Got tonight's idea from watching one of my favorite netcasts, TWiG. This Week in Google talks about much more than just Google. It talks about a lot of technology happenings from the week. One of this week's topics had to do with a decision made by Taylor Swift. And I've had enough of the lies and twisted truth being spewed about this.
Just about any one that has spoken to me about music knows that I don't listen to over-the-air radio all that often. There are too many commercials and too much talk which means not enough music. For a while, I was using a streaming service called Slacker Radio. Just the free version so there were ads, but they only had a couple for each hour. As in roughly 2 minutes of ads an hour and lengthy chats by a DJ. Since last October, I've been paying for a different service called Google Play All Access (I believe the name is about to change but you get the idea). It costs $10 per month but there are no ads at all, I can create custom playlists, and I have access to every song in Google's library. This is just the one that I chose to pay for. There are many out there all with very similar services. Overall, it's a great option for the listener.
So, what's the problem? Artists. I'm not trying to claim that they shouldn't be paid for their efforts, I think they should. I'm complaining about the fact that they blame these services for the reason they aren't multi-billionaires. I mentioned Taylor Swift above. She has told Spotify to remove all of her music from their library because they weren't paying her what she "deserves" for her work (here's an article on it). The problem is that they are paying. Spotify states that streaming services paid over $2 million for plays of her music over the past year. The article states that she earned only $500,000 from these services. So where did the $1.5 million disappear to?
And that's where the problem lies. Lies and half truths from both sides. These streaming services can't tell what the record label actually pays the artist. They can only speak of what they paid for providing the song to their customers. These artists are taking things out on the wrong people. Record companies have always made huge profits at the expense of the artists. This happened back when cassette tapes were first introduced, then again when compact discs came out, and yet again when services such as iTunes and Amazon Music first came about. The industry will self adjust as it always does and these artists won't starve by any means. Imagine if you made even $500,000 for working a handful of days out of the year. I wouldn't complain at all.
In the show, they mentioned that they felt she was trying to use her popularity to change the system and bring justice to the smaller artists. I would have to agree but perhaps in a different light. She seems to be singling out Spotify. Why is that? Not that I like her music, but I could stream it with my service. And I bet anyone paying for a subscription to just about any other streaming service can do the same. My real thought is that she's trying to drive people away from the smaller services such as Spotify because they don't pay as well as say Apple for iTunes or Google for All Access. And what makes that a really bad thing for me and you is that it means fewer choices which means less competition. And where there is less competition, you will always find higher prices.
So who wins if she eventually gets her way? That's pretty simple, she does. Along with other high ticket artists and their highly profitable record labels. So it's the same old story, the rich keep getting richer...
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