Century Media Pulls All Labels From Spotify To ‘Protect Artists’
Heavy metal and hardcore label group Century Media has pulled all its labels from Spotify, according to the company, "to protect the interests of their artists". Labels include Century Media and associated labels InsideOutMusic, Superballmusic, Ain't no Grave Records, Hollywood Waste and People Like You. "Spotify in its present shape and form isn't the way forward," the company said in a statement siting potential loss of income. "Physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active."
"The income streams to the artists are affected massively and therefore that accelerates the downward spiral, which eventually will lead to artists not being able to record music the way it should be recorded," according to the music group. "Ultimately, in some cases, it will completely kill a lot of smaller bands that are already struggling to make ends meet.
But Century does acknowledge that Spotify "is a great tool to discover new music" and is "reintroducing their bands to Spotify by way of putting up samplers of the artists. This way, fans can still discover the great music released by the label."
How Fans Consume Music Matters
"This is about survival, nothing less and it is time that fans and consumers realize that for artists it is essential to sell music to keep their heads above water," according to Century. "There needs to be awareness…that how you will consume your music has direct consequences for the artists, who we are all trying to support."
At last. Someone behind a label has cottoned on.
Is Spotify Just Another Nail In The Coffin?
Now, will artists stop getting fucked up the ass and take their music off streaming sites where they get little money, like Spotify and others?
Artists need to wake up.
I’m surprised it took actually this long, but people are finally waking up..
Meanwhile, Beggars says Spotify is one of their top three sources of digital revenue in the world. Who is right?
That’s my point “crashdavis,” only record companies are making any money off of streaming, mostly in the form of advances.
It’s really sick.
Beggars saying that only reinforces that fact. Plus, most digital revenue comes from Apple. The rest of digital retailers are small players.
Yes. Kudos to Century Media.
Not in Sweden….
” record companies are making any money off of streaming, mostly in the form of advances.”: A normal label (not the old ones) will split all income to the artist. Just the same as CD-income and income from iTunes… No difference
Exactly.
The money generated from streaming is accounted by track, by release and by artist.
The amount of digital revenue generated from music has increased at extraordinary pace in Sweden, Norway, and Spain especially. This blows the cannibalisation argument out of the water.
I disagree with their vision, but it’s good to see someone taking a different approach. Hope the sampler thing works for them and doesn’t result in a loss of digital revenue. People might just not be interested in buying physical goods when digital is getting so good, and removing yourself from this ecosystem is a big risk. Takes some guts to make such a decision. Hope to see a follow-up on this a few months or a year from now.
And this: “the way it should be recorded”
Come on.
And has anyone suggested a re-brand to 20th Century Media? 🙂
Yes the increase from free to $0.0035 is an extraordinary pace 🙂
Is it me or all the comments to this article are from people suffering from severe delusions with regards to music industry and its “protection of artists”?
Spot on Bas. CDs? Even if would get them for free I would prefer a digital version of the album.
news flash: Century media has just announced they will cut their fees/percentage of bands income by 50% in order to help the bands make ends meet. NOT! Of course, now they have given bands reasons to sue for Fiduciary Negligence (in denying a revenue stream and eliminating exposure that would benifit the artist). whats next Century? Removing songs from the radio?
Nar there’s more money to be made in sueing the streamers for false advertising 🙂
They have not stopped paid for digital downloads.
What they mean when they are talking about recording is that you need alot of money to make high quality recordings. If your income is decreasing than you don’t have as much to spend on recording the next songs. Thus the new recordings are not as good.
I don’t think you can discount the cannibalization argument just yet. Streaming is in its infancy and a lot of people still buy music. Give it a few years though, and then what will we see?
As for ‘digital revenue’, it needs breaking down to provide meaningful information, as downloads will probably count for a big part of that.
Also, money generated by labels from multiple artists gives a misleading picture (if you’re an artist). It would be good to see exactly how much individual bands and artists are receiving from Spotify, for however many plays.
Then perhaps we can decide whether it’s worthwhile for artists. Can anyone point us to this information?
To say streaming revenue is as good as purchases is not accurate. While artists’ download revenues are fairly low (.05 – .15 cents a track), the money from streaming is a literal pittance (.025 to .01 cents per stream). It can take dozens of streams to equal the royalty revenue from a single download.
Well, while streaming services like spotify are a great thing for endusers, artists face hard times when it comes to their pay. As already mentioned, the pay per stream is close to zero.
Providing samplers of their bands is the best they could do, by that their artists don’t completely lose the chance of being discovered by potential fans.