Hacker News Reader

Comment by lux | Hacker News Reader

Unsigned artists don't sign anything with labels but we do agree to Spotify's terms, and those terms take from us and hand it over to major labels.

If a user pays $10/mo and listens to nothing but indie streams, those indies are getting far less than $7.50 (more like pennies) due to the way they calculate their payouts. The major labels pocket the majority of that money.

Spotify have the ability to change this, but not the will to do so, because the major labels own a stake in them. Soundcloud recently launched a payment model that matches pretty much exactly what indies are asking Spotify to do, so we know it's possible but Spotify have been stonewalling indies about how it's too complicated for years.

View on HN

If you are an indie artist (no record label deals) and agree to Spotify's terms, how are major labels involved at all? How are they getting the payouts meant for you?

Deezer explains it well here:

https://www.deezer.com/ucps

Well the size of the pie is still the same in this plan. All it would do is shuffle the money around a little bit, so some artists earn less and others more. The top demand from the linked campaign is for Spotify to pay out >3x what they currently do to artists, which is a completely different (and much more significant) ask.

That's exactly my point. I'm not arguing for the 1c/stream the OP is, rather to follow Deezer's model. Major labels are pocketing money that indies earned (and if you look into it they're not actually paying all of it out to their artists either). With this change indies won't be well paid, but they'll be paid fairly.

and why sign a deal or agree to terms that you don't agree to? Just don't go to Spotify?

Tell that to listeners. Many artists don't list themselves there for that reason, but you're penalized for it because Spotify playlists are increasingly the only way many people access music at all. The do or don't isn't always so black and white.

It's the same problem with the use of WhatsApp. If people want to talk to me there are other means to contact me. It's just that everyone is on WhatsApp. So what choice do I have? Be part of the problem or be excluded from social life.

"due to the way they calculate their payouts": yes, I'm sure that's the real issue, but the solution isn't a penny per stream. The solution is definitely to redistribute money according to what people listen to, but I doubt the big labels will accept these terms: they are the ones who negotiated, they are the ones stealing from indies.

Best case scenario: indies will get enough pennies so they stop complaining, big labels will continue as today, Spotify will allocate some of its own money to music creation...

and the problem will remain unfixed at the roots.

remember who forced Spotify and others before it, to negotiate a deal at all cost with the Majors or be declared illegal?

I totally agree, the penny per stream focuses entirely on the wrong thing, further entrenching the real issue by derailing the whole discussion. It also makes it less likely the real issue will be taken as seriously later on after we've just "cried wolf" over this one.

On the plus side, services like Soundcloud and Deezer are adopting the payment scheme that is the solution to this, which opens a potentially more promising avenue through which to pursue the issue ("if they can do it, why can't you?").

Reply on news.ycombinator.com