Spotify Is Burying Tracks From Musicians Who Give Exclusives To Apple and Tidal (bloomberg.com) 87
The music-streaming market is very competitive these days, especially since Apple released Apple Music last year. In retaliation for musicians giving Apple exclusive access to their new music, Spotify has reportedly been making their songs harder to find on its service. Bloomberg reports: "Artists who have given Apple exclusive access to new music have been told they won't be able to get their tracks on featuring playlists once the songs become available on Spotify, said the people [familiar with the strategy], who declined to be identified discussing the steps. Those artists have also found their songs buried in the search rankings of Spotify, the world's largest music-streaming service, the people said. Spotify said it doesn't alter search rankings. Spotify has been using such practices for about a year, one of the people said, though others said the efforts have escalated over the past few months. Artists who have given exclusives to Tidal, the streaming service run by Jay Z, have also retaliated against, the person said, declining to identify specific musicians."
Sour Grapes (Score:3)
Re: Sour Grapes (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see how it hurts Spotify. Those tracks are still there, they just won't show up in the automatically generated playlists. I wouldn't promo someone who wrote me out of their new stuff either.
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"junk music featured"
But you repeat yourself. I mean, the summary even mentioned Jay Z.
Re:Sour Grapes (Score:5, Insightful)
In the short term, the only negative impact would be if the songs they're demoting are extremely popular and if the public perceives their absence as a loss in quality. Given the size of the musical corpus these days, that seems unlikely.
In the long term, this serves notice to content creators that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Normally, those content creators would have to balance the cost of exclusivity (fewer plays on those exclusive songs) against the benefits (presumably dramatically improved promotion and possibly higher royalty per click. With this policy in place, those content creators have to factor in the loss of the vast majority of their income from the other providers—not just on new content, but also on old content. That significantly changes the balance in a way that discourages these exclusive deals.
And that's a good thing. Vendor exclusivity is inherently anti-consumer.
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Artists are part of the market as well and if the st
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Then they truly have no fan base and should find a day job. Concerts really are where a musician makes their money. If they can't make money doing that part, they simply can't make money as a musical act. If they're really a good musician, they should at least quit their band and try to get some session work, or teach lessons.
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Streaming pays absolute shit according to most accounts.
A better way to view it is that streaming is today's AM radio (dating myself a tad, here). It is not a profit center, it is an advertisement for the musicians and/or their group. If you like their one song, maybe you'll buy others.
I might suggest that this "sour grapes" at exclusivity makes streaming services more like the old recording companies, too. I remember that when Motown had a celebration/concert for one of their anniversaries there was a lot of talk of ignoring the Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson
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Why are you using this dumbass expression?
I would suspect one of two reasons.
Either 1:
He isn't talking about just musicians. He's talking about musicians, authors and filmmakers.
Or 2:
He's doing whatever he can to avoid calling people like Young Thug, Kodak Black and Lil Uzi by the label "Artists".
LK
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Actually, try #3. That's the only term that is generic enough to encompass both the individual recording artists (regardless of the degree of artistry) and the record companies that represent them. I'm talking collectively about everyone involved in the process of bringing that content to market who might plausibly be involved in the decision-making process.
Try saying "authors and publishers" (Score:2)
If "content creators" sounds too much like "happy gods" [gnu.org], a better term might be "authors and publishers". A songwriter is an "author" as defined in the copyright statute, as is a recording artist or film director.
Tit for tat (Score:5, Insightful)
Please note that tit for that is one of the best strategies in the Prisoner's Dilemma [wikipedia.org]. Consistently treating others the way they treat you is one of the best ways to get others to treat you better (or as fair as possible given that perfect fairness is impossible [wikipedia.org]).
If the artist relents and gives up the exclusive, but Spotify continues not promoting him, then it's sour grapes, or revenge.
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Please note that tit for that is one of the best strategies in the Prisoner's Dilemma
No, "tit for that" is the oldest profession (or at least part of it). Tit for tat [wikipedia.org] is a great strategy for the Prisoner's dilemma.
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The sooner all these culture-hoarders in the "music industry" go bankrupt, the better for all of us.
common practice (Score:4, Interesting)
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The difference here is that they're burying the content after they have the rights, simply because they didn't have the rights first. That's a far cry from not featuring content you lack, which is what you're talking about.
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> The difference here is that they're burying the content after they have the
> rights, simply because they didn't have the rights first. That's a far cry
> from not featuring content you lack, which is what you're talking about.
There is a major difference between being able to play today's hits, versus last year's hits. The audience is much larger for the current stuff. To use TV terminology... depriving Spotify of the "first run revenues" hurts them. Spotify, in turn, deprives the artist of "syndic
Spotify? (Score:1)
More like Adify. So many ads. Fuck that trash.
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I don't use Spotify at all. Not because of the ads, but because I don't stream music. But I've been exposed to it through others (and one game), and I can't stand the ads. I certainly won't pay for others to have a premium subscription. I can't stand ads in general. I'm certainly willing to pay for a product, but I'm reluctant to pay for a free product plus a promise of no ads. They either eventually go back on that promise or the free product simply isn't worth the money, ads or not.
Re: Spotify? (Score:1)
The advantage of a monthly subscription is that you're not tied in if they downgrade the service.
I listened to the free service for a while and as always, the ads were annoying (I find them particularly jarring when listening to music; on Spotify, the ads pause if the sound is off so turning the volume to just above minimum is the best you can do) but they were a price worth paying for Spotify's interesting suggestions of new music based on what I was listening to.
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I think something like that sets a dangerous precedent.
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I am not sure how old you are but that is the story of one of the first cable companies as well. When Channel 100 first came out it was advertised as a pay service where you could watch movies without ads. That model did not last long, soon they were showing ads only between movies, then they began having intermissions in movies for commercial breaks, and now we are at the point where TV commercials are shown at the theatre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I am not sure how old you are but that is the story of one of the first cable companies as well.
It wasn't just cable companies -- the first cable channels distributed widely often had significantly reduced ad time (commercials maybe every 30 minutes or every 15), or no effective advertisements at all. (Well, even the ones without ads might run an ad for other programs on their channel or related ones every 30 minutes or hour or something, or sometimes between movies.) Here's an article [nytimes.com] from the New York Times in 1981 speculating about how cable TV will be transformed if it's "invaded by commercials.
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You can sample, and even use, their service without paying money. Then you pay by being subjected to ads.
But whey you pay, you don't get ads. Many internet sites deliver ads even to paying customers, so you pay twice.
why not sell your own stuff? (Score:2)
why do artists keep giving rich corporations their money? with all of the social media out there, all you need to do is engage your fans and they will visit your website and perhaps buy your stuff? No middleman tim cook, jay z, or daniel ek taking a cut.
the walled garden shit is quite annoying as a music connoisseur , purchase from website --> direct flac / mp3 download ---> have a nice day
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In a world where people prefer a subscription over ownership, an individual musician is ill-suited to handle that expectation alone, since even die-hard fans will typically tire of listening to the same couple of albums on repeat ad infinitum. Your idea works fine for direct sales, but people's expectations have changed in the last decade, as evidenced by the fact that artists continue to put up with Spotify, despite the abysmal profit they make from it.
This could backfire... (Score:2)
Easy to see how this could back-fire and cause more harm to Spotify. Seems like a childish reaction instead of doubling down & re-grouping to make their service better and more appealing.
I mean, the last time I used Apple Music, I think I said something out loud along the lines of, "This app [on my phone] is buggiest, most confusing and counter-intuitive piece of crap I've ever used." And yet Spotify is still scrambling...
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Apple should grow up and offer their Apple Music service on more than just their own devices.
Though, with how bad iTunes and Apple stuff in general has always been on Windows, maybe that's not practical.
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Because it has been shown over and over that people with iPhones actually spend money, while those with androids don't. Sure, you only get 16-18% of the smartphone market (but that also includes Macs and the majority of tablet market), but those 16-18% iPhone users outspend the android users 20 to 1 (2000% more per user). So, overall if it's an iPhone exclusive, you make 250% more than if it was an android exclusive. You asked why, they are only following the money, which is what any good business man wou
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Why would you release an exclusive that hits 13% of the market when you could reach 99%+ of the market?!
Because Apple pays X million USD out of the PR/battle budget for this.
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"Spotify runs just fine on both Android"
I beg to differ, had to uninstall their app and cancel their subscription that I was otherwise quite happy with because their shitty app kept draining my battery even when not in use. (on lollipop)
Re: This could backfire... (Score:1)
I thought Apple Music is on Android
This app is incompatible with all of your devices (Score:2)
An app on Google Play Store will be excluded from search results unless it's available both A. in your country and B. on your device. When I view the document at that URL while logged into a Google account to which a Galaxy Tab A 8.0" (2016) and a Nexus 7 (2012) are registered, I see the following:
I expected the document to include a list of suggested devices to purchase on which
Everything is well (Score:2)
"The music-streaming market is very competitive these days" ... That means that its good for the customers, because streaming services can't afford to rip them off.
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Sadly, its not really that great for customers either.
Music (and movies and other media) are not interchangeable in the same way that a bottle of milk is a bottle of milk. Justin Bieber just isn't a suitable replacement for John Lennon (or the other way around depending on your taste.)
So having all of these fragmented "exclusives" markets is just a generally bad situation for everybody. Consumers are stuck either paying multiple times or foregoing some portion of what they'd like. Distributors are barred
Silly complaints (Score:2)
The claims that Spotify is intentionally manipulating their search results is just dumb.
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Why would Spotify feature artists they're not making as much money on? Anyone who's surprised by this is probably the same sort of person who asks their waiter for a food recommendation at a restaurant (hint: it's whichever entree gets him the bigger tip). If you think any company's curated list of [product] is more than an excuse to push the products they make the most money off of, I've got a bridge to sell you.
The claims that Spotify is intentionally manipulating their search results is just dumb.
I imagine a musician sitting around talking about the money they got from Apple, and saying, "wtf does `exclusive' mean anyway?"
That's what it means, nobody else is gonna be selling it. And knowing that they won't be ever selling any of your new stuff, even if you're the new Elvis, they won't care about trying to sell your old stuff unless you were already Elvis.
If you sold exclusive rights, you already paid a lot of opportunity cost. When Spotify ignores you, you asked them to.
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If you sold exclusive rights, you already paid a lot of opportunity cost. When Spotify ignores you, you asked them to.
The problem is that if you sell exclusive rights to some of your works but make the rest available to Spotify, Spotify will demote even the ones you told it to make available.
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That isn't a "problem," it is the situation the artists asked for; giving away exclusivity over some of your stuff reduces the value of the rest of your stuff for people who don't have the exclusive access. Duh.
What you said is just a re-phrasing from the "whiny artist" perspective. I'm assuming most of their contract negotiations had a conversation with their manager like, "So, like, exclusive means I get paid more, right?" "Yes" and fast forwards to now, "hey, what do you mean there is a tradeoff, what do
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The only thing dumber than artists using proprietary platforms that barely pay them anything is artists complaining that the proprietary platforms are greedy.
So which platforms are non-proprietary or do pay artists more than "barely [] anything"?
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Their swag booth at the concert.
That is where they have a chance to make some money.
I didn't say, "oh I am a magic wizard with a way for musicians to make money online," instead I expressed the opinion that they are foolish to restrict the promotional value of online interest in them by using proprietary platforms unless those platforms are actually making them money. If it isn't paying, then they should be giving digital media away, to promote their concerts.
Musicians who make a lot of money, make it at th
Drake? (Score:5, Funny)
We're talking about Drake here. Show of hands: Who cares if Spotify doesn't include Drake in its promoted tracks? If people want to hear Drake (which in itself is a little unsettling), then they can still listen to his music on Spotify.
"Burying" is not the same as "not promoting". The music is there, but there isn't any incentive for Spotify to promote it.
Plus, it's Drake. I mean, come on...
Bargain bin (Score:2)
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So if other songs released when yours was and roughly as successful as yours was get preferential treatment because you didn't kiss Spotify's ass, you're OK with that?
Let me guess...you're not exactly a threat to become a millionaire. Am I right?
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He doesn't have to be OK with it. He's free to yell and scream about it all he wants. But Spotify is under no obligation to him and if he screwed them over for 6 months, why should they give a flying fuck what we wants in month 7?
Well probably. I'm assuming by the time month 7 rolls around, his music just falls under some large open license that Spotify has with his publisher. If he managed to get a special contract with Spotify even after screwing them over for 6 months and they're still able to pull t
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So if other songs released when yours was and roughly as successful as yours was get preferential treatment because you didn't kiss Spotify's ass
Bad analogy. In this case, the band or musician did not refuse to kiss Spotify, they stabbed at them, and Spotify is somehow being castigated for making a reposte.
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Wrong. Spotify has no inherent right to break new music. They pay the artists sweet fuck all in any case. They have no case for screwing them even worse just for not being given first crack at them.
Re: Bargain bin (Score:2)
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Of course not. 6 month down the road it's "old sh1t" and people have moved on to newer stuff.
That's just sad. Music that is good today will be good in 50 years. If it's not good in 50 years time it isn't good today. If it's "old shit" six months from now, then it's "new shit" now.
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You clearly don't understand businesses based on appealing to different age cohorts' different tastes, do you? How much Bix Biederbecke do you suppose Spotify plays, or even Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington? Compared to whatever is recent and appeals to today's mayflies?
Remember, Antonio Salieri was once known for something other than being convinced that he killed Mozart by overworking him, because he thought that Mozart was too easily too much better than him. And supposedly rightly known, if the clas
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OTOH, did Best Buy hide the rest of their AC/DC stock of CDs?
Exclusive agreements (Score:2)
Should be illegal end of story.
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I think exclusive agreements are likely to backfire as the extent grows. Most people are unlikely to pay for five music service and seven sports channel subscriptions in order to cover your interests, and also accept switching between apps and/or devices to access them. When the producers' bean counters finally realize this, they will move to provi
Does this even require intent? (Score:2)
If Spotify's rankings are based on #times streamed, especially if that's modulated by time on market, then it should be pretty simple logic to see that #times streamed=0 for exclusive content.
All Spotify would have to do is record the release date as the actual release date rather than the date they were allowed to host it. Then it would look to the algorithm like the song sucked bad enough to have zero views for 6 months. It would probably take a while after being available for that to average out!
But OK
Alternate theory (Score:2)
They really aren't messing with songs, in either direction?
People who really like that artist, who would add them to playlists and listen to them on repeat, probably now use that other exclusive service to do so.
When it releases it gets very few plays because most people who like it listen to it elsewhere, and other people might not even be aware that a six-month old album by an artist they only sort-of like just "releasedâ.
The result: it is not in fact a top song on Spotify, do they don't feature it.
Check your sources (Score:2)
Sources?
From the original article:
"An escalating battle between Apple Inc. and Spotify Ltd. is leaving some musicians caught in the crossfire ... according to people familiar with the strategy ... said the people ... the people said ... according to a person familiar with the plans ... according to two people familiar with the matter."
That's all they provide.
Back to storing your own music. (Score:2)
I bought the Spotify 'summer special' $.99/month offer, but I don't think I'll will renew at full price. I will be going back to keep my all my music on the device method. I mostly listen to music while driving, anyway...