Does streaming help the music industry?

[TomF]

Rich - very interesting.

I think that the direct downloads from artists of independent labels has to have a real future and, TBH, I wonder how hard it would be for you to be able to stream your roster's output. Combine a series of those, and you've already moved away from Spotify....

 

[richardg]

Rich - very interesting.

I think that the direct downloads from artists of independent labels has to have a real future and, TBH, I wonder how hard it would be for you to be able to stream your roster's output. Combine a series of those, and you've already moved away from Spotify....

Well, we use vibedeck.com for download sales and you can enable streaming there too with no hassle. But you can't charge for it yet, so the stream is free. Therefore we don't enable it. We just enable download sales.

That in mind, we would not get much stream traffic even if we enabled it. Punters like known brands. Without doubt we need big-named partners, but with a fair price. Most of the download sales come via itunes for us. Then Amazon. Then our own vibedeck page. And our vibedeck site is cheaper.

The only issue with Spotify is that they aren't paying enough. And until they do, or some other internet platform comes along that pays a fair rate, they can get lost.