Sony Terms with Spotify Uncovered in Contract
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Every week I check out new releases and see albums from bands and there are no descriptions of either. What do labels really do? Where's the marketing?
There's still enough money flowing from listeners into the music eco-system, but the player's aren't doing their job.
No sympathy. At all.
They hold the rights to at least 60 years of content.
> No sympathy. At all.
For whom?
Yeah. No sympathy.
Without the record label, the artist can negotiate way better deals and doesn't have to pay over 90% to record labels that just don't care about them. Does Spotify not negotiate with individual artists? I wouldn't be surprised and that would explain a lot of this. Still, there are many other ways of distribution and promotion that artists could seek out with the 90%+ of the earnings they're no longer giving up.
As far as I can tell, it no longer matters to most artists' financial standing if listeners are obtaining their music legally or by piracy since the bottom line is essentially the same (asymptotical to zero) for all but the most successful musicians.
Imagine Eminem had remained independent, and never signed with Interscope (parent of Aftermath). He'd have a following, but not be the hundred millionaire. Look at Tech N9ne - got in the music game the same time as Eminem, has his own label, and is reasonably successful. However, he doesn't get the same venues, only last year got on national television, and struggles to get the big name collaborations. (His latest album was hyped to have a collaboration with Eminem after a couple years of trying, and if you listen to it, it's obvious that it was an afterthought for Eminem, definitely not his A-game)
The goal of musicians and companies is very closely aligned, and I think bands could learn a lot looking at how companies grow. Conversely, I've always wondered why no one ever "invested" in a band, just like people invest in a company.
In my dream world, I'd love to start a Ycombinator for musicians. Essentially, something where a band could "apply" and investors could take a small share of the "band" in return for startup capital. I'd imagine that the 3 or 4 months could be spent organizing the band and recording an album which could be debuted at a "demo day". The same qualities that go into good founders also go into good musicians, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, the whole point of this is to say that I understand why record companies exist, but I think their usefulness in life is diminishing by the day.
You're no longer fighting for dollars as an artist, you're fighting for attention. There are more people out there willing to give their content away for pennies or free then people who want to live off of the music they make.
Perhaps artists should hop on the basic income bandwagon.
Walk into your typical library. Look at all of the books on the shelves. Pick a random book. Pull it out. Imagine that book yells at you "I deserve more money if you want to read me!".
Do you pay for the privilege to read that book? Or do you push it back in and pick from the thousands of other books available? We are awash in cheap/free content, that's the problem.
If anything, the "unfairness" of the contract terms is a reflection of the HUGE amount of leverage the record labels have because their content is so valuable. Is it evil for the labels to attempt to maximize their profit while minimizing Spotify's?