Zoe Keating
!! RT @theatlantic: Why Spotify doesn’t work for musicians: 70,000 listens pays less than $300 theatln.tc/MBOeoz
— Zoe Keating (@zoecello) juni 29, 2012
Now check zoekeating.com Not a single link to her music or artist profile Spotify. Over 1 million Twitter followers. Imagine the impact of a tweet with a link to a song on Spotify. Another 70,000 listens?
And if you think 70,000 listens is a lot? I stumbled across this tweet:
Why I’m a fan of the streaming model. ow.ly/i/KlPD My Spotify streaming numbers thus far.
— Keith William Dunton (@keithdunton) juli 5, 2012
Keith Duncan reports 60,767 streams. Now I don’t want to judge anyone’s music, but check out the tunes that lead to this success
Doesn’t this proof that an artist like Zoe could easily get millions of streams with a little promotion of her music being on Spotify?
Complaining about the pay out per stream doesn’t help. Forget about the rates. Even if Spotify manages to increase the rate to $0,01 for every stream Zoe would have gotten $700 for her 70,000 streams. How much better is that? The real money comes in when the streams explode and that shouldn’t be that hard in Zoe’s case.
Shannon Hurley
I would endorse Spotify if royalty rates increased. I got $14.87 for a total of 4,030 streams. Doesn’t that seem outrageous?
— shannon hurley (@shannonhurley) juli 1, 2012
Check www.shannonhurley.com Not a single link to her music or artist profile Spotify.
Apparat
“Spotify’s CEO is the 10th richest man in the UK music industry”. If that’s true- i wanna die. Do you know how little they pay the artists?
— apparat (@apparatofficial) juni 21, 2012
Check www.apparat.net Guess what?
Jonathan Johansson
Visit www.jonathanjohansson.se This guy made more than $20,000 from streaming services alone in the first month of his album being available. Read the full story.
Check the website of his label Hybris. Links to Spotify and Itunes side by side.
Ugress
And how about the Norwegian artist Ugress who of course has Spotify links on his website. Even though his Soundcloud embeds are more intrusive, Spotify is his number one source of income.
Looks like fear of losing sales because of streaming is a bad advisor.
It might be worth noting….between October 2011 and March 2012, the same time period that I reported my Spotify streams, I netted $91,051 in music sales through iTunes and Bandcamp (vs the $300 from Spotify).
That should tell you why I don’t have a Spotify link. If someone has taken the initiative to actually visit my website, I am going to try and make it easy for them to listen to my music right then and there and to capture their data or even to make an immediate purchase if they wish to do so. I’m not going to send this valuable listener off to another application. If I do include a link to an offsite fulfillment partner, I’m going to send them to the one that nets me the most AND gives me back some data about that listener.
Thanks Zoe for adding your personal comment to this article.
Your iTunes and Bandcamp sales are great, no doubt about that. I just strongly disagree with your statement that Spotify doesn’t work for artists.
Spotify or any other streaming service can work if your music is streamed more. The key factor is the number of streams, not the rate per stream. 70,000 streams may look like a lot, but in the world of streaming music it is nothing.
Unlike most of the complaining artists you can make the number of streams explode by a single tweet or adding a Spotify Widget to your site. That way your visitors don’t even have to leave your site to have a listen.
I’m not saying you have to put up links or widgets, it’s your choice of course. Who am I to tell you how to run your business? But if you sort of hide that your music is on Spotify, it’s not fair to spread the idea that streaming will not work using your own stats as proof. Isn’t that a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Hey Hans,
You’re totally right, not directing your visitors to any streaming service, will most likely lead to less listens on that streaming service! I’ve never complained about my low listening numbers on Spotify though, or on any streaming service (in fact I am happy with my numbers on Pandora, which this time last year were 500,000). I’m only highlighting the royalty-per-stream, and pointing out that it is misguided for individual artists, especially non-mainstream ones, to count on streaming royalties to support them and their families. That per-stream royalty is not going to increase by having 1 million more listens. The only things that will increase that number is Spotify getting more paid subscribers and if they increase the royalty-per-stream.
best, Z
p.s. Don’t read too much into my Twitter stats, they don’t really translate to 1 million fans. I’m small-time!
Thanks Zoe. I understand that you don’t complain about the low listening numbers. Like many artists you complain about the low royalty-per-stream. But if you are counting on increasing rates per stream I have to disappoint you. That’s will not happen. Not because Spotify doesn’t want to. They cannot pay more.
It’s just a question of basic math. Spotify pays 70% of the revenue to rights holders. A Premium user brings in $10 a month. So for his/her streams in that month Spotify can pay $7. Let’s say the average Premium user streams 25 songs a day, so 750 streams. $7 divide by 750 leads to $0.009 royalties per stream. It’s basically this simple. If you want to try out some more calculations, feel free to use my
Spotify Royalties Calculator at http://www.spotidj.com/blog/paltry-spotify-payouts-explained/
The rate can only rise substantially with higher subscription fees or when users start listening less.
For a second opinion check: http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/spotiwhy-are-subscription-music-services-a-sustainable-busin.html