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Comment by subroutine | Hacker News Reader

That's not quite right. If they do reach 1000 plays they will be compensated for the first 1000 plays (which is like $4 dollars), and all streams thereafter.

What would you change about contract legislation to prevent this?

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I'm not a scholar in law, but I would want the law to prevent someone to take someone elses property/ product and distribute it without compensation in their commercial services. 1000 streams is 1000 uses of a song. If you do not reach 1001 you get zero compensation, and that is in principle stealing in my opinion, and should also be that under the law.

But Spotify isn't taking anyone's property. Spotify is saying "here's how our payment system works" and then bands can decide whether to put their songs on Spotify.

True enough, the law should consider market control/ dominance as a factor. A market dominated by a few, should maybe be treated different than a highly competitive marked

It does in some circumstances. See apple's app store lawsuit in the EU. However this seems fundamentally different. It's more like youtube (which actually pays far less per stream $.1 - $1 per 1000 streams)

yes, as I said in my original comment, paying little is one thing, paying nothing is something different. Streaming music has ruined the "product" market for music as it was. That will not change. YT, Spotify, doesn't matter, you do not get much paid for music anymore, unless you are among the top dominant streaming artists in the long tail model. But something is still more than nothing...

I actually think this is helping the product market. This will set a minimal standard of quality for something to get paid. Otherwise the near future will involve the use of AI to automate the creation of thousands of garbage songs that each get streamed a few times.

If they would be smaller, e.g. a new startup on the marked, I would agree. But currently its the defacto place for your music to put if you want an audience. I would argue that one with that much marked power should be held accountable for such actions, e.g. with stronger marked regulations preventing arising monopolies.

Spotify and the internet as a whole has liberated the music industry from the strangle hold of record companies. And you still can't just upload your songs to Spotify, you need to go through some publishing group. Getting Spotify to pay more per stream is siding with the record companies, and you can be sure they are lobbying hard on behalf of their interests. It's a tricky situation.

yes, once our system is used by nearly everyone we will change the payment system so that while the small fish get no money (which shouldn't bother them because they weren't getting much) but obviously this scales to significant amounts of money remaining in our pocket. And if anyone complains we'll just act like the past doesn't exist!

On the internet, it’s all network effects so competition and proper alternatives is almost impossible. You can’t say “just don’t choose to use it” as flippantly in these cases

The part that's missing from that is is Spotify doesn't just take music and put it up. The music owner agrees with Spotify beforehand.

If you give me a free taste of ice cream, that doesn't mean I'm stealing from the farmer.

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