If you watch a lot of TV…or just some TV, you will probably have seen the BBC Now trailer appearing in between programs. Recorded in Cardiff by the National Orchestra of Wales, Donal at Hafod Mastering had the pleasure of mastering this piece for the good folk of the BBC, check out the video below!
Why I think streaming isn’t as bad as everyone says it is….
When I was 16 (almost ten years ago…), I paid for a few albums, maybe a single if I really liked it, but where did I consume most my music? At home, from my computer, listening online. How did my friends consume? Downloaded music from wherever they could, for free.
This might come as a shock but I even paid for a streaming service run by HMV, not sure what happened to that…So, I was an early adopter of streaming, it seemed a legit way on consuming and paying for music at a time when downloading was so widely done.
These days everyone likes a lot of different types of music, no-one only listens to one style, because that would be pretty boring. This is where streaming services have got it right. Spotify has such a vast amount of genres and artists that you can literally listen to whatever you want. On a daily basis, I will listen to a huge amount of different styles, and Spotify, YouTube and Tidal make this possible.
Kids of ten years ago who wanted to consume music this easily wouldn’t have the streaming options that are available today, how would they go about this? Illegally downloading. Back then I’m sure YouTube hosted music and albums, but this again was done without the rights, so technically wasn’t legal either. Thanks to Napster, the idea that free music was okay spurred a generation of kids to just download music instead of paying for it.
Online streaming doesn’t necessarily pay artists their fair whack, and the way they pay isn’t exactly good either, but they now offer an easier option of music consumption which was only possible previously by downloading illegally or having a mass amount of disposable income. If you were to access all the music you wanted to listen to, and didn’t use a streaming service like Spotify, or YouTube, that would be some serious album and back catalogue downloading.
If you were to have all of the music that these streaming services offer, to be able to afford it all, you’d need a lot of time, a massive house and a lot of money, which is why people thought ‘oh, I don’t have to pay for it but I can still own it?’, that’s why illegally downloading was so easy. BUT, now, streaming services make it even easier, they have the music on their servers, it takes up no hard disk space, for the modern user, it’s the easiest way to consume.
So, what am I trying to get across? That these days, people streaming earns money, whether it’s on ad supported or on premium subscriptions, the music is getting paid for. Ten years ago when everyone decided that music wasn’t ‘worth anything’ and they downloaded it for free, no artist nor label earned anything from those downloads, not a penny. So, although the system isn’t perfect, it’s making money that will go to the artists.
Do I think the industry is fair?
Hell no. I mean, yes the system is a better option to downloading illegally, but it’s by no-means a fair system, and artists don’t get the money they ought to. Check out this blog on the way Sony and Spotify deal with money and streaming, it’s an interesting read. Who’s fault is it that artists don’t get paid?!
Over the last year, streaming has taken some hits, and everyone seems to be trying to create the ‘new’ digital industry, trying to build the best new service for the future of the music industry. So far we’ve seen Tidal emerge, a streaming company owned by artists, Apple are apparently approaching release for their new streaming service and Spotify are teaming up with a coffee shop.
The Verge has obtained a contract between Spotify and Sony Music. The contract is 42 pages long, and originally signed in 2011, securing a two year deal with a possible third year. This deal was signed just before the streaming service launched in the U.S.
So, what does the deal with Sony reveal?
Spotify has to pay Sony Music yearly advances, it has subscriber goals set out by Sony and also how the streaming rate is calculated.
The two year licensing deal meant that Spotify paid out $42.5 million in yearly advances to Sony. According to inside sources, these cash advances don’t reach the musicians and go straight to the record label themselves.
Sony has a clause in the contract, the Most Favoured Nation clause, which essentially allows them to amend any aspect of the contract if another label has a better deal. Sony can also all on an independent auditor once a year to check whether Spotify has a more agreeable deal with another label.
Other clauses allow Spotify to keep up to 15% of advertising revenue that are handled by third parties, without counting this as revenue. Advertising rates is also a spot where Sony have had some say. Sony have some seriously discounted ad-space on the streaming service, which they could sell for millions, and it’s all legit, Spotify have no say on what they do with this space. Sony get the ad space for around $2.5 – $3.5 million dollars a year, totalling $9 million over the entire contract.
Sony can pull a revenue figure that is equal to 60 percent of Spotify’s monthly gross revenue, multiplied by Sony Music’s streams.
The contract has some other, interesting money making for Sony. There is a more complex formula. The contract has a usage-based-minimum and also a per subscriber minimum which covers both of Spotify’s subscription tiers. So if the royalties are more than what Sony earns from revenue share, they get that amount instead.
For months, even years, people have been unhappy with how much money artists are paid from the service, so from reading the contract, what do they actually get? Well, that’s still confusing.
No-one really knows. As The Verge‘s source mentioned, they are unsure of how much money makes it to the artists. What we do know, is Sony have struck a ridiculous deal with Spotify, and a contract that highlights where the real problem might lie.
After reading through these posts online, I can’t help but feel Spotify gets attention for not ‘paying’ artists, when really, the labels are the ones stifling the artists.
“Your beef can’t be with Spotify anymore.” – David Pakman, Former CEO of eMusic.
I don’t think Spotify are completely out of the red, but I think labels need to make sure that the money is returning to the artist, if it doesn’t, then what are they moaning about?
Two of my favourite things, coffee and music.
Everyone remembers when Starbucks sold CD’s in store, right?
Now, after ditching that, they’ve partnered forces with streaming giant, Spotify. According to BBC Newsbeat, Spotify is giving premium accounts to Starbucks employees to allow them to create their own playlists.
Seems like a strange idea, giving away a tonne of premium accounts to the employees, but they have a way of (hopefully) monetizing this. The playlists that Starbucks employees create will be available on the coffee shops app, which will be promoting Spotify’s premium service.
Users of Spotify will be offered the chance to earn stars, that will go towards coffee and snacks at the store.
“By connecting Spotify’s world-class streaming platform into our world-class store and digital ecosystem, we are reinventing the way our millions of global customers discover music.”
“Starbucks has a rich music heritage and customers who are passionate music fans which makes us incredibly proud to be their music partner,” Daniel Ek, Spotify’s CEO, said.
This will roll out across the U.S., swiftly followed by Canada and then the U.K.
Starbucks’ relationship with the music industry began way back in 1994 when it started selling C.D.’s in its stores, and had begun to get a name for itself by 2007 and had signed Paul McCartney its Hear Music Label.
Starbucks has offered free apps, free music and films before through iTunes and the App store, so it seems like this is the next step.
“Throughout its history, Starbucks has worked closely with the music industry, offering a variety of artists a platform for their work,” Howard Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks.
I recently reported on the news that Spotify was thinking about dropping their free ad-supported tier, well, they’re not.
According to Music Business Worldwide, Spotify have told them that the rumours are ‘totally false’.
A report in Digital Music News last week claimed that streaming giant Spotify was planning to cut its free ad-funded streaming tier. The report mentioned that the free tier would be limited to a three month maximum subscription on ad-supported, before they were forced into premium or to leave the service all together.
Spotify has denied these rumors, saying that they are not killing off their free supported tier – ‘It’s totally false. The model is working.’
Where has all this come from?
Well, Apple is reportedly pressuring record labels to get Spotify to drop their free music streaming tier in preparation for the release of their new streaming service. Digital Music News also claimed that record labels were unhappy with Spotify as they don’t think they’re doing a good enough job of getting people onto their premium/paid tiers.
Spotify is holding a press conference on Wedsnesday, where they are expected to announce their new video streaming service.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been chatting to a lot of people in regards to their work and what formats they need the masters in, whether it’s WAV, high quality MP3 or a DDP.
A lot of the clients I’ve dealt with have asked what is a DDP? So here it is –
What is a DDP?
A DDP is basically a digital image of the CD. This digital image contains all of the relevant information about that particular album or single. Information such as CD text, Track Titles, Album Title, Artist Title, ISRC’s etc.
All professional mastering studios will be able to run you off DDP Master files. The great thing with the DDP is that most of the duplicators/replicators will prefer working with these files, or digital images as they are stored digitally, rather than being on a physical CD which is obviously prone to scratching.
If you want to hear how your album will flow, with gaps etc, you can. The mastering studio will be able to send you the DDP which you can then play using the DDP player. The great thing with this is that you can hear how your tracks flow, you can check gaps and see how the album sits together. This is the advantage of the DDP. If you get sent the tracks as separate files then you aren’t able to sit and listen through as the album sound as the gaps aren’t in there.
So, if you’re releasing an album, want to embed all the relevant data into the tracks, especially ISRC’s, then getting a DDP of the master files is the best way to do things. If you’re also sending the album off to be replicated, send them the DDP, the majority of the time that is their preferred format. If you end up sending them single WAV files, the likelihood is they will have to add their own gaps in, which might not be to your taste.
Say what? Yes, it’s true, according to some sources, Spotify will be (eventually) stopping it’s free streaming service.
The popular streaming service which has over 60 million users, most of which are on the streaming platforms free, ad-supported service will soon stop the free service.
This price re-form comes at a time when Spotify are being pressured by labels to stop their free service. According the the Express.co.uk, current free ad-supported users will be able to continue their subscription for six months before either taking out the premium service or leaving the service, seems fair enough.
For Spotify, their numbers are good, they have over 15 million premium subscribers in 58 countries, converting the other 45 million subscribers to the premium service will be the hard step in this process.
Over the past few months there has been a lot of speculation and talk around Spotify and it’s services, especially after Taylor Swift pulled her back catalogue and new album, ‘1989’.
Record labels, although they aren’t happy with the amount of money streaming earns, are urging people to avoid piracy. Stephen Cooper, Warner Music Group CEO spoke out about music piracy saying ‘Piracy is zero revenue, it’s the theft of intellectual property, and it’s not good for anyone’ –
Personally, I find that streaming, regardless of service, whether it’s ad-free, premium or Tidal’s Hi-Fidelity option, streaming is better than stealing, right? Well, Mr. Cooper seems to think so to – ‘So, all of these models are better than piracy, that’s number one’.
When will the service change? We’re not sure, but with the pressure being added by labels and other big companies, I don’t think it will be far away. If Spotify is able to turn it’s free users into paying subscribers, we will hopefully see a slightly happier music industry…we’ll see.
Frontman of band Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan voices his opinions on the state of the music industry. Corgan claims the music industry in run by “Feckless Idiots”. “They do not subscribe to the normal tenets of capitalism. Which when they do, the business tends to work out well: stars rise to the top, everybody benefits. But it’s still a parochial business, run by fiefdoms.” “The tech world is just blowing music out of the water, but music and artists remain incredibly valuable to launching things. Hence tech companies keep cycling back to music artists. Music artists need to figure out their true value in a free market, which they have been slow to do because you have that old model of telling artists they are not worth anything, that they are disposable – similar to the things you’ve seen in the sports leagues, and you are going to see that evolution happen in the music business.” Corgan reckons we’re gonna see a change and shift in the industry again, continuing – “You’re gonna see a complete disintegration of the business model. And a reforming. The problem is because artists are generally manipulated, it’s an old business model, you’re told ‘you have no value, you have no value.’ They’re slow on the uptake on how much value they have in this market place. Because when it comes to athletes and rock stars, those are two people who can sell a level of independence that works with marketers that no one else can sell … But music’s been slow on that because the old music business continues to control its diminishing share of the market.” During the interview with CNBC, Corgan also spoke out about Jay-Z’s streaming company, Tidal, “Although I celebrate the idea of him creating his own model, it leaves a lot of people out”, he then continued, “To try and sell it as an altruistic thing is disingenuous, because it’s not. He is taking his slice of the pie, which he has every right to do – he is a powerful man and he works with powerful people. But by the way, I’m a powerful artist and I don’t recall getting a phone call from him.” Watch the full interview below: http://player.cnbc.com/cnbc_global?playertype=synd&byGuid=3000376610&size=530_298
Streaming is still causing a stir in the world of online music.
Last week I read this blog discussing how Jay Z had pulled his remixes….now it seems that Sony are pulling the all their music and not reaching an agreement with SoundCloud.
Sony have pulled artists such as Hozier, Adele, MsMr, Passion Pit and many more. Souncloud, until recently, was a completely free streaming service, with more than 350 million users. Although the platforms content was unlicensed, it has aided the development of many artists. SoundCloud is a good place for artists to get noticed, and some artists even release material solely on the platform, so it served a good purpose, even though it was unlicensed content.
Last November the Warner Music Group were the first label to discuss and come to an agreement with SoundCloud, after it had only introduced it’s ad supported tier back in August of the same year.
“We are in ongoing conversations with major and independent labels and will continue to add partners to the SoundCloud program,” – On SoundCloud is the new monetization program, which has reportedly paid out over $2 million in less than a year.
On SoundCloud has introduced ads in to the sites music streaming, acting in a similar way to Spotify’s ad supported options. The ads aren’t played continuously, which is good for the user, but not so good for the revenue stream of SoundCloud.
For SoundCloud to compete with the likes of Spotify and Tidal, it needs to secure agreements with labels so they can get more popular content on their streaming service.
The break down in negotiations with Sony is supposedly linked to be over the view that SoundCloud doesn’t have enough options for making money off the music that is hosted on the site.
Warner Music Group CEO Stephen Cooper said on Monday that money made from licensing tracks to streaming services like Spotify has exceeded money made from digital downloads sales.
“This is an important milestone, and impressive considering the strong double-digit growth is coming on top of an increasingly significant base,” Cooper said. “The rate of this growth has made it abundantly clear to us that in years to come, streaming will be the way that most people enjoy music.”
Streaming revenue grew by 33% in the second quarter, through services like Spotify and YouTube. This increase in revenue comes right at the time that these big music companies, including Warner, are pushing Spotify to pull the chord on its free streaming platforms. This move would see companies like Spotify move towards fully paid subscriptions with no ad-supported services available, similar to the Tidal business model.
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