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Comment by troupo | Hacker News Reader

> with the whole business model. Why can't we have nice things anymore?

Because to have music you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.

Because to have lyrics you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.

Because to have videos you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.

Because to have your app working on some surfaces (think desktop vs phone vs speakers vs TVs vs cars vs...) you have to get a different license from rights holders, and pay for it.

Because if you want to synchronize or show together some, or all, of the audio/video/lyrics/subtitles/etc. you have to get a different license from rights holders, and pay for it.

Disclaimer: I work at Spotify, and it annoys me to no end that these questions are never directed at the people who actually demand all this money: the rights holders.

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Oh, please.

These licenses are fixed percentages.

The only thing that is fixed about your employers' greed is that it has no end.

Spotify pays "$0.003-$0.005 per stream. Artists can expect around $400 for every 100,000 streams."

This is disgusting since you know they HAVE to be on your platform, but there is no money to be made there. The IMMENSE share goes to Spotify.

So please...spare me that shift of blame. The only thing that would change if the license holders would demand less is that Spotify would make EVEN MORE, and you know it. No customer would get a discount or something like that. People know that. You can't lie to us.

> These licenses are fixed percentages.

And that makes them irrelevant? Negligible? Insubstantial?

It's common in streaming (that is anything you can think of: music, video, audiobooks) to pay 60-70% of revenue for licenses for content alone (that is, before taxes, before payroll, before infra costs etc.). You're more than welcome to try and start your own music service on those terms and see how far you can get with free/cheap offering.

> Spotify pays "$0.003-$0.005 per stream. Artists can expect around $400 for every 100,000 streams."

Spotify pays the rights holders. Who in turn pay artists. I've never seen the fake outrage directed at Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment.

You're now outraged at Spotify for lyrics, but I don't see it directed at Musicxmatch and other lyrics providers who charge for lyrics.

> People know that. You can't lie to us.

To "know that" you'd first have to know more than zero about streaming, licensing etc.

Seeing that you don't even know who actually pays the artists...

> And that makes them irrelevant? Negligible? Insubstantial?

The context? Did you pay attention? The prices are rising, the service is getting worse. You know...the topic.

> You're more than welcome to try and start your own music service on those terms and see how far you can get with free/cheap offering.

There are alternatives which somehow manage not only to provide a proper service, they even offer FLAC DOWNLOADS. Can you imagine that? Give it a try: https://bandcamp.com/

> Spotify pays the rights holders. Who in turn pay artists. I've never seen the fake outrage directed at Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment.

What is this derailing? Why should I rage on them? Do they own Spotify? Are you from the marketing department because I barely see the topic with all that smoke and mirrors here.

> To "know that" you'd first have to know more than zero about streaming, licensing etc.

Serving this level of arrogance after that cheap derailment show is hilarious.

You, however, still fail to move away the spotlight from that hilariously small amount of money you pay. It's not even a secret. You can google it up.

You work for a greedy example of a service which needs to die.

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