Artists saying "No" to Steaming Services

Altho, the current trend for the CDs are those deep discounted box sets. Record companies are repackaging and reissuing their old catalogue which cost them very little. 

But I don't see this as a sustainable business model either. It seems they are going for the last ditch effort before they stop manufacturing.

Well album downloads are well in decline, CD albums have only slightly declined in the last year and in the U.S. Is still the majority album medium, so if the distributors stopped manufacturing, there would be a massive gap, and a great export to the U.S. opportunity for overseas manufacturing.

Simon

Most forum members pay a BBC licence fee I guess.

When you leave a concert you can't hear it again. 

Your vinyl/CD collection is a heavily depreciating asset and has a very low resale value compared with it's cost. 

I don't get the negativity about paying for music I can't keep, if you listen to new music on a streaming service for 1 hour a day, so 30 hrs a month, it's a lot cheaper than buying that music on vinyl or CD. 

These services are far from perfect (surprise they've just launched) and I would expect them to improve and get cheaper over time. 

The model presents a challenge for artists, but why should being a musician give you the opportunity to become a multi-millionaire?  in the 20th century rock/pop stars (and their publishers)  benefited from a business model that was highly regressive and I can't see why that coming to an end is bad news. 

Olly

It is bad news in as much as the mentality of the industry, particularly the labels, will seek to demonize the money paying punters for the sins of the pirates because they see it as the only way to hang onto the obscene volumes of money they have historically made by sitting on their arses and greedily pontificating. 

If they are losing money it must be someone else's fault. If I won't buy low quality crap, I must be stealing it. Stands to reason.

A live concert is not analogous to subscription streaming. Two complexly different things. The latter is more akin to radio play, which you don't have to pay to listen to. Or a juke box, which you do. The BBC licence fee is irreverent; anything transmitted by the BBC is susceptible to capture and archiving.  You can record a soap or documentary and watch it again infinitely. You don't pay to watch it again. And if you spent the rest of your life only watching your recorded archive you wouldn't have to pay the licence fee.

A concert is an experience, every one different even playing the same music, so quite unlike listening to recorded music.

As for negativity about music that can't be kept, it is relevant to observe that recorded music in any form is a phenomenon only slightly over a century old - before that music was only ever available live - and for the majority of people it simply wasn't available to be heard inside people's own homes). Against that, online streaming is wonderful!

However, very  early in recorded music's commercial history HMV adopted a standard that a pressing had to be capable of surviving at least 50 plays (they wore out fast!). So the recording industry introduced us to a product we could play many times quite clearly expecting that was exactly what customers wanted to do, authorising and promoting the concept of paying for an indefinite license to own and play. Roll on a few years and CDs were claimed to be indestructible, and now we have digital files that are truly capable of lasting forever (remember to back up!). Cassette recording introduced portability, which continued in digital formats, Thus the public has been conditioned to be able to own records for play whenever, however many times, and even wherever, they may choose - and as one of the persons so conditioned, that certainly is my desire and pleasure. 

From a personal viewpoint, if online streaming services were to have the music I want to listen to, all at the very best available SQ, with guaranteed future continued availability, at a cost that for my playing is no more than buying the music, then it might be of interest - but so far i think the first three criteria have yet to be met, so the cost aspect is not worth assessing.

Meanwhile there is one additional benefit that possession of the recordings brings, which is that at any time someone can choose to reduce or even cease listening to new music, for whatever reason, yet still continue to enjoy all the music they've bought, for the rest of their lives, completely free of additional charge.

On live concerts, I should have said that while they may have become a more significant income stream for some artists, I agree that have no relevance to consideration of streaming. And expanding on my comment about experience, whilst indeed you can't hear it again, in my experience it is certainly possible to experience it again, in one particular case because a live recording was issued of a concert I was at, and in many cases because listening even to studio recordings of the music I can be 'transported back' in my mind to a live performance , even decades ago, which can give the music an even stronger emotional bond than music I haven't experienced live.

I was going to mention about live concerts sometimes being recorded and available after the fact, with no need to repeatedly pay to listen and/or watch but I thought it was hair splitting. However, on reflection and after reading your eloquent description, I think it's an important point.

I suspect if this streaming 'executives' (whlever they are) contributed nothing to the ability to stream X, Y or Z, he or she would not be paid very much for very long...

Wat, I like to feel I am very much not a number but a freeman as well, but I guess my youthful reactionary stances have mellowed as perhaps my naivity has reduced. Yes there are a lot of gravy trains out there... but I like new, and I like ways that challange the established ways.. and my career has been shaped by that to some extent including developing hosted shared services long before the term 'cloud' was even a glint in its marketeer's eye.. and developing video on demand services using very early prototype ADSL and fibre to the premise in the mid 90s.  I don't believe there is always necessarily a sinister executive behind such innovations, but that is not the same as saying there are not such people.. I think that is life.. And charlatans and quacks appear in all walks ...

I have friends / acquaintances who are artists/musicians and those who have expressed a view seem to on the whole embrace these new media services... Streaming and self publishing can also help the small players as well as the big fish..

Simon

But how?

So are they making any money off streaming?

All the stats I have read so far suggests otherwise.

My friends are the small fish, they are making some money, but have other sources of income.. One of my old friends has albums on iTunes, published CDs and content on all the major streaming services (lossy and lossless) and quite extensive biographies on metadata sites etc, but still has another source of income.. But his real love is performing and musical self expression.. When I next speak to him I'll ask him about the revenue from streaming - which I suspect won't be much. Another son of a close friend has tracks on YouTube and Soundcloud and very occasionally gets commercial offers.. So uses these  as promotional services, and simply for getting feedback from people who enjoy his work,  but has part time work and is also studying music and music production... Which is probably how he will make his living unless he gets a lucky break.

Simon

So streaming is good for artists so long as they don't quit their day gig and remain hobbyist level.

Even the big fish are struggling for a big profit.

For small fish, they can perhaps create a buzz or go viral then generate interest sort of like free PR. 

True, but there is nothing wrong with the 'hobbyist' or the semi pro.. if you love the music you want make it and perform it.. If you get a lucky break and can make a living from it, then great, but in my experience this only works for a minority of musicians, just like actors, artists, poets, authors, dancers and photographers... It's the way of the world I think.. most people I know who make art do it because they love it, not because they are necessarily going to get much of a living from it...

Simon

A possible reply to that would be that if more hobbyists were able to pursue their creative endeavours, music as a whole would benefit.  Who knows how many great albums have not been recorded because their potential creator needed the the only money they had for rent instead of studio time to record a demo.  This possibility absolutely does not evaporate upon signing a record contract - it applies to smaller/early career artists just as much as it does pub bands or whoever.

The point is not that the world owes creative people a living.  It's that the more the money going to artists gets squeezed, the more potential works are prohibited.  Most of them would probably have been rubbish anyway, but the odd one or two could have changed the world.

Much the same for any creative endeavour, and c'est la vie, one might say.  But the point here is that streaming, as a model which cuts down artist income in favour of others (if it is true that it does - it seems to from my perspective) doesn't help.

As before, not addressing the full scope, just providing a view.

Beyoncé, The Eagles, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Justin bloody Beeber, One Direction, Paul McCartney, Calvin Harris, Taylor 'don't sell your art cheap' Swift, Jay Z, Diddy, etc etc all earned over $50,000,000 in 2014 alone.  I don't know how Mr & Mrs Z are going to survive on a household income of $120 million.  I feel really sorry for them having to work a day job too

yeah but their income probably come from elsewhere not from streaming. 

It used to be the record sales were significant amount of artist's income but that business model is no longer is the subject of the topic no?

Classical musicians have it a bit easier if you could play in a major orchestra in the US.

Base Salary of symphony musicians in US

If you are a popular artist then you are clearly still able to make money that is beyond the wildest dreams of the average person.  It may well be that you make more money from touring, and your album or streaming promotes your tour, and I know Ed Sheran has said as much, but even so you are very very well rewarded indeed if you are one of the 'big fish'. As for streaming, I read that Taylor Swift has made $250 million from streaming alone, which isn't bad for singing someone elses songs

More from Neil:

“…The twenty first century world would be a better place if music sounded as good as it could. Musicians would create with the knowledge that people would hear and feel who they are, what they are in their being, what they are saying with and through their music, and why they are compelled to say it, as they have done since the human race began. Not some 21st century fake shallow Xerox facsimile, with all of the essence taken away and replaced by a thin exterior with no passionate core. That’s not humanity, that’s a cheap partial replication of it. And it won’t do. And it won’t do what music can do, it’s just a noise, sometimes pleasant, sometimes less so.

We invite our fellow music lovers to get it all, feel the music, let the music change our minds and our bodies, our environments, our lives. We want all music lovers to share our community pages and provide their own insight into the story we are telling together to the world.

Why? Because music matters and sound matters. Not just any music or any sound. It needs to have all of its resonance, all of its echo, all of its soul and you can’t get it from downgraded super compressed files which are so ubiquitous today. We know that music is not only good for the soul, but it is good for the body. It is the universal language and it needs to be heard completely.

We do not want your music to be a shadow of what it once was. We want you to feel it and hear it like the giant it is. We want music to make your life better. It has been proven that music can change your DNA. Music is a life force. Not a commodity or just content to be driven to the lowest quality for convenience alone. We are bigger than that. Music is about the quality of life and the best sounding music changes your life, yes it changes your DNA, your outlook, your feelings about where you are in the world.

Music is love ……..Thanks for listening

Neil”

"It has been proven that music can change your DNA"

Hahahahahah.

Time to hide the cutlery. 

OTOH, I suppose that having a lunatic supporting a cause you believe in is better than no support at all?

It's a shame about Pono. So little achieved.

thank you Kuma for that link. i found it very interesting indeed...

enjoy

ken

I am now worried that I might mutate into somebody, or some creature, else, through changes to my DNA. Is it an increasing risk with increasing listening levels? Or does it depend on the style of music? Actually,I shouldnt worry, as the damage must surely have been done by now, so I clearly am not the person I was when I started down the hifi path...

That aside, Neil's views are not a lot different from mine, except that I think of it generally and nothing to do with streaming per se. All music should be available at the highest possible quality, with lower quality options such as MP3 the choice of the listener (eg for reasons of portable storage capacity)  but all priced the same less well off people aren't pushed down the path of lower quality. the trouble is,mew now have a generation brought up on iPods and mp3s who have no idea of how the music can and should sound, and it is sad when occasionally they find their way into forums like this starting to seek better quality, only to discover that their collections of 100s of songs are limited by the format in which they were purchased.

Yeah, Neil's comments on DNA are a bit off beam... But there again I read that:

"While we have long known that hereditary genes are responsible for physical attributes and for illnesses or allergies, scientists have discovered that the trauma experienced by one generation can alter genes and those mutations can be passed along to offspring.

Researchers at Mount Sinai hospital and the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center, both in New York, studied the genetics of 32 Jewish men and women who had experienced the horrors of persecution during the Nazi regime, either because they had been in a concentration camp, witnessed or experienced torture or were forced into hiding. The children of these individuals, known to have a greater likelihood of stress disorders, were also studied. The researchers then compared their findings to Jewish families who had not been in Europe during that time, and the differences in DNA were noticeable."

Richard