Aloe Blac on Streaming Services
RAJ
tenacious local 7,782 Posts
Great article on wired featuring Aloe Blac.
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/aloe-blacc-pay-songwriters/
Cosmo had an interesting post on Facebook about it:
http://www.wired.com/2014/11/aloe-blacc-pay-songwriters/
Cosmo had an interesting post on Facebook about it:
I've been friends with Aloe Blacc since about 2005. I first met him when he came through our hotel with Damien Beebe & EXILE while me Spank Rock & Pase were there for the LA finale for our XXXPlosive tour. Awesome dude, humble guy, and just immediately one of the homies. He came by the next year when me, A-Trak & DJ Ayres did our Sunglasses Is A Must tour, and hung out / joined us on stage during our LA show along with Chromeo and a bunch of other friends. Later on I connected with him when him and my other two friends Jamie Strong & Chris Haycock started a little daytime backyard party in Los Angeles, that they called "The Do Over". Since then I've seen Aloe and hung with him from Los Angeles, to New York City (where he invited me to see him open for Raphael Saadiq during the Central Park Summer Stage series) to Dubai and Abu Dhabi (where we all rolled around the desert on camels and had a wild Vision Quest in the Middle East.
This post isn't meant to come across as "Hey I know cool and famous people." This post is meant to convey the fact that I have known a person for almost 10 years and over the span of this decade I have seen this person work so unbelievably hard to secure a career in music. And out of this hard work Aloe has achieved unbelievable success. Knowing the amount of hard work, focus, dedication, and sacrifice that it takes to have a thriving career in THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, I personally am so very happy to see the heights that this man, my friend, has reached. But being that I also am in The Music Industry and, even though I do well for myself, have only gained a modicum of the amount of success Aloe has, I personally can attest to how hard it is.
This is why this article is important to read. It is a sign of the times that more music is being consumed through streaming services than ever before. And it also is a true thing that there's a disconnect with the latest generation of music consumers where music itself is not so much a tangible thing that people view of as product and more-so it's part of this giant, ubiquitous flow of data and information that can be accessed instantaneously at a whim. Yes, Urban Outfitters sells LPs now, and sales of vinyl are booming (even when CD and MP3 download sales are dying on the vine)... but when was the last time you asked a 14 year old (or even a 24 year old) what it was like to not just hold a piece of recorded music in their hands? In an age when anyone can make a hit record from a laptop, and there's something that's wonderful and incredibly democratic about that (A-Trak wrote a great article about this recently,) I wonder if any of today's music-consuming populace understands the amount of hard work that goes into actually creating the product.
And even just thinking about the recording process itself, the days when Walter Becker and Donald Fagen and their 372 takes to get the right guitar solo pass - and the amount of money and time that in itself takes - are gone. But even today, I was listening to Kanye's masterpiece "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" and then read up on the recording process and the over 3 million dollars that was spent on it, and thought to myself that you can actually hear that dollar amount spent in the recording. For the amount of money that was spent in the time and the taking care of what they were doing, out there on that island in Hawaii. But I digress...
Back on the streaming services, it's no mystery that they don't pay their artists fair wages for the work that's put into their art and craft. I've said this on multiple occasions and continue to do so. And I speak from a VERY PERSONAL PLACE about this - it is so incredibly hard to make a decent living from being an artist or musician. And the fact that streaming services do not give the actual artists a fair share of the money that's generated is an actual crime, ripping them off and funneling most profits to the corporate shareholders. Most people say "Yeah I know, but it's just so easy for me to use Spotify or Pandora and I try not to think about it."
Well please try to think about this: What happens when it becomes too expensive and artists simply can no longer afford to make a living creating their art? Eventually... Musicians will not be able to afford to make a living being musicians.
Please listen to me when I say that.
Or listen to my friend, who just happens to be one of the biggest recording artists on the planet.
Streaming services do not pay artists and songwriters fairly. And they need to.
Comments
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/06/11/major-labels-trying-sell-spotify-10-billion-sources-say
Big up to Cosmo for his very informative and passionate post. If we truly profess to love music, then let's make sure we take care of our artists. Ultimately, failure to support them will destroy the art we love. They shouldn't have to put their hearts and souls into their craft for free.
Peace,
Big Stacks from Kakalak
In Canada the copywrite board has actually proposed a rate of 20% less for streaming than other nations. Tariff 8 is the ruling and diffrent rights holders are rallying to change it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/when-iggy-pop-cant-live-off-his-art-what-chance-do-the-rest-have/article21154663/#dashboard/follows/
It was speculated there would be no platinum selling artists this year. Taylor Swift is the first one. Her stuff isn't on spotify.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/11/05/taylor-swifts-1989-becomes-the-first-platinum-album-of-the-year/
It's not but was until just a couple of days ago
Or maybe people could stop living by a morality of convenience and not use these services at all. Anybody who does use them are *ahem* part of the problem.
genie been out of the bottle on that one for a while man
Nobody asked you to get on the stump.
Progress, or so they say. Internet has changed a lot of things.
You could take another tack and say that perhaps musicians at the upper end of the scale have been overcompensated in the past and things are trickling down. (I do think the $4,000 mentioned in the article is ridiculous, though. That's insane for music that successful). There are a lot of landscapers that are good that make so-so money. There are a lot of "indie" landscapers that make very little money. And at the top there are a few landscapers that make a lot of money. You can't really steal landscaping, but in the end no one is upset because "indie" landscapers are pulling down the equivalent of $3 an hour.
I realize that is a bit different, but there are a ton of really talented people that do lots of different things that aren't compensated well (or at all). Maybe there is an oversaturation of artists as a whole. Everybody is a DJ, everybody has a friend in a band, everybody knows someone who is striving to make it big in the arts. You don't see that in most other fields. No one has an amateur group of accountants. Nobody does neurosurgery as a side gig on the weekends.
It may be that in the future there will simply be a lot less professional artists. The field isn't as lucrative as it used to be, just like it isn't as lucrative for tv repairmen. It happens.
/devilsadvocateoff
I'm just a touch confused on the argument. Maybe someone could break it down for me.
Compared to radio play and how much artist make.
If a major market station plays a hot song a few times a day for a month. And they have well over a million listeners at any given time. Have radio stations been paying way more than companies like Pandora?
It seems likely a song played on one radio station could easily = a few hundred million plays from a streaming site.
Or is it just in general artist have been getting ripped off from the industry as a whole? The argument tends to suggest it's the streaming deals.
Anyone with a much better grasp of everything care to enlighten?
Don't most kids listen to things on YouTube anyways?
Even as a totally marginal, niche artist, I made a fair amount of money on DIY projects in the 2000-2007 time period. Now I probably couldn't make any money. Although, I still sell like 4-5 copies a month on iTunes of an album that came out in 2000. Baffles me, considering it's probably on all kinds of torrent sites and Russian MP3 thingies.
Just guessing what he meant: You don't have to stump for the cause like a politician but if you feel strongly you yourself could act as one man to try to turn the tide is a small way.
I'm totally conflicted: Spotify seems too good to be true from a music-nerd perspective. There's so much new music and I can only actually purchase maybe 1/20th of what I'd like to.
- the technology exists
- the RIAA and the Government have no interest in changing or regulating it
- people believe music should be free.
those three things basically say to me that this is the new reality, and those who can adjust, will, and others will fall by the wayside. this is obviously not "good for music" or whatever, but lots of things aren't good for music and this is just one of them.
No matter how much anyone - ANYONE - wails about it, people are going to do what's best for them and not for music (or society for that matter). When it comes down to it most people are just not that smart and can barely see the cause-and-effect between all sorts of shit including but not limited to, shopping at Walmart, eating fast food, voting for this or that politician or policy... to freely streaming or illegally downloading music. Even the "resurgence of vinyl" is riding a wave of cheap plastic turntables and bloated catalog reissues. Most people never approached music with the attitude of supporting the arts, they just bought the shit they liked. Meanwhile the music industry (and government) m.o. for decades has been to enrich the gatekeepers and titans of industry at the top over the musicians writers and visionaries who make the stuff. Hey that's capitalism right. None of this is news and none of it should be a surprise to anyone who has been awake for the last 20-30 years.
Maybe, just maybe, if the majors continue to lose ground and enough artists take a stand and pull their product (or influence their labels to pull it) there might be some movement. I wouldn't bet on the government creating new entitlements for the arts or regulating one of the most successful sectors of the economy anytime soon.
Aloe and Cosmo both pull down a handsome living doing what they do, and being woefully under-remunerated by Spotify thankfully won't have too adverse an effect on their creativity or livelihoods. Lots of people will not get to be well-paid musicians by trade but you know what, that is exactly the same thing that has happened year in and year out as long as any semblance of a "music industry" has existed.
ahhh.... that felt good. like a clean drop in the morning.
There it is. And on that third point, there's really no going back, especially as younger generations didn't even experience this changeover from "you pay for music" to "music should be free" and are coming up in a world that entirely believes the latter and can't wrap its head around the former.
And let's say more big names follow Taylor Swift's lead and pull their stuff off streaming services. Know what the reaction will be? "Oh, these rich assholes are whining that they aren't becoming somehow richer. Fuck them." Remember what everybody said to/about Lars Ulrich when he piped up about Napster? Yeah.
lars didn't have a united front, was a complete asshole about it and basically accused fans of being thieves. big difference. also the new ambassador to new york could take a dump on stage and still have fans so idk
there really is no real way to make the economics of streaming services work for artists as a record sales replacement (which they're essentially serving as right now). they would have to 100s of multiples of what they earn now AND owners would have to take a much smaller cut AND on top of that it would cost a hell of a lot more then.
Is Spotify even profitable as a company?
spotify is lucky to be even able to charge subscription fees mostly because of offline play and sort of because of ad-free (although im sure we've all been to spots that play shit with ads blaring). barring any tangible improvement beyond that, there is 0 chance they will increase rates in a manner that actually makes a dent.
As JP touched on briefly, for every conscious effort you can make to do the right thing, there are a 100 other things you can become aware of and act upon. Music is probably one of the last things the general public would expend energy or money on to, "do the right thing".
Playing Devil's advocate, as Cosmo states "if no one can produce music anymore because it would just be too costly, what would happen?", then you only have the last 50+ years of recorded music to purchase, second-hand or otherwise. Is it "realistic" for someone now to purchase every single MP3 they want and a few CDs/records a month? Probably not. I think it also has to do with the times, as other journalists in various other sectors of music and entertainment have mentioned. Music competes with TV, movies, food, and all that other mess; and vice versa.
One can also argue that because of the internet, you have overnight indie label successes all over the place now...Just turn on KCRW (Cali station). Albeit, the shit I listen to especially on KCRW in the morning is rather mellow and soft, and sounds all the same, I'm sure these bands and producers can make a decent living with the glossy gatefold LPs and touring and merchandise, and licensing and the plethora of local or regional Coachella-spurned music festivals out there.
A portion of the blame can be perhaps put on EDM artists too for "devaluing" music? You think Steve Aoki or Skrillex or Avici or our main man Diplo gives a fuck about the loss of revenue due to illegal downloading or streaming? They're making $100K+ a show or something right. Everyone's getting it, while the the getting's good. Shit will crumble eventually, or not! Maybe Vegas and the rest of the country will stay Ibiza and we will forever be exposed to "Up for whatever".
As a consumer, completely speaking out of my ass, i think it's just on the artists to get creative with the changed landscape, whether it's fucked up or not...
Great topic and love reading what the heavyweights who are more invested in the music biz have to say though.
I really wonder how much that will even matter. In the end is Taylor Swift's music really much better than anyone else's? It's not bad, but is it so standout that she should be selling millions of records over the thousands of other talented artists out there? I don't think so. A large part of her success is the promotional machine behind her. Yanking her music from venues only decreases the effectiveness of the promotional machine, and people aren't going to stop listening to music. Some other person with equal talent will fill in the gap.
In fact, some popular music is downright awful. Young Thug? Who seriously thinks he is better than the many, many other rappers out there? It's all promotion. And from that perspective I don't have much sympathy for them.
All that is happening now is the playing field is leveling. Too bad for them.
http://imgntn.tumblr.com/post/101994052897/tswizzle
It appears T-Swizzy wanted to ring-fence her new album so it was only available to paid subscribers, and when Spotify told her this wasn't possible, she yanked the lot. One musician friend of mine has pointed out that the writer of the above piece (and, indeed, most people) seems to be unaware that, for publishing income, there are different royalty rates on Spotify between paid-for and free streams (£1 per 600 plays on paid-for vs. 3000 on the free service). It's quite possible this applies to recording royalties as well. Assuming for a moment that it does, it'll be interesting if a major label (as opposed to an artist) ever decides they'd like to ring-fence their entire catalogue.
As for the “traditional radio play vs. streaming” side of the debate, by my understanding, streaming rates for publishing were modelled upon broadcast rates for radio, despite many publishers thinking they weren't truly comparable. In the UK, broadcast rates have plummeted as audience figures have fallen. A guy I know who no longer depends on music for his living but was in a band that were hugely successful in the early 80s recently observed on FB that payments for a single play on BBC daytime radio are now about half what they were when his old band were at their peak. But the comparison between income for radio play and Spotify/Pandora isn't really like-for-like. Nicki Minaj's Anaconda got 252m plays via her official YouTube/Vevo channel, which generated 126k in publishing income. While this doesn't look like a lot, it may not necessarily be unfair, especially if you treat each streaming play as a “per ear reached” thing, rather than one play on a radio station with a catchment area of, say, 5m. An artist like Nicki will likely get regular payments directly from YouTube on top of that, which will sweeten the pill and perhaps make her less likely to ask awkward questions about how her royalties are calculated.
Which brings me to what's probably the least-asked question surrounding this entire debate; how come everyone always singles out Spotify for opprobrium, yet happily waves YouTube through every time? Some of you will be aware that a great deal of the content on YouTube, particularly the stuff controlled by majors, is blocked here in Germany. This is usually portrayed as GEMA, the German mechanical/performing rights society, simply being another cog in the worldwide conspiracy by The Man to prevent Tha Kidz from Rockin'. But whilst GEMA are in many respects almost a clichéd example of German bureaucracy and certainly not without flaws, the solution to this particular problem lies elsewhere. Under the terms of GEMA's membership agreement, they are obliged to produce, upon demand, a detailed breakdown of precisely how their members' royalties are calculated and what they're for. YouTube refuses to supply the information which would enable GEMA to do this, on the grounds that this is “commercially sensitive” data, and so GEMA refuses to license its membership's works for use on YouTube's platform. Now, far be it from me to suggest that there might be another reason why YouTube are being so cagey, and to be fair I hear that YouTube payments are generally higher than Spotify. But after a few years working in royalty processing, I do know they're not that much higher, and that if a few artists as prominent as, say, Taylor Swift were to hold them up to proper scrutiny, it might not only be Spotify copping all the flak.
Essentially, though, this debate suffers heavily from two things; not enough people who really know what they're talking about, and too many sweeping, reductionist, click-bait headlines that distort the picture and ignore how nuanced and complex an issue it actually is. There's a Salon piece I can't find the link to right now which glibly suggests that the biz is simply reflecting society at large - the 1% (Minaj, Taylor Swift, Adele etc) make all the money and the 99% are on course for medieval peonage. This overlooks the fact that new models and options are emerging, of which stories like this represent the teething problems, and which mean it won't necessarily be just the big players who win out. Chief Keef is an artist for whom the old business doesn't really exist, and who owes a significant chunk of his success to the effectiveness of established independent digital platforms like Livemixtapes or Dat Piff, the modern equivalent of mom-and-pop distribution. He's just made four – FOUR – new mixtapes available via his official YouTube channel, although I'm not sure if he's done this exclusively. I have an idea of what his motivation is here, but I'd like to hear it from him or his management.
I have a friend who is a professional keyboardist, and we had lunch recently, and he basically echoed this. He didn't deny that musicians made more money back in the day from album sales, but the 'real money' was always in shows/touring.
AFAIK radio plays in the US result in a whopping $0.00 royalty for artists.
What, no ASCAP or BMI money?