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After announcing increased prices, Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year (www.billboard.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not this time.

By adding audiobooks into Spotify’s premium tier, the streaming service now claims it qualifies to pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams, given Spotify now has to pay licensing for both books and music from the same price tag — which will only be a dollar higher than when music was the only premium offering. Additionally, Spotify will reclassify its duo and family subscription plans as bundles as well.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

No matter what you think about Apple, Apple Music pays multiple times more than Spotify

And Tidal pays multiples more than Apple.

It’s up to you if you want to support artists or not.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago

I switched to Tidal after Spotify announced the price increase. The catalogue is basically identical, the apps are much more intuitive, and the audio quality is higher (they recently rolled their premium FLAC subscription into the basic one).

I had to retrain the algorithm for a bit, but that was not so difficult. There are services that can migrate/convert playlists which might actually work for favourites as well.

Also, it's easy easier to download stuff from Tidal, which is very nice for listening to Audiobooks with a dedicated player.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Thank you for the information. Not a fan of putting the blame on the consumer here though. Spotify is the asshole here, not the people who want to pay for the music.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Just want to add an extra FU to Google as a consumer and Android user. Killing off GPlay Music for YT Music was just a nasty nice, especially given that the latter has no mechanism to purchase music and a lot of the content or mixes in from YouTube uploads seems of pretty dubious legitimacy

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I wouldn't assume a corporation is a moral entity, Spotify's only goal is to maximise profit. Maybe it's a problem of our economic system or regulations around monopolies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I don't think it's about assuming anything... it's about not burdening the consumer with regulating industry when it is clearly impossible to do so.

OP (of this thread) pitches Apple as an alternative... do you want to help artist a tad while also assisting a multi billion dollar company to continue to squash any possible ownership and right-to-repair chance the consumers has?...

There isn't ONE large corporation that has not shown they would kill people if that made them money... so no, the consumer cannot, in practice, "vote with their wallet" into forcing any corporation anywhere near an ethics "green ground"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It's worth noting though, that Spotify has been bleeding money since the start. I know they may be wasting a lot of money on side hustles but still. They're not raking home any money. The only way the founders got rich is by the overinflated stock price.

E: typo

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I think they actually just started making a profit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Does YouTube music pay its artists? I prefer an Android platform. A lot of the stuff I want isn't on Apple Music for classical is also why.