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.
15 hours hardly covers a single book
Abandon Spotify
I’d love to, but in terms of pure availability I can get almost everything I’ve ever wanted to listen to, aside from some weird geoblocking or removal of defunct band’s back catalogues.
*Steal Spotify
Capitalism!!! USA!! USA!! USA!! 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲 You poor fucks don’t deserve music.
We don’t deserve music for other reasons too… like we don’t care what the lyrics are even about as long as it “sounds good.”
What are you talking about?
Thought of calling ya
But you won’t pick up
Another fortnight lost in America
Move to Florida
Buy the car you want
But it won’t start up
Til you touch, touch, touch meThose are lyrics written by an actual God.
I think spotify is swedish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify
Do you know how strong of a country you have to be to make another live to your standards?
I think capitalism has already prevailed before America is the dominant force in it.
“Let’s throw away all of our physical media! All digital streaming music, movies and books will be so much better! Everything we want, always available, anywhere!!!”
Somewhat true if you’re a seasoned sailor of the high seas, not so much if not…
You don’t need to be a “seasoned sailor”. It’s incredibly easy IMO to get what you want if you’re willing to put forth a tiny amount of effort.
The seasoning helps to know where it’s safe to put into port though.
We are entering the golden age of self hosting and I’m gonna go all in!!!
And for those wondering what about artists, two words: live shows
I’m fighting this fight with phone and sd cards. It’s part of the reason they are killing sd card slots to get people to put everything in the cloud.
Sadly most people are morons and are doing exactly that.
Most people do not understand that there are many ways to burn a book.
Doesn’t make me feel guilty using Soulseek. Artists get next to nothing but I’m refusing to give any money to Spotify. If there was a better way to buy and own music digitally from popular artists I would
Bandcamp
I mean high end artists not indie
high end artists don’t need your money, they’re funded already and corporate productions in the first place. So i guess you’re in the clear! ;)
What does high end mean?
I assume professinol music that’s good. Not amuture sounding music.
Unironically iTunes
Although it’s far from the best, Deezer has a much fairer royalties compensation method, which is more closely based on a per-user basis, rather than total amount of minutes listened (that Spotify currently employs).
This isn’t super related to OPs post but I thought it might be worth mentioning aswell.
I’ve been using Deezer for a while now. Not only is the streaming quality (FLAC) much better but also the artist compensation much fairer. Plus, they at least act as if they actually cared for the customer…
Alexa, play John Mellencamp - Ain’t That America
I fucked off Spotify after the Jo Rogan debacle.
I’ve been with Tidal since. I miss the Spotify recommendation algorithm but that’s it.
Same
i paid for the best tier Tidal for a year and it was a worse experience than spotify. Their catalogue is incomplete compared to spotify
I’ve been a paying member for almost a decade. I’ve been training it that entire time with what I do and don’t like. I’ve also been using their suggested playlists for years and further refining what they recommend. So their algorithm is a huge part of it for me. I am constantly finding songs and artists I wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise.
That said, I’ve been holding my nose while I renewed the service for the past couple of years. I’m willing to part ways for Tidal if it’s a comparable service with better benefits to the artists.
Joe Rogan debacle?
Napster exists but people just ignore it
And this is why I refuse to listen to ads or pay for spotify.
I’ve heard good things about tidal in regards to paying artists (more) fairly. Does anyone know more about the alternatives or has experience with them? Also in terms of the library size I’m not sure how the services compare…
I love my Tidal subscription. Most everything that’s on Spotify is on Tidal now unless it’s an exclusive. Most annoying part will be tranferring your playlists
I believe tidal actually has a larger library than Spotify, and offers a tier that lets you listen to higher quality of music. Similar pricing to Spotify I think. I had it for a while and really liked it, only stopped paying for it because I’m broke so I’m sailing the seas for now
dibbidens
Because of financial problems i switched from streaming back to my old ipod. Moding this old player was one of the best decisions in my career as music listner. The best thing about it is that my phone can run low on battery but i am still able to listen to chumbawamba.
Decentrelize your hardware!
Patch your spotify install to get free premium. If they’re gonna raise prices and lower what they pay musicians, there’s no valid reason not to.
I mean, Spotify is a great service for the consumer. One reasonable monthly fee for most of the music in the world.
If a similar video streaming service existed for 40€/month, I’d pay for it in a heartbeat. Now I have a plethora of arr apps and a vpn, and Plex. But it’s a hassle sometimes.
We’re all aware of the issues it created for the artists, and I’d be willing to double the fee if that money directly went to the artists, but this is where the capitalist model fails, as that won’t maximize the profits for shareholders.
If we ever come up with a way to fix the underlying greed models that come with publicly traded companies, that would be great.
As it stands, it is what it is, but I’m glad we have this, instead of a “different Spotify per music publisher”.
