"Spotify is last desperate fart of a dying corpse." Discuss.

[flyfisher]

Not consciously, I agree, but during the few milliseconds they occasionally do think about these things, millionaire rock stars are, I'd say, a significant element of why they think of such copying as a victimless crime.

And, let's be honest, it IS a victimless crime if the choice is to copy a song or not buy it at all.

[Protium]

When they recorded "In Rainbows", they realised they had to have a radical plan to distribute it for free because no one would actually buy it, it was that bad.

[uncle psychosis]

[quote name='Protium' timestamp='1381340157' post='2237889']
When they recorded "In Rainbows", they realised they had to have a radical plan to distribute it for free because no one would actually buy it, it was that bad.
[/quote]

yep, so bad that it got almost universally good reviews and sold 1.75m cd copies despite being available for free on the Internet.

If people want to slag off radiohead then fair enough, but you could at least come up with something that is actually true...

[Grassie]

I use Spotify to check out music I haven't heard before or to delve a bit deeper than tracks I've heard on the radio or TV. I used this technique to try to "enjoy" some Radiohead. Sorry, but I'm with Noel Gallagher on this one - I'm totally having it until the little fella starts singing.

[pete.young]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1381325451' post='2237596']
That's something Thom Yorke doesn't need anymore. I cant really see his point about Spotify.
[/quote]

It seems to me that Tom Yorke is making this point altruistically - [u]he[/u] doesn't need the money any more, but he recognises that up-and-coming bands don't enjoy the kind of financial stability that acts like Radiohead who became established in the pre-streaming era do, and is making that point on behalf of them.

What no-one else seems to have mentioned is that it's not just Spotify who are the culprits here. The record companies have the choice to distribute the royalties fairly, and many of them choose not to.

[RhysP]

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1381326042' post='2237618']
I suspect that public sentiment is against a musician being able to write one hit song and then getting rich on it for the rest of their lives. Yes, I know all the arguments about intellectual property and all that but I reckon that, when it boils right down, most people don't think it's fair that someone can do something once and live on it for the rest of their life. Joe Public can't do that with their jobs so why should musicians be any different.

I think this sentiment is the main reason why most people don't have any qualms about downloading music for free. Put them in a corner and read the law to them and they'll agree it's wrong, but their instinct tells them something else and that's why copying and free downloading is so prevalent. It's also why the same people will pay £50+ for a concert ticket - they can see that their favourite artist is actually working for their money instead of just sitting on a private island while the royalties roll in.
[/quote]

I honestly don't think 99% of people give it this much thought - people in general are just greedy selfish bastards who'll take anything if it's cheap or free & don't give a f*** about how this impacts on the person who makes that product, regardless of what it is.

[Mornats]

I have a Spotify premium account - I've had it for about a year now. I love it from a consumer point of view. I've paid £120 in total for a year's service and I've listened to more than a grand's worth of CDs (assuming around £8-9 a CD) on it. Loads of stuff I'd never listen to again and stuff i'd have bought on the stop, and then gone and grabbed that band's entire back catalogue. And I've been exposed to music I'd never have heard otherwise.

But yes, the artists aren't getting a lot of money from it and this does sadden me. Personally, I blame the record labels. They completely failed to tackle the new online market years ago and instead went about suing their fans who wanted to listen to the music and downloaded it illegally. They never gave those fans a viable alternative. It was up to Apple and iTunes and the likes of Spotify to make something of it all. Apple must be laughing so hard at the music industry right now, they've made millions because the music industry stood there not knowing what to do and Apple swept in and well, richest company in the world blah-blah-blah.

Also, these record labels allowed their artists to appear on Spotify. Well, they did a piss-poor job of negotiating decent royalties didn't they? And who do the artists blame? The labels? No! Spotify! So sad.

[risingson]

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1381342764' post='2237937']
yep, so bad that it got almost universally good reviews and sold 1.75m cd copies despite being available for free on the Internet.

If people want to slag off radiohead then fair enough, but you could at least come up with something that is actually true...
[/quote]

Exactly what I was thinking. In Rainbows was completely accessible as a record and would have made a killing had it been purchase only.

[flyfisher]

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1381344745' post='2237975']
I honestly don't think 99% of people give it this much thought - people in general are just greedy selfish bastards who'll take anything if it's cheap or free & don't give a f*** about how this impacts on the person who makes that product, regardless of what it is.
[/quote]

How does downloading a song for free impact the writer and/or performer if the alternative was not bothering to listen to it at all, never mind actually buying it?

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited February 19, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[discreet]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1381324821' post='2237585']
What the f*** is a "dying corpse"?
[/quote]

An oxymoron.

[flyfisher]

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1381350917' post='2238096']
There are a lot of musicians for whom every penny still counts to help them make their living, and every bit of lost revenue is another nail in the coffin of their flimsy career.
[/quote]

Fair point, except that downloading a song for nothing is no indicator of lost revenue.

[flyfisher]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1381346097' post='2238005']

But yes, the artists aren't getting a lot of money from it and this does sadden me. Personally, I blame the record labels. They completely failed to tackle the new online market years ago and instead went about suing their fans who wanted to listen to the music and downloaded it illegally. They never gave those fans a viable alternative. It was up to Apple and iTunes and the likes of Spotify to make something of it all. Apple must be laughing so hard at the music industry right now, they've made millions because the music industry stood there not knowing what to do and Apple swept in and well, richest company in the world blah-blah-blah.
[/quote]

Excellent points. Another example of 'lions led by donkeys'.

[xilddx]

[quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1381344079' post='2237955']
It seems to me that Tom Yorke is making this point altruistically - [u]he[/u] doesn't need the money any more, but he recognises that up-and-coming bands don't enjoy the kind of financial stability that acts like Radiohead who became established in the pre-streaming era do, and is making that point on behalf of them.

What no-one else seems to have mentioned is that it's not just Spotify who are the culprits here. The record companies have the choice to distribute the royalties fairly, and many of them choose not to.
[/quote]

I know what you mean, but AFAICS nowt's changed, record companies have never behaved fairly.

[dannybuoy]

Spotify doesn't have all of the bands I want to listen to, so I quit my premium subscription after a while. I download a lot of music for free and use the free version of Spotify to check out new music then buy the very few albums I actually like. Over the course of a year, I probably spend the same as a Spotify premium subscription, but I know that a greater proportion of the money is going back to the artists - they will end up with at least £5 rather than 5p. I buy a lot of stuff from smaller bands via Bandcamp (who take a 10%-15% cut), or CDs at gigs where you can buy direct from the band to cut out the middle man!

[Dingus]

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1381324233' post='2237569']
They don't need to. They've got to the point where they can self-finance a record and sell it directly to their fanbase. They sold something like 350,000 mp3 copies of King Of Limbs directly from their website. By cutting out the middleman they're in a much stronger financial position than they ever were.
[/quote]

I don't doubt for a second that Radiohead's studied anti-establihment stance is underpinned by the knowledge that they are financially secure ( i.e rich) . I cannot help but make the observation, however, that the quality of their music has suffered terribly as a result of this decision to eschew the commercial machine of the mainstream music business. The simple fact is that the wider public want songs like Creep and Fake Plastic Trees that they can sing along to as they create their own treasured Glastonbury memories.

[quote name='risingson' timestamp='1381331225' post='2237745']
Kid A was massively successful albeit in a different way and Hail To the Thief sold insane quantities in the U.S and U.K. In Rainbows, snap. So this is quite far from being true.


[/quote]

Those records may have sold impressively for maverick independent releases , but they have failed to capitalise on the success Radiohead had in the mid to late 1990's when they were on the verge of becoming one of the most commercially successful bands in the World . In that context , subsequent sales have in fact been dissappointing . The exploits of bands like Coldplay in the interim period only goes to show the size of the potential market for navel gazing quasi -Indie bands with a knack for recycling tired old cliches. Radiohead failed to exploit the market when they had a chance , instead deciding to plough their own furrow, and have paid the price in terms comparatively modest sales. They still shift a lot of records by most standards , but they could have shifted a lot more had they not become so enamoured of their own genius and hell bent on avoiding becoming exploited by at the hands of a scurrilous. music industry that was conspiring to make them multi millionaires by encouraging them to serenade this World's dissaffected souls with their own distinctive brand of miserablist Indie power ballads .


On the wider issue of Spotify , I really don't know how they allocate and distribute royalties to artists , but I am an avid consumer of the infinite variety and choice afforded by the service it provides. £10 a month is an incredible bargain when consider what you get in return, and I would cheerfully pay double that if it meant that this system of providing music could be maintained and even expanded further. Would anyone really want to go back to the old days when you risked spending money on C.D's on the off chance you might like them, and were frequently left pondering the myriad of better uses the money you just spent might have been put to after you realised you had bought yet another dissappointing album ?

Edited October 10, 2013 by Dingus

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited February 19, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[uncle psychosis]

[quote]Those records may have sold impressively for maverick independent releases , but they have failed to capitalise on the success Radiohead had in the mid to late 1990's when they were on the verge of becoming one of the most commercially successful bands in the World . In that context , subsequent sales have in fact been dissappointing . The exploits of bands like Coldplay in the interim period only goes to show the size of the potential market for navel gazing quasi -Indie bands with a knack for recycling tired old cliches. Radiohead failed to exploit the market when they had a chance , instead deciding to plough their own furrow, and have paid the price in terms comparatively modest sales. They still shift a lot of records by most standards , but they could have shifted a lot more had they not become so enamoured of their own genius and hell bent on avoiding becoming exploited by at the hands of a scurrilous. music industry that was conspiring to make them multi millionaires by encouraging them to serenade this World's dissaffected souls with their own distinctive brand of miserablist Indie power ballads .[/quote]

"The majority of the sales were band-to-fan. Financially, it [The King Of Limbs] was probably the most successful record they've ever made, or pretty close. In a traditional deal, the record company takes the majority of the money."---Chris Hufford (Radiohead's manager).

Why would Radiohead want to just recycle the same old cliches or "exploit the market"? They're a multi-million selling millionaire rock band who have complete and utter artistic control over their music. They do what they want and yet they still sell out huge tours, get great reviews, are regularly acclaimed as one of the best artists of all time, and make just as much money as they ever did. Stupid, stupid Radiohead.

[the boy]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1381320659' post='2237475']

It's the consumers/listeners I feel sorry for. Right now you are sitting in front of your computers or mobile devices streaming the music from services such as Spotify. But what happens when they are gone and something different replaces it? You'll have to start all over again. And don't think that it won't, because it will and it will probably happen sooner than you can imagine.

[/quote]
Stop being such a dinosaur, we will move on to the next format/technology when it arrives. I've done this 5 times already with 5 different mediums and each time it has made music cheaper and more accessible. Why would you feel sorry for people who are obviously making adult decisions that are working for them?

[flyfisher]

[quote name='Jus Lukin' timestamp='1381389638' post='2238251']
But shouldn't it be? I wouldn't buy a BMW, as they aren't really my taste and are too expensive- how would that make it right for me to drive off in one if I found it unmarked and with the keys in? "It's not like I was ever going to buy it!"

I know that's not perfectly analogous, but it's roughly the same principle.
[/quote]

Unfortunately it's not even remotely analogous because copying music doesn't deprive the rightful owner of anything, unlike your BMW example. If you had a Star Trek style replicator gizmo and could create a BMW from thin air, what harm would you be doing to anyone else?

[discreet]

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1381394838' post='2238337']
If you had a Star Trek style replicator gizmo and could create a BMW from thin air, what harm would you be doing to anyone else?
[/quote]

Congestion, pollution and resource depletion.

[flyfisher]

. . . but not theft!

[risingson]

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1381382418' post='2238228']
Those records may have sold impressively for maverick independent releases , but they have failed to capitalise on the success Radiohead had in the mid to late 1990's when they were on the verge of becoming one of the most commercially successful bands in the World . In that context , subsequent sales have in fact been dissappointing . The exploits of bands like Coldplay in the interim period only goes to show the size of the potential market for navel gazing quasi -Indie bands with a knack for recycling tired old cliches. Radiohead failed to exploit the market when they had a chance , instead deciding to plough their own furrow, and have paid the price in terms comparatively modest sales. They still shift a lot of records by most standards , but they could have shifted a lot more had they not become so enamoured of their own genius and hell bent on avoiding becoming exploited by at the hands of a scurrilous. music industry that was conspiring to make them multi millionaires by encouraging them to serenade this World's dissaffected souls with their own distinctive brand of miserablist Indie power ballads .
[/quote]

It sounds like you've listened to a bit of the band, read a bit about the band and then have gone and made some sweeping and misinformed conclusions about the band. I'm not sure which yardstick you've chosen to measure the success of Radiohead post-OK Computer but I think you're misinformed on the subject and if you're suggesting Radiohead became some sort of commercial failure then you're completely off-target. 'Maverick independent releases'? When did EMI become a maverick independent label?

[neepheid]

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1381394838' post='2238337']
Unfortunately it's not even remotely analogous because [b]copying music doesn't deprive the rightful owner of anything[/b], unlike your BMW example. If you had a Star Trek style replicator gizmo and could create a BMW from thin air, what harm would you be doing to anyone else?
[/quote]


You may not have deprived them of anything physical, but you have still deprived them of an opportunity to earn.

[discreet]

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1381395315' post='2238347']
. . . but not theft!
[/quote]

You'd be 'stealing' the opportunity that BMW would have had to legitimately sell that person a car.