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t0 | 11 years ago

But companies like Pandora and Spotify aren't profitable even at these numbers. If this artist made 10x as much, he'd still be upset at only making $40 for 14,227 music plays and these streaming companies wouldn't be able to function. This is also a barrier to entry for new startups that want to offer music streaming.

There doesn't seem to be a number that artists would be happy getting and that music streaming companies could actually offer them.

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crusso|11 years ago

Artists who look at these services as anything but free advertisement for themselves so that they can get media sales, increased concert attendance, or notoriety that can translate to other gigs (like Armen Chakmakian who claims that his real job is writing music for television) are going to be perpetually disappointed.

tunesmith|11 years ago

That point gets brought up to imply artists are in the wrong, when it actually supports that Pandora/Spotify are in the wrong.

Pandora/Spotify are debt-financed. They literally cannot afford to offer their services at the royalty rates they are paying now, and are pressuring musicians to take less.

You can definitely create a service that is popular with consumers if you are debt-financed (see Napster 1.0). That doesn't mean that the service should exist, or that the songwriters should make financial sacrifices to make the service viable.

dublinben|11 years ago

If artists think that (immensely popular) streaming services are worthwhile, then they're going to have to accept lower royalties. These legal streaming services are responsible for as much as an 80 percent reduction in music piracy. If artists kill off these services, then they better be prepared to accept the rampant piracy of the 2000s.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-63709-Music-Piracy-Down-b...