David Byrne Takes A Sharp Yet Despairing Look At Spotify, Streaming Music and Musicians
Late last week David Byrne wrote a lengthy column for The Guardian in which he discussed streaming music, Spotify, the music industry, artist careers and his own choice of pulling music from Spotify. Unlike many musician critics, Byrne showed he's been closely following the larger conversation, understands the details and has a clear picture of the stakes at hand. Yet, sadly, after writing one of the clearest takes on the situation I've read to date, Byrne seems unable to suggest a better path forward. Let's hope he's able to take another step after giving the matter more thought.
David Byrne's Guardian column is very well-written, sketches out one of the clearest pictures of the current state of streaming music and artists' careers that I've seen to date yet closes on a disappointing note. Things look bad. Something must be done. But "I don't have an answer."
In some ways I respect that position. Too many people are taking cut-and-dried stances as a basis for lashing out at whoever disagrees with their supposed wisdom. Too many others are simply resigned to whatever comes their way, taking the stance of victim or attempting to rebrand as survivor.
Byrne makes some excellent points including a few that are often missing in arguments related to Spotify and other streaming music services. For example, lots of people get worked up about Spotify payments as if the labels weren't major beneficiaries of deals whose details we are not allowed to know:
"Spotify is the second largest source of digital music revenue for labels in Europe, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Significantly, that's income for labels, not artists…"
"The amounts these services pay per stream is miniscule…The major record labels usually siphon off most of this income, and then they dribble about 15-20% of what's left down to their artists. Indie labels are often a lot fairer – sometimes sharing the income 50/50."
Byrne notes that Spotify's business model is not designed to maximize revenue for artists who are not shareholders and who, if popular, often don't own their rights:
"Spotify gave $500m in advances to major labels in the US for the right to license their catalogues. That was an "advance" against income – so theoretically it's not the labels' money to pocket. Another chunk of change is soon to follow. The labels also got equity; so they are now partners and shareholders in Spotify, which is valued at around $3bn."
"That income from equity, when and if the service goes public, does not have to be shared with the artists. It seems obvious that some people are making a lot of money on this deal, while the artists have been left with meagre scraps."
Byrne also questions the notion that musicians shouldn't judge Spotify as a potential revenue stream but should instead view it as a marketing platform where new fans might discover their music:
"I can understand how having a place where people can listen to your work when they are told or read about it is helpful, but surely a lot of places already do that? I manage to check stuff out without using these services. I'll go directly to an artist's website, or Bandcamp, or even Amazon…"
"I also don't understand the claim of discovery that Spotify makes; the actual moment of discovery in most cases happens at the moment when someone else tells you about an artist or you read about them – not when you're on the streaming service listening to what you have read about."
Byrne summarizes numerous musicians' stances, makes many strong points, asks many excellent questions and leaves it all very open-ended.
It's unfortunate that one of the few musicians currently playing public intellectual who addresses issues related to Spotify and the larger topic of streaming media in a clear, thoughtful and thorough manner is unwilling to suggest possible next steps.
But given that most musicians will simply take individualistic stances while their public statements cancel each other out, I guess we will just have to wait to see what Spotify, other streaming music services, the labels and music fans end up doing.
[Thumbnail image of David Byrne via Wikipedia.]
More:
- Musicians: Hate Spotify and Pandora? Here's An Alternative Proposal
- Spotify is "Last desperate fart of a dying corpse" says Thom Yorke
- Thom Yorke, Nigel Godrich Exit Spotify In Protest: "New artists get paid fuck all."
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
As a musician and activist, I can’t say I favor the idea of just waiting to see what Spotify does.
Currently, I’m working with Spotify as an artist – from visiting their headquarters in Stockholm to interfacing with reps in New York and LA, it’s clear that Spotify just doesn’t know much about artists. And how would they? The people who created and work at Spotify are primarily techs and marketing gurus.
As an artist, I feel it’s my job to go to them and say, hey, I recognize that this platform is the future. Artists have to go where the fans are and fans will continue to go to digital platforms for music. It’s our job to go to Spotify and work with them on making it a platform that isn’t just about streaming music, but about bolstering a new era of the music industry, monetizing for both Spotify and the artists.
As an indie artist, I’m doing this by going direct to Spotify and discussing ideas on how to support and grow local underground scenes, for example, here in LA, the underground rock scene, which I am a part of.
More to come on that, but basically, it doesn’t serve anyone to sit back and complain. People do enough of that with the government.
Let’s be proactive about the new era of music, as artists, and as fans.
They traded their masters for fame, got the big shows and endorsements, should be happy with 15-20%. I`m sure the dinosaurs had many questions about their own extinction. Own your fan relationships and you can benefit from this evolution. Tables turned, level playing field.
He gave the answer, or at least the beginning to one… It’s in the cut to the record companies. The idea of a record company is becoming outdated, and what they provide for an artist is less and less making it ridiculous that they’re still around, and taking revenue. Artists can sign directly with these services and NOT split the revenue. This should substantially help, even if it doesn’t bring it back to pre-digital times. I use Pandora and torch music, but I used to pirate everything. So in me (and many other people) they’re making something instead of nothing…this shouldn’t be forgotten either.
I trying to reduce David Byrne down to a single post is a bit unrealistic. As for what is going to happen in the future let me know when the Crystal Ball that can see it is on kickstarter and I’ll back it.
You ever heard of a songwriter? Producer? Engineer? Electronics manufacturer? Instrument maker? Studio technician? This isn’t as simple as the myth of this all being about greedy artists.
There’s a whole ecosystem in place that get’s hurt and quite frankly those people don’t have fans. They don’t have merchandise. They don’t tour. Don’t sell albums. They all rely on a system where someone who values the work, pays for the work.
It is not a level playing field. In fact it’s harder than ever. Penetrating into a market where on a global stage you have a cacophony of artists vying for the same attention…just to get enough streamed plays to pay the basics…it’s not so simple as…democracy wins!
Everyone likes to boil this down to artists…but there are a lot of people who don’t sell music that rely on a system of music being sold…and they aren’t greedy fame whores.
The elements of scale are simple…you will never be able to replace the revenue lost from music sales with the revenue from streaming. It’s a fixed price point. No box sets, no special albums, nothing…just a bunch of people paying $10 a month.