Spotify Mailbag

One of my biggest frustrations at the moment is the complete lack of leadership from the artist community on the key issues facing our industry. It is a complete void. Those who step up are either painfully wrong and disorganized (as in this case), or go completely unsupported by their peers. There is no artist union. THERE SHOULD BE. Managers and agents keep that from happening because they're afraid of poaching if they let another representative get close to their artist. But artists aren't demanding unionization (or something like it) either. Collaboratively in the live business alone, they could:

- Stop the poisonous attack on artists' rights to try to get a cheap
ticket to their fans through legislation
- Force a better consumer experience by insisting on all-in pricing (and potentially secure better economics for themselves)
- Drive full inventory disclosure so fans get the best shot at tickets
- Even potentially break the venue control of the ticket if they wanted to

They are missing the fact that being an artist in this age also means being an entrepreneur. And good entrepreneurs know when to partner to further their interests. My observation is that most of the bad things about the consumer experience in both recorded and live music have been allowed to persist because the artist community is fragmented, and therefore powerless as a whole. They lose out to established status-quo forces via thousands of one-on-one negotiations, rather than creating leverage by assembling their interests. It also allows larger artists to act with only self interest, rather than using their status to advance the cause of all artists. There are no ties that bind.

I'm obsessed with solving this, because without a collective voice from the artist community, transformative forces will shape the future of their business (and potentially their craft) without them. And history says that is an exploitative environment for artists, and a mediocre-at-best experience for fans.

Nathan Hubbard

CE0
Ticketmaster

__________________________________________

Testify, brother. It's important to note that overall prerecorded music revenues in Sweden rose by 14% from 2011 to 2012 as Spotify scaled to dominate that market. If Spotify (or whoever wins the streaming battle) were bad for business, then would this be the case? Clearly not. The real problem is that many artists still line up at the record company trough so they can be paid pennies on the dollars that their music earns. Then they blame Spotify rather than their managers or themselves for the iniquities around them. There are other options to taking your music to market with the requisite infrastructure without having to get f****d. Ask Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (speaking of Jimmy Iovine).

Best-
David Macias
Thirty Tigers
_____

"Making Dollars: Clearing Up Spotify Payment Confusion": http://bit.ly/10YxIWd

"Spotify helps Swedish music sales rise 30.1% in first half of 2012": http://bit.ly/Nesfqi

"Streaming Sales Lift Scandinavian Music Market": http://bit.ly/18aNAbS
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I love Thom. I love Nigel. But was blown away when I watched this rant live on Twitter. Can we applaud Spotify / Rdio / Rhapsody for throwing down a ton of money to legally provide music in a modern way that makes sense? We should have done this with Napster. It only took our industry almost 15 years to figure it out!

Artists: Streaming services DO pay. If you have a problem with not getting "paid" by streaming services, complain to the entity you sold your rights to, not to the platforms trying to get ahead of the curve for once. And since you're most likely un-recouped due to gross overspending in the past; let's all try to create and market music in a more effiecent and sustainable manner from here on out.

Thanks,

Emily White
Whitesmith Entertainment & Readymade Records
New York / Los Angeles / Nashville

__________________________________________

Bob,

And how about Jason Isbell ranting against Spotify awhile back?
I figured I'd never hear his new record (Southeastern) as I had purchased others in the past, each with diminishing enthusiasm.
Then I went on Spotify and there it was! I played it , liked it (more than once) and I'll play it again…so he's making a little $$ off me after all.
I may never have heard it otherwise.

Bob Bradshaw

__________________________________________

hi bob

this is exactly why i started Audiam

YouTube is the new iTunes.

If someone is using music in a video that is not theirs, the law does not allow anyone to do anything beyond ask YouTube to take down the video.

And then it just pops up tomorrow.

However, what can be done is telling YouTube its OK to place an ad on that person's video. And if that happens, the "cash" is paid by the advertiser, not the user or YouTube.

In other words, we now have a world where music fans can legally â€" and for free â€"create videos containing music they love, upload these videos to YouTube, have YouTube license the music the videos and then have advertisers pay the artists and copyright holders for the use.

YouTube can become kickstarter. Please use my music in your videos, cover my songs, to help me raise money.

Even a single song by one artist can be used by hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of fans. Each video is its own creation with its own potential to become a "hit,” from lyric videos to "unofficial" music videos to music in the background as the wedding party dances. Each work of art has the potential to become popular, and with each view, money can be generated and the artist can be promoted

Instead of suing the music fan for using the music, embrace it.

Tell them to use the music.

We WANT people to use the music in their YouTube videos. And when we find those videos, we tell YouTube its OK to sell ads into them.

What existed before, continues to exist, only now they generate revenue

Thank You

Jeff Price

_____

"A New Way for Musicians to Make Money on YouTube": http://buswk.co/1av12vI


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