Deadmau5 Withholding His Latest Album from Spotify

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120925deadmau5

by kevingibbon • 14 years ago

30 58 14 years ago

digitalmusicnews.com

truebecomefalse• 14 years ago

If this becomes common won't that kind of kill the utility of Spotify?

drgath• 14 years ago

99.999% of what I listen to on Spotify is older than a few weeks, so for listeners like me, no.

EnderMB• 14 years ago

I'm the same, but if you look at the most listened to lists they tend to match the charts pretty closely. There's probably some kind of long-tail effect with Spotify, but a lot of people use Spotify to listen to what's popular right now, and I'd probably lump deadmau5 in the "popular" category.

richadams• 14 years ago

Seems to be Spotify US only. It's available on Spotify UK.

runawaybottle2• 14 years ago

What monthly price would work for artists?

batiudrami5• 14 years ago

The problem, I think, is that artists compare Spotify with CD sales, instead of Spotify with piracy. It's hard to determine how much Spotify has decreased both CD sales and piracy, but I'd be putting my bets on it reducing piracy a lot more. It's just so much more convenient.

runawaybottle2• 14 years ago

I don't think they'll ever be able to stretch past $10-$15 a month with a streaming music service. Companies like Spotify/Hulu/Netflix might be better off combining their package to charge a solid premium price (Complete fantasy, I'm aware). It would be like the new cable tv subscription for this generation.

$90 a month?

sprice• 14 years ago

It's unavailable on Rdio in Canada

randall• 14 years ago

You can, however, purchase it for $10. I'm glad you can at least purchase it on Rdio, and hopefully that'll sync to devices too.

batiudrami5• 14 years ago

I love the idea of Spotify (and I'm a subscriber). I also buy albums occasionally, and spend many thousands of dollars a year seeing bands play live.

What's great about Spotify, is that artists get paid per listen, which favours artists which make great, lasting music, and against those who produce one hit wonders. If people continue to listen to your music over a period of time, the artist will continue to get paid, and that's great (and those who produce one hit wonders get paid a lot at the time, and virtually nothing afterwards).

The problem, of course, is that Spotify doesn't pay very much to artists. Spotify says this is because artists have shitty deals with labels (and I'm sure this is true), but independents also complain about the amount passed on. Spotify, however, last I checked, isn't profitable, so they can't afford to pass on more money anyway. I would happily pay more, but I use it near-constantly at work and at home (easily 6+ hours a day on average). I suspect I'm a minority here.

Ensuring artists get paid enough is a problem we haven't solved yet. I tend to think it'll go the way of free-or-near-free streaming (a la Spotify or Youtube), with albums becoming collectibles like Vinyls, and the vast majority of artist revenue coming from live shows. Unfortunately, this is going to mean labels are going to have to negotiate a cut of live shows with artists to cover album production costs (assuming they're not independent, obviously). I don't mind a one-or-two week delay on streaming sites to give people who really want a listen to buy it first. Of course, this helps drive piracy back up, but for artists, their aim shouldn't be minimising piracy, but maximising the profitability of their work.

majormajor• 14 years ago

I'd also happily pay considerably more for things like Spotify and Hulu Plus and Netflix in exchange for bigger catalogs and sufficient amounts getting passed to the creators to fund the production of future content.

I don't see any way to keep physical media from being phased out, and if that's inevitable I prefer a streaming model to a rebuy-for-each-new-digital-format model.

jeffool• 14 years ago

I'm surprised services like Spotify and Hulu haven't divvied up their content into special subscriber packs like Cable companies do.

Spotify Premium costs $10? We have to assume the average listener listens to less than $10 worth of music. Find the amount each genre listens to, and charge just a dollar over that (but less than $10) for, say, the current top selling 100 albums and the genre of the subscriber's choosing.

Say, $5 for hip hop, $7 for rock, $3 for country, etc. Hulu could do the same with scifi, drama, comedy, film, TV, and documentary packs all at cheaper prices, all along with their current "everything for the top fee" charge.

/edit: Similarly, as they've done with StarTrek.com and SouthParkStudios.com, I can't imagine why every show hasn't offered their full series online. Especially those brands with many shows and fan-bases that could be brought together.

waterlesscloud3• 14 years ago

Money devoured by the big labels also hurts the indies. It's money that can't be given to indies.

The big record labels have to die. They've been mostly killed, and we're definitely past their point of utility, but they hang on and on and on.

eupharis2• 14 years ago

No. The big record labels are not dying. Album sales are UP. And at least according to Nielsen, the big four record companies account for 90% of those sales.[1]

Nielsen's methods of measuring probably favor established record companies over independents. But the fact remains: sales are UP among the big four in 2011.

Price per album has of course dropped like a stone with the switch to digital. But so have distribution costs.

And do you know what happened when the price dropped? The number of units sold went up! This is mad, MAD, I tell you, an outcome never even dreamed of by any economist ever.

Their profits aren't quite as obscene as they used to be perhaps. But they are still making money hand over fist.

This myth that the big record companies are dying needs to stop. It gives weight to their whining about piracy. Which is the real long-term danger.

[1] http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120105005547/en/Niel...

qq66• 14 years ago

Spotify doesn't pay much to artists because it doesn't take in much money. It has to remain competitive against piracy -- it can't charge $100 per month. I pay $10 per month to Spotify Premium and probably play 100 tracks per day -- whereas I used to pay $20 per CD that I'd probably play 100 tracks from in its lifetime.

The bottom line is that I pay a lot less for music now than I used to, and most people do, which means there's just less money from recordings in the pot that can go to artists.

cageface2• 14 years ago

It's true that artists aren't making any money on Spotify.

But neither is Spotify: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/pandora-and...

Personally I think the Bandcamp model is the way forward.

FreeWorld• 14 years ago

Indeed. Free streaming of all songs, and the price is often cheaper than elsewhere since the profit margin for musicians is greater (Bandcamp takes 15% [1]). Also the fact that there are multiple formats to choose from (mp3,flac, ...) is a big plus. The only downside is the lack of any major label/big names (which for me I don't mind, but the general population does mind).

[1] http://bandcamp.com/pricing

chrischen5• 14 years ago

Isn't the Bandcamp model just the iTunes model... except iTunes's been here for over 10 years?

token782• 14 years ago

> The problem, of course, is that Spotify doesn't pay very much to artists.

False. The notion that Spotify just doesn't pay very much to artists is simply unfounded. The figure's close to 70% of their revenue.

Relevant: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120622/16193319442/myth-...

batiudrami5• 14 years ago

No, they don't pay very much. The problem is, the revenue isn't very much either (and they're unprofitable). I don't think they're doing a MegaUpload and making millions off other people's content, but compared to CD sales, artists are being undercompensated. My entire post was my thoughts on how to improve that.

skunker• 14 years ago

I've tried buying some downloads. I still use Spotify for everything, but some stuff isn't on there. But when I go to an artists site, and they pretty much say "buy it on iTunes" it's all over for me. iTunes is horrible and not exactly "cheap" either, it almost costs me as much as a physical copy, yet the cost for the label is much lower. I would love to use Amazon MP3, but I am not american.

iamben2• 14 years ago

Does anyone know how Spotify royalties compare to radio play royalties on a per listener basis? I see them as a very similar service (excluding talk radio, of course), just with spotify being far more convenient and better for discovering new music.

FaceKicker• 14 years ago

I think the point is that Spotify is so convenient that you essentially own any music on it, especially if you have premium, potentially making it pointless to buy the album for many customers. Prior to Spotify and similar services, if you wanted to listen to music legally (which piracy doesn't give you) and conveniently/on-demand (which the radio doesn't give you), you had to buy the album.

(I'm assuming your point was that Spotify probably pays at least as much per listener as the radio.)

iamben2• 14 years ago

Yeah, correct on my point, if that's the case.

I suppose it's much like piracy in a way - would people have bought the album if it wasn't for spotify? Is every spotify listener a lost sale?

I have absolutely no hard facts to back it up, but I see a lot more people attending festivals and shows and supporting artists in different ways. I know a lot of spotify subscribers who use it for work and still buy the MP3s for their ipod, or the CD for their collection.

I have hundreds and hundreds of CDs, all in storage. I buy them occasionally at shows but tend to buy vinyl (if I can) to support a band now. I listen to lots of music on Spotify I would never buy, or never have bought. For a fair few of those I'd probably go and see the artist/band live, though.

kevingibbon2• 14 years ago

I think this is a really smart move for Deadmau5.

During this period its not on spotify, diehard fans will pay for the album through itunes (or other means). After its released to spotify they will benefit from spotify distribution.

nthitz• 14 years ago

Reminds me of how big media companies delay release on Netflix or Amazon to promote DVD sales. In either case it's available for the pirates before retail stores.

ghshephard2• 14 years ago

I find it fascinating (Ironic?) that iTunes is now seen as the "preferred platform for artists wishing to make money selling their music" - given both it's history, as well the complete and utter lack of DRM associated with iTunes Music.

jiggy20112• 14 years ago

DRM on music is 100% useless. You would have to prevent a DRM free copy from existing at all.

ghshephard2• 14 years ago

DRM is annoying, but it can be effective. There is a DRM free copy of every popular science fiction novel you can think of up to around 2010 or so (And, since I haven't checked for about a year, we may have moved into 2011/2012).

But, with the exception of Top 100 novels - it's next to impossible to find/download these books unless you try really, really hard. I'm sure many of those people who buy a book on Amazon, would instead download if it were effortless to. (Though, many would also purchase it, in much the same way many of us purchase our TV shows and Music.)

DRM on books, so far, has slowed down piracy of books. It's not 100% effective, but it's certainly not 100% useless.

token782• 14 years ago

But the average consumer spends $60 odd dollars a year on iTunes, vs $120 a year on spotify...

And it pays Artists waaaay better than that more popular streaming service, youtube!

thechut• 14 years ago

I had no problem finding it on usenet...

Matsta2• 14 years ago

The funny thing is, even if Deadmau5 only sells his music on iTunes, Amazon etc, by the time you deduct Apple's/Amazon's cut and the record label's cut, he isn't going to make that much, maybe $100k or even $200k Net if he's lucky.

To put that in perspective, I know that Deadmau5 usually gets around $100k per gig he gets played (for the bigger festivals anyway), so really after 2 gigs he's going to have made more then his whole album.

And it's the case with most artists now anyway, they make more money from concerts then they do in song sales.

carbocation• 14 years ago

> And it's the case with most artists now anyway, they make more money from concerts then they do in song sales.

It's kind of nice that some artists occasionally (not always, due to piracy) make money from their marketing (i.e., their song sales, spotify plays, etc).

tptacek• 14 years ago

Lots of midlist artists make below-subsistence on concerts. The payouts from club appearances are very low. Deadmau5 is anomalous; comparing his take to that of a typical indie musician is a little like comparing Slint to U2.

It's probably true that most artists make more now from concerts than recordings, but don't kid yourself: that's just because most artists can't make anything significant from recording anymore.

meritt• 14 years ago

Spotify should turn this into an opportunity. Situations like this, allow users to pay-to-unlock albums, otherwise seamlessly integrates with the rest of Spotify. Virtual Currency and pay-to-win works extremely well for social gaming/zynga/et al, why not music industry?

Matsta2• 14 years ago

They still think its 1998 and that we still go to the store to buy albums on Cassette

philip12092• 14 years ago

They could monetize rapidly with Amazon Affiliates

paulsutter• 14 years ago

Right, and if they did most artists would make their albums purchase only, thereby blowing up Spotify's subscription model. After all, are you a premium artist or not?

By refusing to add this feature, Spotify makes Deadmau5 look like the bad guy to his fans.

waterlesscloud3• 14 years ago

Deadmau5 isn't the first to do this, a lot of artists delay a week or two. It's no big deal.

kevingibbon2• 14 years ago

the beauty in spotify is the simplicity. Gamification makes no sense in this context.

philip12092• 14 years ago

Perhaps each month of Spotify premium should include "early access" credits to use for immediate access to a particular newly released album. This money goes to the label, and users can purchase additional credits if they wish.

The other option, if Spotify is looking to play a little more dirty, is that they can have albums withheld in this manner bypass the "new release" page on the basis that they are no longer newly released. This would reduce marketing, play count, and thus payout to the artist.

iamtyce2• 14 years ago

The record is definitely available on both Spotify UK and AUS, but as far as I can tell only half of it can be streamed if you haven't purchased the mp3's elsewhere.

iamtyce2• 14 years ago

For the record, I purchased it via iTunes regardless of the fact that I've been a Spotify UK subscriber for 3+ years.

pixie_• 14 years ago

That's cool, I'll listen to it on BitTorrent and no one will make any money. I pirated music for 10 years until the 'business' actually figured out what I want - all the music, anywhere, anytime, for a flat fee, which has much more value-add than pirating. I'm not going to be forced into some other contrived broken business model.

The only simple solution I can think of is another level of Spotify membership for early access - like $15 a month. Other than that, Spotify is about volume. Get your name out there, make some money, and make real money by playing shows and selling merch. Making money by sitting back and collecting royalties for 50 years is waaaay too lucrative. Spotify is fixing that.

chrischen5• 14 years ago

What if instead of $10 a month, I think $1 a month is a fair price for unlimited music? Can I now justify pirating because someone has pulled my arbitrarily defined "fair" price for unlimited music?

The artist is stating that they would like you to pay for the download, and just because the streaming service is legal doesn't mean it's fair or works.

aggftw• 14 years ago

Then don't use the $10 a month service and go pirate music by all means. That gives signals to the actors, which they will take into consideration when figuring out what their business model should look like.

The fact that services like Spotify have caught on as of late are proof that many people like the business model. Let musicians see how much more money they make by delaying the release of their albums in these services.

They will figure it out eventually, I hope. It's all about finding the distribution of that arbitrary "fair" price in order to maximize earnings.

Deadmau5 Withholding His Latest Album from Spotify

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