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Does streaming help the music industry?

gassor

There may be more posts after this.
Streaming services have reversed the fortunes of the music industry in Sweden and now generate more income than downloads or CDs. But can the model be replicated worldwide?

Streaming services make their money from adverts or monthly subscriptions from premium users. For Spotify, the fees are about $15 (£10) in Sweden and the UK and $10 in the US. The more a track gets clicked on, the more it earns for the rights holder, be that a label, artist or composer.

But like many of its international rivals, it faces continued criticism from performers who say their songs need to be played hundreds of times to generate the same kind of income that they would earn from a single download or CD sale.

I havent bought CD/album for years. I mean who wants to spend hours flicking through CD or album covers in a restricted space in a cramped shop? With streaming you can explore till your heart's content and listen to all the new releases you want. Having a party - playlist ready in 30 mins, what's not to like when you get CD quality through the ether.
 
I havent bought CD/album for years. I mean who wants to spend hours flicking through CD or album covers in a restricted space in a cramped shop? With streaming you can explore till your heart's content and listen to all the new releases you want. Having a party - playlist ready in 30 mins, what's not to like when you get CD quality through the ether.

it may have saved 'the industry' but it is not so hot for individual artists.

many streaming services bulk together payments so an individual artist won't get paid until the streams have reached a certain amount to make accounting easier.

it's great for the consumer not so great for the music makers... big labels are loving it, small ones are complaining about payment systems.

on a slighty different point look at this...

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/052511itunes
 
When streaming can achieve the quality of a good DSD formatted file, then I think we can be happy. Right now it's just an excuse to screw over the quality of what we listen to and convert it from music to just background noise.
 
on a slighty different point look at this...

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/052511itunes

That doesn't surprise me at all. For years I've been spending a month or two at a time away from home with just a portable player for company. It didn't take me long to realise that I really didn't need a lot of albums with me because they never got listened to. Now that I'm in the process of ripping my CDs to lossless, it's prompted me to take my time and reassess my collection, only ripping albums I really want to keep. It's surprised me just how much I have that I honestly can't imagine ever wanting to listen to ever again.

... the sound quality???

As far as I understood it Spotify only went up to 320kbps - not really CD quality.

Correct. I'm not aware of any streaming service which offers higher.
 
Yes, it does help the music industry. The music industry has looked after its own vested interests (I'm excluding the artists and retailers from that!) for so long that we are now seeing the result - fewer and fewer shops to buy CD's from and and more and more illegal downloading where the music is stolen and no-one gets paid. I don't think the present model is working that well or is too finely tuned - the streaming companies seem to be trying to avoid paying the kind of royalties that a physical sale would generate. However, at least its legal and not plain theft.

As for the quality, as network bandwidth improves, I would expect bit-rates to. After all, the masters exist at full quality, so there's no reason why streaming companies wouldn't want to differentiate their service by providing better quality if it could be made reliable across the nation.

I think the dust will take a while to settle but in the end, it'll be a good thing. Also, irrespective of quality arguments, who wouldn't want the ability to access a music library that large if for no other reason than to try before buying. I no longer buy albums only to discover that I only actually like the track I heard on the radio.
 
... the sound quality???

As far as I understood it Spotify only went up to 320kbps - not really CD quality.

Plenty people would say it they can't tell the difference, including many on here, me included.
 
This thread could easily become diverged as the OP was on about actual 'streaming' and not CD's vs downloading (legally or illegally).

I still buy all my music on CD because I want the physical media, it sounds ever-so-slightly better than my current HD/Mac based system, most of my preffered music isn't available on sites like HDTracks, LinnRecords, et al and I like to support the artists (however naively that belief may be).

I buy the CD, rip it as accurately as I possibly can (using XLD on the Mac which checks AccurateRip) and then it's filed away on the shelf with the rest.

The vast majority of my listening is done via Sonos into my amp from the iMac upstairs in the study. It's certainly good enough and if I back to back music from Sonos vs my CD37 it is difficult to tell the difference but I think the CD sounds just a touch better (can't put my finger on exactly how, more of a emotive feeling with the music).

Now, back to the OP's original post; I don't know is the truth of it. I personally think streaming does have a place. I use Spotify premium to find new music and occasionally will listen to it whilst I'm working but 'proper' for 'proper' listening, it sounds a bit thin and you can tell it's a 320kbps stream rather than an uncompressed version. Still very good, don't get me wrong but not 'HiFi'. Things may change in the near future and we may enjoy CD quality or better via streaming services but I will likely stick to what I'm doing as I prefer to own my music rather than rent it...
 
On the flip side I'm finding myself listening to many CDs that I haven't heard for years as I go through re-ripping to FLAC - but I guess that's subtly different from the purely streaming (Spotify etc).

I am also listening to my wifes music now too when i set up a random playlist.
 
I mean who wants to spend hours flicking through CD or album covers in a restricted space in a cramped shop?

I do. That's what finding music is all about.

Pushing a button or scrolling a rotary control to select music just takes you further away from the listening experience as far as I'm concerned.
 
Well its back to the argument of people who like to buy a physical item. Just how much do you like doing that?

For me as soon as lossless downloads are available my cd buying will drop. The level will depend on the price and convenience of purchase. Many used cds are still ultra cheap which affects my decision.

I havent really dabbled with streaming as I cant get my brain round that yet. A lot of free time is spent listening to BBC radio to get value for my licence fee. I havent the time, money or inclination to be using streaming services.
 
Does streaming help the music industry?

Not sure about that, but whats very clear to me is that the music industry try to help themselves to our money with as little effort as possible.
When are they going to realise that they actually are providing a service to people?
If people dont like the service, they need to listen and adopt to our wishes.

I am guessing the big part of actual CDs sold today are bought for the sound qualities sake. Seams like streaming are aiming on a different market, mainstrean comercial garbage mostely (imo)

I will continue bying CDs as long as they are enjoyable to listen to, streaming is only for background music for me.
 
It definitely does not help my label, Mollusc Records.

When I get my quarterly sales data spreadsheet, there are dozens of pages of stream sales that total about 10 quid. We get 1/3 of a penny per listen. We then have to split that with the artist.

We shall not be listing future releases on spotify and lastfm.
 
I am guessing the big part of actual CDs sold today are bought for the sound qualities sake. Seams like streaming are aiming on a different market, mainstrean comercial garbage mostely (imo)

I will continue bying CDs as long as they are enjoyable to listen to, streaming is only for background music for me.

My guess (and it is just that) is that people who buy CDs do so through habit, ie because they've always bought CDs. Sound quality will be a distinctly secondary reason. Again, just my guess.

I'm still a hard medium buyer (CDs), and will do for a while yet, but the idea of streaming doesn't upset me. If I take the listening experience back to basics, I want to hear what I want when I want. Ownership doesn't come into that.

Moving on from that basic premise, then we consider the price we pay for listening to what we want when we want. Traditionally (in the UK), that has been BBC radio (licence fee), commercial radio (advertisements), music television (subscription, adverts), live (venues, ticker sellers), and hard media (record shops, music "industry").

Only one of those provides the "what I want, when I want" experience. it's a one time purchase. Streaming is currently a subscription requirement - that's the difference. But, so long as the price of entry is low enough, does that matter?
 
If I take the listening experience back to basics, I want to hear what I want when I want. 

Streaming is currently a subscription requirement - that's the difference. But, so long as the price of entry is low enough, does that matter?

Spotify pays my artist about 0.3p per spin, Spotify can't even justify doubling in UK to 0.6p per play, and this is still nowhere near enough for the musician, rich or poor. It needs to be more like 5p. This will never happen.

At current rates, a significant number of rich bands will continue to delay listing their new albums on there until the cd, vinyl and download sales have died down. So you won't get what you want when you want there. The poor, like my artists, need to get their grand or so back from the recording process. They are realistic in their aspirations so they concentrate on selling their cds or vinyl short runs. The download sales make a much appreciated 40% contribution to our total sales. This is good news. Spotify is not.

They do not see spotify as an essential profile builder for anyone except Spotify, but they do see it as exploitation, so they won't list there at all. And I support this. So if you like the indie underworld, you won't get what you want when you want there either. because there are plenty of microlabels that think like I do. If we all delisted, Spotify would go bust. In my dreams....

David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven is my man: http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/02/07/inputoutput-david-lowery-and-the-future-of-artists-rights/ 17 minutes in he talks about Spotify.
 


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