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Comment by 7thaccount | Hacker News Reader

A friend once explained this to me a decade ago. I would buy albums, but he would torrent everything. In his eyes, music has shifted to the public domain now. He said the best way to support a band now would be to buy t-shirts and go to as many concerts as you can. I still buy all my albums, but finally see his point. I mean now, all artists have their entire collection of music on YouTube. If everyone almost always has an internet connection, is buying music even necessary? Does Taylor Swift make more money off of the albums my wife buys from her or the 8 t-shirts and yearly concert she goes to?

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I would say this is definitely true for big-label musicians. For independent or smaller-label musicians, they still have a large upside potential from certain retailers, like Bandcamp [1].

If you really care about them and they're listed on Bandcamp, it's pretty trivial to sign up for email announcements at an artist level, so you don't miss an opportunity to support them financially whenever they release new material.

Many big musicians don't even have bandcamp accounts, which (1) amazes me (2) implies that they make most of their money through other means, e.g. touring, private performances, etc.

[1] From their website: When you buy something on Bandcamp, 80-85% of your money goes to the artist, and we pay out daily. The remainder goes to payment processor fees and Bandcamp’s revenue share, which is 10-15% on digital items, and 10% on physical goods.

Bandcamp is great. If you're with a major, though, you will likely be contractually prohibited from selling through anything but the label's online store (I am).

I think that only applies to very few labels. Bandcamp isn't some kind of exclusively niche underground store. These days all kinds of big, critically acclaimed labels and artists sell through them.

Your friend was absolutely right. I never cared if people pirated my bands music (or later the bands that I was managing) because the real thing I wanted was them showing up at shows, buying merch, posting us on facebook, asking events to bring us on, etc...

At a certain point, Taylor Swift and larger artists _do_ make a good chunk of change from their actual music sales, but it isn't a feasible strategy to rely on that for indie and DIY artists.

I listen to a lot of music but I’d never go to a live show (can’t think of anything worse) and I’m not going to wear a branded t-shirt. How do they capture revenue from people like me in your model?

Now I think about it I did once buy a video log of the production of an album. But that’s one artist from the thousands I listen to.

To be honest - they don't. You're not the target demographic for them, and that's fine! But for this approach is optimized for the audience that will wear those shirts, go to those shows, buy the posters, follow them on instagram, etc...

I think these people may still provide some value in the form of Retweet, Gossip, Views, Media, Hype, Clicks that helps marketing. In the world of Social Media just having your name known is better than totally unknown. And will funnel back to other places.

It's been mentioned a few times in this comment graph, but just in case: Bandcamp is where you should be putting your money.

80-85% of revenue from goods sold go to the artists [0].

[0]: https://bandcamp.com/about

>How do they capture revenue from people like me in your model?

It's not like bands stopped selling CD's/BluRays's, collectible box-sets, stickers, pins, access to behind-the-scenes videos and mailing lists. But the most someone like you can do for an average band/performer is promote their art through any channels available. The most valuable resource you have is your attention.

> selling CD's/BluRays's, collectible box-sets, stickers, pins

Hmmm... it's a shame they're trying to sell stuff like this. I want to support artists but the last thing I want is junk.

This is silly. If you want to support an artist, give them money.

So set up an organised way for me to do that, e.g. Patreon. Some artists already do.

This is crazy but we used to have this scheme where you actually just paid them for access to the recording. Weird, right?

Then we Spotifyd and that was the end of that and people got a new hobby coming up with justifications for why it's good that we replaced a revenue source for musicians with ... maybe giving them money? Or maybe having them run a T-shirt business?

Maybe they can work for a living. Like go on tour and perform live. Selling tickets and such. If they are any good, people will want to go see them live. Look at the Grateful Dead, they allowed people to copy their music. There are massive sites dedicated to archiving all of their music recordings and you are free to download and listen to it. Yet they made a fortune on touring and performing. Not playing the song one time and then trying to sell copies of it.

Making a recording is work.

Saying "maybe they can work for a living" is saying that people don't think that has value, in which case it's weird that anyone uses Spotify at all.

"Playing the song one time" is minimizing the work/time that goes into learning to play instruments, writing a song, coordinating the musicians for recording, and working on the production.

And it's a lot like saying software developers shouldn't be able to write a piece of code one time but get paid for people buying a copy or using a service running it on a server somewhere.

I have been saying this again and again, but not every artists is a rock band. There are countless releases that are best enjoyed in a home-listening environment and attract a mature audience that couldn't care less about t-shirts and merch. Thankfully the album still seems to be the primary product in those circles, but obviously even those artists will be affected by the expectation of having their discography available on Spotify.

> Maybe they can work for a living.

> Not playing the song one time and then trying to sell copies of it.

As in writing a few lines of code and selling copies of it? What a condescending and out of touch take on the issue. Those albums and songs aren't made of thin air - it's actual work that goes into them.

Yeah, it was weird. I don't want to have to keep track of a particular object, whether it's a physical recording or a downloaded file.

Make sure the music is available when I want it. Send a bit of money to artists I want to support. But don't couple them together with a bunch of transactions I've got to manage individually.

Retailed-recording doesn't mean you have to manage the file. That nut's been cracked for at least a decade. Every digital purchase I've made through outlets like Bandcamp or Amazon (and some of Apple, IIRC) is kept track of by the service and has a cloud player I can use. And the artist actually sees revenue from each track that's a fraction of a dollar rather than a fraction of a penny.

But you can actually download/manage the file if you want to. Which is nice, because it's the most practical distinction between owning and a long term lease, given the fact that few things are forever.

> Retailed-recording doesn't mean you have to manage the file. That nut's been cracked for at least a decade. Every digital purchase I've made through outlets like Bandcamp or Amazon (and some of Apple, IIRC) is kept track of by the service and has a cloud player I can use. And the artist actually sees revenue from each track that's a fraction of a dollar rather than a fraction of a penny.

You still have to keep track of what you've bought when and where. You have to answer questions like which release of an album you want (extended edition or not? Explicit or clean?). It's not a huge amount of effort, but it's extra faff compared to just listening to what you want when you want, and sending money to who you want when you want.

I gave up on buying after I moved countries and found I couldn't access my old cloud player and my new one at the same time. Yes, I have mp3 files of everything I bought in my old country, but it's such a fiddle to actually listen to them that I don't bother - particularly when I can find almost all of them in the service that I'm paying monthly for in my new country.

> It's not a huge amount of effort, but it's extra faff compared to just listening to what you want when you want, and sending money to who you want when you want.

While we're talking about extra faff, how do you figure out how to send money to "who you want when you want"? Doesn't seem to be just one service everyone's taking OR sending money through any more than there's just one service anyone might buy recordings through. Or do we just say "If they're not on Kicktreonattrpaymo when it's on my mind I guess they don't want my money"?

Doesn't sound easier than keeping track of a few places you buy music. I've certainly never had any trouble at all figuring out whether I bought a recording on Amazon or Bandcamp.

And I know that my ledger's clear and doesn't depend on when I decide to get around to kicking a donation over.

It's interesting how the tenuously more convenient value proposition of cloud recording buffets features the convenience of pushing the hop through the hoop of actual economic support out into the undetermined and perhaps entirely optional future.

If this is all about convenience, Spotify could probably largely solve the economic problems by bumping up what they charge 5-10x and directing additional listener revenue by specific listener choices.

> Or do we just say "If they're not on Kicktreonattrpaymo when it's on my mind I guess they don't want my money"?

Yes. I don't owe them a business model, they're the professional here, it's their job to be where I want to pay them.

> And I know that my ledger's clear and doesn't depend on when I decide to get around to kicking a donation over.

There's no ledger here. If you want to pay them, pay them, if you don't, don't. If that wasn't an arrangement they were content with, well, revealed preferences.

> If this is all about convenience, Spotify could probably largely solve the economic problems by bumping up what they charge 5-10x and directing additional listener revenue by specific listener choices.

What economic problems? There's no shortage of content being created, so evidently the deal for creators isn't actually that bad.

> But the most someone like you can do for an average band/performer is promote their art through any channels available.

I feel like you missed OPs main point.

Could you elaborate?

If you're talking about 'capturing revenue' then there's a direct link between more attention and more money a band can get.

Then buy their music on Bandcamp and pay more than the listed price, since Bandcamp gives you that option.

> Your friend was absolutely right. I never cared if people pirated my bands music (or later the bands that I was managing) because the real thing I wanted was them showing up at shows, buying merch, posting us on facebook, asking events to bring us on, etc...

This model breaks down for people like me who are neither interested in merch nor in going to concerts. I just like the music.

You can always send money to your favorite musicians.

Can confirm! I've sent tips to musicians who put up music under free/Creative Commons music!

My theory is if you want to see something tomorrow, the best insurance you have it is to make it profitable for the people doing it today, so giving my money to musicians means a better chance there will be more music in the future <3

Totally agree!

That's also why I don't give money to homeless (but my country support for homeless is outstanding; when I lived elsewhere I donated to a homeless organisation - which hopefully meant that money didn't go on drugs).

You always represent value even if you don't pay. You might introduce the music to someone who will pay. It's freemium model applied to music industry.

Even Taylor Swift releases the full new Album on youtube the first day, which is unthinkable even 5 years ago.

I think the industry already accept it is the way forward.

>I think the industry already accept it is the way forward.

Yes but this sort of makes me question, if it is on Youtube for free, why are we paying for it on Spotify and Apple Music?

Because on YouTube we pay for it with time and attention to ads. Most people on HN have much more money that time and attention to spend.

Don't most people on HN have an ad blocker? My intuitions on this are weak.

Both Youtube and Spotify allow you to listen for free with ads.

But to humor you. Youtube is for video content primarily. Youtube Music is a premium service that costs as much as Spotify does and has a whole lot less content.

As someone who listens to a lot of music. Spotify offers me a way better UI/UX for consuming music than Youtube Music does.

The model breaks down for people who write purely electronic music and are thus composers, not performers.

Or just bedroom musicians.

The simple truth is that success in any creative field is based more on chance and mass appeal than any creative merit. For every JK Rowling there are hundreds of published novelists who barely make a living, and thousands who a publisher wouldn't even take a chance on.

If you're in it for the passion, you'll do it whether you make money or not. Big successes are an anomaly, regardless of which mechanism the industry chooses to split up the loot. (Always in the favor of the publisher/label/whatever.)

If we want to encourage creativity, UBI is a better deal than worrying overmuch about trying to shoehorn creativity into revenue models. Because then at least the extra money, however much, would be extra on top instead of wholly inadequate.

A lot of electronic musicians perform at clubs and parties

Buying the albums mostly supports the music industry when you do the accounting and does little to support the actual band directly. The middlemen mostly exist to build a machine to allow people to profit from music... Which is an arguable indirect benefit to the content producers. Yet it does lead to the counterintuitive situation where a merchandise buying pirate is actually directly contributing to a bands coffers more than a law abiding citizen may be.

I feel like they must make a decent amount of money from ads on free streaming sites.

Correct! I’m not sure why comments here equate music on YouTube with giving it away - while it devalues it by making it free to listen, artists still get royalties from advertising.

Taylor swift likely makes major ad revenue from YouTube.

> I mean now, all artists have their entire collection of music on YouTube.

No they don't.

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