited March 1, 2021 by milkface

[auxien]

1 hour ago, milkface said:

i pretty much agree completely with your comment on the devaluation of music. having grown up in the era of streaming i'm extremely accustomed to having extremely easy access to so much music. without cheap streaming services, as bad as this sounds, myself and people i know would definitely resort to music piracy as i cannot afford to spend £5-10 on each album i want to have access to in the event that streaming services all disappeared

not that anyone cares about my opinion on the matter, but at this point i'd rather people pirated music rather than used streaming services, at least it's blatant thievery that doesn't give users (re: the general public) the false image that they're 'supporting' artists by paying for Spotify. that general devaluation is more damaging than any few hundred people pirating some old Madonna album or whatever.

in line with what you're saying just not being able to afford much, personally i offer all my stuff up for free once or twice a year (some is permanently free). 

[chenGOD]

Some more recent info on potential for regulation (or not):

https://musically.com/2021/02/23/spotify-apple-and-amazon-at-the-uk-streaming-economics-inquiry/

It’s all pretty vague as you’d expect from general counsel. 

[auxien]

2 hours ago, chenGOD said:

Some more recent info on potential for regulation (or not):

https://musically.com/2021/02/23/spotify-apple-and-amazon-at-the-uk-streaming-economics-inquiry/

It’s all pretty vague as you’d expect from general counsel. 

that was actually pretty interesting. a bit dry of course, but plenty of detail in there. 

thinking maybe that treating 'streaming' much more like radio would be ideal for most everyone involved.

[chenGOD]

3 hours ago, auxien said:

thinking maybe that treating 'streaming' much more like radio would be ideal for most everyone involved.

Maybe, but as the spotify lawyer said, its like radio plus...that user focused experience. I hardly ever listen to the radio shows that apple music has for example, whereas i will stream music that i own but either don't have access to (my record collection remains in korea with my friend) or am too lazy to find the hard drive its on.

The thing that's frustrating is that there is much more possibility with the internet, and labels have less power (though they still function as good indicators of aggregate sound or curators), but artists need a very strong union, or Spotify et al. will fuck them over harder than the labels/A&R men ever did.