Spotify

[oneofthethree]

Was wondering if the album, or preferably parts of the album so it'd encourage people who liked a track or two to buy the whole album, is going to appear on spotify. I regularly send people playlists and it'd be cool to have some ford on there.

I assume it's ridiculously expensive or something.

[LeePL]

Artists don't have to pay to get their music on Spotify, but they have to be signed to a label that has a deal with them...or with AWAL (artists without a label)...as David is unsigned I'd be surprised if they could get it up there, unless maybe the publisher has a Spotify deal...

[Chris815]

Would it even be worth David having his albums on there? The return from streaming sites must be pretty dire

[becca]

well yeah, no artist is going to make much money directly from spotify (I remember reading somewhere that Lady Gaga had made about £500 from thousands of streams of her album), but it makes music more accessible to people who might not have heard it otherwise... it's 'try before you buy' in a nicer way than illegally downloading

[sven945]

(02-06-2010 02:08 PM)becca Wrote:  it's 'try before you buy' in a nicer way than illegally downloading

Whilst better than illegal downloading, in these days where everyone has always on internet connections it can very easily become a single source for music.

(That's not to say being on Spotify is a bad thing. Just that I don't necessarily agree that it'll lead to more sales of the record).

[oneofthethree]

hence my suggestion a few tasters wouldn't be enough to stop someone buying the album, but enough to get people to buy it

[sven945]

And that, dear children, is why I should pay more attention to what I read

[ChrisFlynn]

Lady Gaga made more than that (I seem to recall that was publishing figures for Sweden for 6 months, or something small subset like that).
Try before you buy is excellent (I've been a subscriber for a year, and pumped £120 into the music industry ), but I agree it's not the time for the whole of LTHTR (yet). The sampler idea is excellent (although I'm sure I suggested a Spotify live EP some time...)

[nalA]

Mayhaps sticking the Panic single on there could be an idea seeing as it's sold out...

[shetlandshaun]

I was at a seminar the other day and one of the keynotes was Daniel Ek the spotify founder. They told random sporadic tales of how spotify helped break acts in different markets etc but they had no concrete evidence to support that it was spotifys doing, though i believe it may have helped.

They need to stop free streaming and treat music like its worth something not like running water. Warner music pulled their catalog for a reason. Most will say blah de blah they are just greedy cos they aren't making enough money from it so they pulled it. they might not have been making money but artists arent making any good money from it either. They need to stop wasting time on giving artists music away for free and invest their time in finding a new higher quality audio format.

[Chris815]

Giving it away for free works, but only if the advertisements bring in enough income, but the majority of their income needs to come from the subscriptions. Sadly they don't have enough people paying for a subscription to give enough back to the artist. Maybe in a few years time. Sure I read somewhere that Facebook are only just starting to break even with advertisements on users accounts, and they have millions of users worldwide!

It's all great being able to use Spotify on my mobile, but mobile Internet is so shite in this country it is not even worth attempting to stream music from Spotify. Why should I have to sync a playlist to 'offline' mode when I can simply rip my CD's to my phone and not be bound by a playlist? I'd rather have a few adverts than pay £10 a month.

As for Warner pulling their catalogue, the major record labels have stakes in Spotify, wouldn't be surprised if Warner had a 5% share of Spotify as well, so when they did start to make money, they'd see a share of it... but at the same time I wouldn't expect them to share the money made with the artists. Non of the money from people being sued for downloading in the US has made its way back to any artist.


YouTube works in a similar way now, but IMO better than Spotify. In the past you used to get DMCA notices for copyrighted material on your account and the video was removed. When you received a second, your account was shut down.
Now you get countless warnings, but the videos are disabled till you replace the audio / video with something that YouTube has permission to share.
The majority of my cases as I do have some official videos on my account, the record label has placed advertisements at the side of the video. People view the video, they see the adverts, the advertisement company pays YouTube for their advert being shown, YT shares the money. Perhaps DF could put adverts at the side of his videos? I just don't get why content should be so limited, it has got to be available on a site somewhere. If it wasn't for YT, I've no idea how I'd convert people to Ford without knowing their address and making them play a CD.



I'm going to shut up about this now, I can rant for ages on this subject. Sorry if you found the above boring!

[shetlandshaun]

(02-13-2010 02:04 AM)Chris815 Wrote:  Giving it away for free works, but only if the advertisements bring in enough income, but the majority of their income needs to come from the subscriptions. Sadly they don't have enough people paying for a subscription to give enough back to the artist. Maybe in a few years time. Sure I read somewhere that Facebook are only just starting to break even with advertisements on users accounts, and they have millions of users worldwide!

It's all great being able to use Spotify on my mobile, but mobile Internet is so shite in this country it is not even worth attempting to stream music from Spotify. Why should I have to sync a playlist to 'offline' mode when I can simply rip my CD's to my phone and not be bound by a playlist? I'd rather have a few adverts than pay £10 a month.

As for Warner pulling their catalogue, the major record labels have stakes in Spotify, wouldn't be surprised if Warner had a 5% share of Spotify as well, so when they did start to make money, they'd see a share of it... but at the same time I wouldn't expect them to share the money made with the artists. Non of the money from people being sued for downloading in the US has made its way back to any artist.


YouTube works in a similar way now, but IMO better than Spotify. In the past you used to get DMCA notices for copyrighted material on your account and the video was removed. When you received a second, your account was shut down.
Now you get countless warnings, but the videos are disabled till you replace the audio / video with something that YouTube has permission to share.
The majority of my cases as I do have some official videos on my account, the record label has placed advertisements at the side of the video. People view the video, they see the adverts, the advertisement company pays YouTube for their advert being shown, YT shares the money. Perhaps DF could put adverts at the side of his videos? I just don't get why content should be so limited, it has got to be available on a site somewhere. If it wasn't for YT, I've no idea how I'd convert people to Ford without knowing their address and making them play a CD.



I'm going to shut up about this now, I can rant for ages on this subject. Sorry if you found the above boring!

not at all this debate never gets old.

Funny you mention Youtube actually. Youtube stands as the greatest experiemnt of giving product away for 'free' and proves it doesnt work. It sgreat for us but it doesnt make any money and any money it does make doesnt get dispersed to anyone but youtube.

[ChrisFlynn]

I am one of Spotify's biggest fanboys, but I agree the free model has some way to go (this is down the advertising; I think being in a recession doesn't help advertisers!). That said, I've paid £10 every month since Feb 09 though...

(02-12-2010 08:49 PM)shetlandshaun Wrote:  They need to stop free streaming and treat music like its worth something not like running water.

Music has a value, and will still be paid for - but if it's advertisers who are paying instead of the end user, that seems fair? Customers are still paying but with the currency of advertisers' time...

(02-12-2010 08:49 PM)shetlandshaun Wrote:  They need to stop wasting time on giving artists music away for free and invest their time in finding a new higher quality audio format.

Erm....what?! You can buy MP3 320Kbps from many stores, and some even offer flac. Hell, even Spotify Premium is 320kbps Ogg Vorgin q9. If you spend more than £10 a month on music, do this! Or do you want a brand new proprietary format that is overpriced and doesn't play on your current music player?

(02-13-2010 07:32 PM)shetlandshaun Wrote:  Youtube stands as the greatest experiemnt of giving product away for 'free' and proves it doesnt work. It sgreat for us but it doesnt make any money and any money it does make doesnt get dispersed to anyone but youtube.

I think the way the labels seem YouTube (and indeed video!) is not as a customer product, but rather as a promotional tool. I don't know how they budget it, but it really should be considered a marketting tool only (I don't really know anyone who's ever bought a video, so why not give it away for free and, if you've got a great video and great song, why not let people know about it? It seems almost too easy to mention "State of the Union" and "Go To Hell" as examples of videos which get passed around, increasing an artist's profile - I doubt you could argue this has resulted in *fewer* sales of Ford's (audio) products?

(02-13-2010 02:04 AM)Chris815 Wrote:  Sure I read somewhere that Facebook are only just starting to break even with advertisements on users accounts, and they have millions of users worldwide!

I believe it, but it's a bit of a red-herring; given that - like so many web 2.0 ideas - the idea was to build something cool, get investors, and let them work out how to make money of it. There's a fairly proven case that money can be make from music.


It's all great being able to use Spotify on my mobile, but mobile Internet is so shite in this country it is not even worth attempting to stream music from Spotify.[/quote]

Depends where you are - in London, I'm able to sync a whole album before the first track has finished playing. History of 2G networks has shown that this gets better with time (and investment) so I think the 3G networks will start coming up to speed soon.

(02-13-2010 02:04 AM)Chris815 Wrote:  Why should I have to sync a playlist to 'offline' mode when I can simply rip my CD's to my phone and not be bound by a playlist?

I see it the other way around - why should I have to rip my CDs to my phone and be bound by that playlist, when I've got x million tracks at my instant disposal?

(02-13-2010 02:04 AM)Chris815 Wrote:  As for Warner pulling their catalogue, the major record labels have stakes in Spotify, wouldn't be surprised if Warner had a 5% share of Spotify as well

All 4 majors (Universal, Sony Music, Warner, EMI) do.

[shetlandshaun]

These are still digital compressed files and fact of the matter is it sounds lame. You go into a recording studio and listen to it played properly and it sounds infintely better thats what needs to be captured and made the standard. Most people dont even know the different types of quality their downloads can come in so would most likely not look into FLAC versions of albums.

[becca]

we've not all got musician's ears... I don't hear the difference in mp3 and flac, I've tried and I just don't.