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Post by badwolf on Jun 9, 2020 11:56:52 GMT -5
The IT Crowd was great.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2020 15:28:19 GMT -5
And a multitude of Russian based MP3 sites which say 'screw you' to itunes
Are they still going? In thought they died out years ago. Record industry should have subverted that en masse - they revealed a huge unmet demand for music and a more reasonable price, with some veneer of paying the artists. Instead they stuck tontheir £15 CDs and watched their sales plummet as people refused to pay
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2020 16:01:20 GMT -5
In my day we didn't have any of this fancy gravity... the world revolves for kids these days, but we had to hold on to something if we wanted to stay on the Earth. And oxygen... it never just came to you like it does now, no, you had to chase it down and shove it into your lungs to breathe! This post gets you the nomination for the Funniest Member next year!
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Post by The Captain on Jun 10, 2020 10:07:42 GMT -5
Completely agree! My wife and I recently watched it from start to finish, and we still quote it on a regular basis. The first two seasons are fantastic and then it wanes a bit each season after that, but there are still hilarious moments throughout.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 10, 2020 10:15:29 GMT -5
And a multitude of Russian based MP3 sites which say 'screw you' to itunes...who say "screw you" to musicians. I have a hard time giving a shit about iTunes, Spotify etc, when they so mercilessly exploit the musicians that they've made their millions off of the back of.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 10, 2020 10:23:59 GMT -5
And a multitude of Russian based MP3 sites which say 'screw you' to itunes...who say "screw you" to musicians. I have a hard time giving a shit about iTunes, Spotify etc, when they so mercilessly exploit the musicians that they've made their millions off of the back of. I'll say this in defense of Pandora and Spotify...they've introduced me to a lot of musicians I almost certainly wouldn't have ever heard of otherwise. Which gives me the opportunity to support them in other ways that are more remunerative for them.
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Post by impulse on Jun 10, 2020 10:26:54 GMT -5
If iTunes and Spotify get accused of not paying musicians enough, surely Russian pirate sites that pay absolutely nothing to the musicians are worse, no?
Also, I'd be curious to see the economics of Spotify, etc. What is a more equitable payment for a single internet user radio stream? I'm sure I don't know.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 10, 2020 14:07:48 GMT -5
If iTunes and Spotify get accused of not paying musicians enough, surely Russian pirate sites that pay absolutely nothing to the musicians are worse, no? Absolutely. The proper reaction to abusive business models is not to resort to piracy, from which creators get nothing at all.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 10, 2020 14:23:04 GMT -5
...who say "screw you" to musicians. I have a hard time giving a shit about iTunes, Spotify etc, when they so mercilessly exploit the musicians that they've made their millions off of the back of. I'll say this in defense of Pandora and Spotify...they've introduced me to a lot of musicians I almost certainly wouldn't have ever heard of otherwise. Which gives me the opportunity to support them in other ways that are more remunerative for them. That's very true. The likes of YouTube, Spotify, iTunes etc give us unprecedented access to music that we might not have otherwise heard. But being "accessed" in that way isn't enough for most musicians* to live on. It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I guess. That's why we've seen such a resurgence in musicians going out and touring over the last 15 years or so. That, along with merchandise or physical sales of vinyl/CDs is now how most signed musicians make their living nowadays. It would just be nice if they could make better money from having people actually listening to their recorded works as well, instead of having to settle for the criminally low royalty rate that their record companies and Spotify, Apple Music et al have stitched them up in.
* = i.e. those that aren't the superstars of the world.
If iTunes and Spotify get accused of not paying musicians enough, surely Russian pirate sites that pay absolutely nothing to the musicians are worse, no? Well, yes, of course. But its kind of apples and oranges insofar as one is a criminal activity and the other is the legal way in which the vast majority of people now consume their music. It's like exploiting a street sweeper by paying him less than minimum wage and saying, "you should be grateful, you'd be much worse off in a slave camp." I mean, its true, but it's not really the point. As for the ecconomic workings of Spotify, see my reply to Rags below. I have a hard time giving a shit about iTunes, Spotify etc, when they so mercilessly exploit the musicians that they've made their millions off of the back of. I'm glad Billie Eilish didn't get burned that way...I think her first song was uploaded to SoundCloud and her climb to fame started there. Thought I'd mention her as I still have her new Bond song on heavy rotation at home.
The thing is though, Billie Eilish would've made a lot more money under the old system of people buying records in physical stores. Yes, I know that ship has well and truly sailed, obviously, but nevertheless, if she'd have been making records in the 1980s, she'd have gotten, say, the industry standard royalty rate of 10% per physical sale – assuming she was both the performer and the songwriter on a given disc. So, per CD or LP sale, Eilish would've made around a dollar, I guess. Whereas on a streaming platform like Spotify, the per-play track rate is $0.00331 (on YouTube it's even worse at $0.00069), which means that if you listen to every track on her recent When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? album on Spotify it earns a total $0.04634. So, assuming that same 10% royalty rate as mentioned above (and it may well be less), Eilish herself would earn $0.004634 every time you listen to her album. So, that means in order for Eilish to earn the same amount that she would've done in the old days from 1 physical album sale, every track on her album would need to be streamed 215 times on Spotify. So, you can see that the royalty rate on the likes of Spotify really is pretty terrible, compared to physical formats. Also, Spotify didn't used to pay any royalties at all during the free three-month trial of its premium service, but I believe that may have changed now. But regardless, a streaming site like Spotify really isn't good for struggling artists...or even the megastars really!
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Post by impulse on Jun 10, 2020 15:03:22 GMT -5
My point in bring up Spotify versus Russian pirate sites was to say that "sticking it to iTunes" buy buying shady pirated MP3s isn't helping anyone and is if anything even worse. At least Spotify is legal and pays something even if that could be improved.
You bring up some interesting points. How many effortless digital streams are truly equivalent to buying a physical CD? A CD is a one-time purchase whereas a stream is somewhere between that and a radio listen bc while it is still on demand, you are only leasing access. How many times have I listened to my favorite CDs? More than 215? Honestly yeah, probably some of them. Others? Who knows.
$0.00331 per listen sure does sound pretty small, though. I wonder what the economics look like on their end. Are they pocketing gobs of cash? Are they barely breaking even with all the licensing fees they pay to the big name guys? I'd really like to see.
You're right, the traditional brick and mortar music store selling physical media is a relic, and the access, diversity and convenience digital offers is transformative and never going away. It would be nice to see if there is a more equitable way to compensate the musicians. I'm sure I don't know enough about the inner workings to say whether there is or what it would look like.
I will agree with Slam and say Spotify has dramatically expanded the number of musicians and bands I listen to and am now exposed to. There are bands making (very little) money off of me now that I would have never even heard of before, some of whom I've seen live since, though admittedly most if not all were opening for someone else I was going to see or otherwise packaged).
I'm all in favor of finding more ways to support musicians.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 10, 2020 15:34:41 GMT -5
My point in bring up Spotify versus Russian pirate sites was to say that "sticking it to iTunes" buy buying shady pirated MP3s isn't helping anyone and is if anything even worse. At least Spotify is legal and pays something even if that could be improved. Oh, I see. Sorry, I misunderstood. I wasn't advocating piracy as a way to punish streaming platforms, as ultimately that would just hurt the musicians even more. You bring up some interesting points. How many effortless digital streams are truly equivalent to buying a physical CD? A CD is a one-time purchase whereas a stream is somewhere between that and a radio listen bc while it is still on demand, you are only leasing access. How many times have I listened to my favorite CDs? More than 215? Honestly yeah, probably some of them. Others? Who knows. Music lovers like us will certainly listen to our favourite albums hundreds of times...perhaps even thousands over a life time. But we definitely aren't average in our listening habits. I have no figures to quote, but I bet you the average consumer listened to a physical album that they had bought around 40-50 times. Something like that. Same goes for how many times they might stream an album they like. I mean, you could argue that streaming is fairer for the consumer, I guess, but I will always come down on the side with the creatives. They are the most important component in the industry and should be financially compensated as such. Without the musicians there's no product for Spotify to stream. You're right, the traditional brick and mortar music store selling physical media is a relic, and the access, diversity and convenience digital offers is transformative and never going away. It would be nice to see if there is a more equitable way to compensate the musicians. I'm sure I don't know enough about the inner workings to say whether there is or what it would look like. Well that's the crux of it, isn't it? Nobody is saying that the likes of Spotify are bad for music, but it'd be nice if the musicians -- the people who make the very concept of streaming audio possible -- were compensated in a similar way to how they used to be. Thing is, you can't even really blame Spotify completely; it's the record companies who have brokered such a terrible deal for their artists. But Spotify are definitely complicit.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 10, 2020 15:54:23 GMT -5
I bought my The Kynd album on iTunes!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 10, 2020 16:11:56 GMT -5
I'll say this in defense of Pandora and Spotify...they've introduced me to a lot of musicians I almost certainly wouldn't have ever heard of otherwise. Which gives me the opportunity to support them in other ways that are more remunerative for them. That's very true. The likes of YouTube, Spotify, iTunes etc give us unprecedented access to music that we might not have otherwise heard. But being "accessed" in that way isn't enough for most musicians* to live on. It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I guess. That's why we've seen such a resurgence in musicians going out and touring over the last 15 years or so. That, along with merchandise or physical sales of vinyl/CDs is now how most signed musicians make their living nowadays. It would just be nice if they could make better money from having people actually listening to their recorded works as well, instead of having to settle for the criminally low royalty rate that their record companies and Spotify, Apple Music et al have stitched them up in.
* = i.e. those that aren't the superstars of the world.
I absolutely understand. I follow quite a few musicians on social media and follow enough music sites to have a grasp on the economics. It's been clear for a while that extensive touring is having to take the place of sales of physical media. I frankly don't even own a CD player any more and haven't for well over 15 years. I do buy a dozen or so LPs a year, but that's just not how I listen to music any more. To make up for that I've tried very hard to support touring artists when I can. I've also Venmo'd some of my favorites recently during online streams because I know the Covid-19 restrictions are absolutely killing musicians incomes. I'd venture that close to 40% of the stuff I listen to on a regular basis are artists I'd likely never have heard of without a combination of Pandora, Spotify and satellite radio. I'd venture another 40% are musicians who are dead. Which leaves a very small number who are either mainstream or at least well enough known to show up on regular TV or radio (or did in the past, like Steve Earle).
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 10, 2020 16:43:32 GMT -5
I bought my The Kynd album on iTunes! Ha ha... you should ask for your money back! To be fair, that album is long out of print physically. So it's stream it or nothing.
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Post by impulse on Jun 10, 2020 17:09:32 GMT -5
Music lovers like us will certainly listen to our favourite albums hundreds of times...perhaps even thousands over a life time. But we definitely aren't average in our listening habits. I have no figures to quote, but I bet you the average consumer listened to a physical album that they had bought around 40-50 times. Something like that. Same goes for how many times they might stream an album they like. I mean, you could argue that streaming is fairer for the consumer, I guess, but I will always come down on the side with the creatives. They are the most important component in the industry and should be financially compensated as such. Without the musicians there's no product for Spotify to stream. Well that's the crux of it, isn't it? Nobody is saying that the likes of Spotify are bad for music, but it'd be nice if the musicians -- the people who make the very concept of streaming audio possible -- were compensated in a similar way to how they used to be. Thing is, you can't even really blame Spotify completely; it's the record companies who have brokered such a terrible deal for their artists. But Spotify are definitely complicit. I imagine part of the issue is recorded music just doesn't bring in what it used to, so there's not as much of the pie to go around. Unfortunately when it sold more, there was also A LOT more fat and people skimming off the top at the artists' expense. That part hasn't changed I suppose.
The MP3s aren't sold...they are downloaded for free. And 320 kbps quality.
Ah, gotcha. I remember about a decade ago there was a new "real" music store that came about that sold for too-good-to-be-true prices. Huge catalogs, 320kbps and the veneer of legitimacy. It was not long after outed as a Russian scam site. I was thinking of that. I absolutely understand. I follow quite a few musicians on social media and follow enough music sites to have a grasp on the economics. It's been clear for a while that extensive touring is having to take the place of sales of physical media. I frankly don't even own a CD player any more and haven't for well over 15 years. I do buy a dozen or so LPs a year, but that's just not how I listen to music any more. To make up for that I've tried very hard to support touring artists when I can. I've also Venmo'd some of my favorites recently during online streams because I know the Covid-19 restrictions are absolutely killing musicians incomes. I'd venture that close to 40% of the stuff I listen to on a regular basis are artists I'd likely never have heard of without a combination of Pandora, Spotify and satellite radio. I'd venture another 40% are musicians who are dead. Which leaves a very small number who are either mainstream or at least well enough known to show up on regular TV or radio (or did in the past, like Steve Earle). Yeah, the discovery capabilities with streaming are just so exponentially greater than the old days. On the one had, I did used to enjoy going to the local record store and looking for a rare find or trying the latest promos. There was a certain thrill of the hunt, but it is A LOT easier to find tons of stuff now. Plus if you don't like it, there's little risk.
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