The RIAA Armageddon has begun

when I want to listen to obscurities I don't own I sequence a bunch of YouTube clips together. Is it any worse than paying for Spotify?

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, June 19, 2012 11:20 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think the difference is you can pretend you own it a little better w/ spotify.

also you can play a whole album without clicking in between each song to find the best version.

genuine q: do artists get royalty from Youtube plays? At least Spotify pays a royalty, however pitiful that might be.

"royalties" in first sentence above obv

genuine q: do artists get royalty from Youtube plays?

If the uploader "claims" the video, they get paid when it plays.

okay, thanks.

well how much do they really make? I mean I read that Rebecca Black apparently made a ton of $$$ but how much does your average say Field Music-level band made?

ultimately this seems like the best way to pay artists (in addition to album sales, which I don't think will go away completely) but I'm guessing Spotify ad revenue is just a drop in the bucket (not that iTunes pays them much more!)

this is out of left field but i keep thinking about the power of the idea that carrier is different from content. i think it's basically what made the record industry possible and now it's what is killing the record industry. and it's like, a lie. carrier just gets endlessly outsourced and fractured into new industries and you pay for it w/ your phone bill or whatever. more fingers in the pie, less for everyone? idk.

anyway i'm with the fidelity/physical object geeks for the most part. there still isn't a way to get cassette-quality music for free. if there was, i'd be all over that.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/

well how much do they really make? I mean I read that Rebecca Black apparently made a ton of $$$ but how much does your average say Field Music-level band made?

― frogbs, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 2:41 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

note these numbers:

By March 21, 2011, the "Friday" music video had been viewed more than 30 million times on YouTube.[50] Forbes estimated that as of that date, Black and ARK Music had earned $20,000 from YouTube's revenue-sharing program,[51] and Billboard estimated iTunes sales of approximately 43,000 copies, roughly equivalent to $26,700 in royalties.[52]

40k in iTunes sales yielded roughly the same amount of money as 30 million YouTube views, so the ratio is roughly 1000 to 1 in terms of iTunes vs. YouTube

i think it's funny that everyone became such an expert about major label contracts, royalty rates, merch sales, touring income, and like ~the nature of what ownership of information even is, man~ right about the time they could download a music for free

well how much do they really make?

I don't have hard numbers in front of me (and wouldn't share them if I did), but where I work, YouTube streams generate a significant revenue stream. To give you an example, Nickelback's video for "When We Stand Together" has been viewed over 56 million times. Even if we get paid a tenth of a penny a play, that's a lot of money.

not really. you think that's a fair price? a tenth of a penny? for one play?

$56,000 isn't a lot of money?

it is nickelback though

woah i didn't know the nickelback dude posted here

yeah i mean, a dollar for every thousand views, or a thousand dollars for every million views, that seems pretty decent.

we are talking, after all, about a site where you can click it over and over to up your views, and nobody pays to watch anything. advertising can only generate so much revenue.

woah i didn't know the nickelback dude posted here

I run Roadrunner Records' website.

the fact that the artist gets only 9 cents per iTunes download is ridiculous

...if you don't mind my asking, how many employees are left at Roadrunner now anyway?

where did that statistic come from? (xpost)

mr. que's link up there

woah i didn't know the nickelback dude posted here

I run Roadrunner Records' website.

― 誤訳侮辱, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 2:19 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i figured it was a typo...are they on roadrunner now?

They've always been on there, I think?

...if you don't mind my asking, how many employees are left at Roadrunner now anyway?

A really loose, off-the-top-of-my-head count yields about 40 in the New York office, with a few other people still floating around in other parts of the world (Canada, Australia).

are they on roadrunner now?

Nickelback have been on Roadrunner for almost their entire career (their first album was originally independently released in Canada).

xps that chart is a little bit misleading as it only tallies the royalties paid to the artist rather than the writer + also publisher of the song, which is where a more significant amount of royalty money goes - in the US at least, afaik. But i'm sure the relative scale of it is probably accurate enough that the point its making isn't lost

it looks like a DIY artist self-releasing an mp3 gets 57 cents out of a 99 cent song purchase according to that graph, though. of course signed acts are gonna lose most of that money to the label. (xpost)

i think it's funny that everyone became such an expert about major label contracts, royalty rates, merch sales, touring income, and like ~the nature of what ownership of information even is, man~ right about the time they could download a music for free

the internet made it easier to download songs around the same time it made it easier to read that steve albini piece

lol I was gonna call that out too but decided against it

Did you?

$56,000 isn't a lot of money?

Let's see, divide that by 4 for each band member, take away taxes. So an optimistic royalty for having the most popular video on youtube as a concert act is probably less than poverty level wages.

does Nickelback really split songwriting royalties four ways...?

xp Like that's their only income stream. "We'll put this video on YouTube and before you know it we'll be damn hell ass kings!"

Also they're Canuckian so that's like, 10 million loonies, right?

I don't know why don't you ask them.

yeah i mean, a dollar for every thousand views, or a thousand dollars for every million views, that seems pretty decent.

It DOES?

This is where I'm 100% pro-file sharing and 100% against mega-million dollar for-profit ad sites like Spotify and Youtube.

Mr. Que OTM with that info thing. I feel like every time i come to this page i want to relink it.

So an optimistic royalty for having the most popular video on youtube as a concert act is probably less than poverty level wages.

Well you add in Spotify, last.fm, album sales, ticket sales, bumper stickers, T-shirts...

well i guess it depends how much YouTube is making off each view. how much more can it be? there's no way they're clocking like 50 cents a view or something.

i would pay a lot more for spotify. if the catalogue was extended further i'd pay A LOT more

^^^^ what i'm saying. they're like the only monthly expense of mine that i think "yes, please, ask for more money, i'm getting way too good a deal here!"

^^^i would too, but until they pay their artists more, i won't.

well yeah, obv under that condition

it still blows my mind that Spotify is free

Well you add in Spotify, last.fm, album sales, ticket sales, bumper stickers, T-shirts...

...minus studio time, mastering, producer fees, booking/promotional fees, ticket master's cut, etc...

sorry, Live Nation

man, spotify is basically useless to me. blocked at work, and i mostly listen to music on an ipod in the car anyway. but i get that most people are fine with streaming and often won't even download something for free as long as they can keep streaming it whenever they want.

Lefsetz is also bang on the money, especially this:

To be fighting file-sharing is akin to protesting dot matrix printers. File-trading is on its way out. Because it takes too much time to do it. And you don’t fight piracy with laws, but economic solutions. It doesn’t pay to steal if you can listen instantly on Spotify and its ilk.

― moley, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:37 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(no disrespect intended to you, Milton, as obviously there are two sides to this)

― moley, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:43 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey moley! you're a calmer man than I for being able to parse that Lefsetz post without taking it personally, and you're certainly right that there's a lot of constructive, hard line truths in there amid the insults. but when you think of music strictly in terms of economic solutions, it can only lead to this guy's unironic summary of the moral crisis with downloading: 'The Artists are the problem'. And... well... I've just never heard the industry's point of view summed up more honestly or succinctly than that, so I posted before calming down

Well you add in Spotify, last.fm, album sales, ticket sales, bumper stickers, T-shirts...

...minus studio time, mastering, producer fees, booking/promotional fees, ticket master's cut, etc...

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, June 19, 2012 3:56 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

everyone knows you have to spend money to make money but why are we pretending that Nickelback (or any act with 50+ million YT views for a non-meme music video) isn't operating at a profit?

Cos those dude keep asking me for change.

Armageddon....commence please