It still boggles my mind that people will pay $10/month for these services. I rarely find any new music worth listening to and when I do I can buy the song or album and still come in way below spending $10/month and then I have the songs forever (off-line, etc.)
All these "service" models where you never actually get to own anything but keep shelling out money don't work for me.
Same is happening with TV.. cutting the cord and going with Netflix and Amazon Prime was a benefit.. but then Disney and HBO, etc start to do their own thing and you have to pay another $10 for each of those if you want them... it is going to end up worse than cable was.
Area man who doesn’t like music wonders aloud why music afficianados would pay for Apple Music.
Apple Music has been a life changer for me. I used to spend thousands a year on music. People like yourself are not the target market.
Now if Apple would consolidate things so iCloud (2TB) + Apple Music + Apple TV+ + the new Gaming service were available in a bundle... if I could get all that together for a reasonable price (less than $15/month) that would be something.
That WOULD be something... Quite likely a burgeoning of the starving artist segment of society. Creatives like musicians, writers, and artists are already underpaid for the most part IMO. They better not lose their day jobs so to speak.
Do you think Hollywood would take $1700 for 55 million tickets to a movie?
It’s not theft. There are legal agreements in place. Most artists are happy with it, though they would like a little more. The fact is that the industry has been changing for a long time. Digital has done that. There’s no going back. Apple resisted it for almost 2 decades, but had to give in. You do what your customers want. If artists have to perform live, tough!
Sorry, but most artisits are NOT HAPPY with music streaming services and the extremely low royalties they pay. I am a musician, songwriter, and member of ASCAP, so I keep a close eye on news related to music streaming services. Why do you keep saying that most artists are happy when it simply is not true? Are you intentionally trying to spread misinofrmation or are you just ignorant about what is really going on?
If it is ignorance, I would suggest that you do some reading on the legal battles that ASCAP and other publishing companies have been fighting on behalf of music creators to increase royalty rates from streaming services. Read up on the Music Modernization Act signed into law on Oct. 11, 2018. Read up on the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board's recent ruling to increase payouts to songwriters by 44%, and how Spotify, Google, Pandora, and Amazon are all appealing the ruling. Why? Because they know their streaming services are built on an unsustainable business model that doesn't work unless they pay unresonably low royalties. And I would love it if you could produce one example of an artist that is "happy" with the royalties they make from streaming services. For every one you find, I guarantee I can show you 4-5 that are NOT happy with it.
And I really wish people would STOP conflating artists with songwriters/composers. That is like thinking actors and screenwriters are the same thing and make their income the same way. Songwriters and composers DO NOT make money off of touring, merchandise, etc. like an artist does. Back when actual records were sold, songwriters and composers made the majority of their money from record sales, and could make a decent living from it. Now streaming services (founded on an unsustainable business model) have eroded record sales and replaced those royalties with royalties that yield far less revenue for the rights holders (songwriter, artist, producer, publisher). So the mentality that, "Oh, they make their money from touring and mechandise" DOES NOT APPLY to songwriters and composers. Their source of income has been decimated by streaming services.
In addition, only the MOST successful artists make money from touring and mechandise. The majority of artists do not make much, if anything, from touring and merch, and in some cases they lose money. Large, established artists? Yes, of course they make tons of money from touring and merch. But for songwriters and most other musicians, royalties are a vital part of their revenue stream until they (hopefully) build up a big enough fan base and "make it big". The majority of musicians (artists, songwriters, composers) are not living high on the hog. The ones making millions are the "one percenters".
Your comment, "If artists have to perform live, tough!" illustrates that you truly don't understand the situation, not to mention a complete lack of empathy. Songwriters and composers DO NOT make money from touring and merchandise. They are the ones getting royally screwed by an unsustainable music streaming business model that pays royalties of virtually nothing.
How does an artist get paid when their song is accessed on Apple Music? How much are they paid per song? I listen to songs on Apple music, but wonder if the artist actually makes anything. These services should maximize artist revenue from song 1. Selling merchandise should not be needed, the music is the merchandise. Artists should be able to earn a living through their work.
Afaik, payment goes to the rights holders. The rights holders could be a combination of music label, artist, song writer, producer, etc. The label typically gets the lions share and everyone else, including the artist, is paid from the rest of the cut. Touring and merchandise has always been the primary revenue generator for artist for as longs as I can remember. That isn't a consequence of streaming.
Touring and merch is only a primary revenue generator for the most successful artists. Most artists are lucky if they break even after covering all of their expenses.
And songwriters, composers, and producers do not tour or sell merchandise. Song royalties are a significant portion of their income. One of the major consequnces of music streaming is that it has destroyed the royalty rates for songwrites, composers, and producers. Record sales have been eroded by music streaming services that currently operate under an unsustainable business model. The only way Apple, Spotify, Google, Pandora, can make money is by paying EXTREMELY low royalty rates to music creators.
It still boggles my mind that people will pay $10/month for these services. I rarely find any new music worth listening to and when I do I can buy the song or album and still come in way below spending $10/month and then I have the songs forever (off-line, etc.)
All these "service" models where you never actually get to own anything but keep shelling out money don't work for me.
Same is happening with TV.. cutting the cord and going with Netflix and Amazon Prime was a benefit.. but then Disney and HBO, etc start to do their own thing and you have to pay another $10 for each of those if you want them... it is going to end up worse than cable was.
Area man who doesn’t like music wonders aloud why music afficianados would pay for Apple Music.
Apple Music has been a life changer for me. I used to spend thousands a year on music. People like yourself are not the target market.
I don't know where you get the idea that I don't like music. I don't like most of the music pushed at me today, but I do occasionally find something tolerable ;-) It's just hard to find when the popular music is so bad. If you listen to the radio these days they play less than 10 different songs in a month - constantly repeating the same crap - If that's what you want you could buy the songs for less than the cost of Apple Music.
I agree I'm not the target market. There is no way I would be able to find $1000 of music in a year that doesn't make me want to cover my ears and run away screaming... Even when I find a song I like, it is rare for me to like the whole album. I might look for a greatest hits album and only get the songs that worked. The best thing iTunes did was let me buy only the good songs.
Apple Music is 2 to 5 times more expensive than I would be willing to pay.
Now if Apple would consolidate things so iCloud (2TB) + Apple Music + Apple TV+ + the new Gaming service were available in a bundle... if I could get all that together for a reasonable price (less than $15/month) that would be something.
It still boggles my mind that people will pay $10/month for these services. I rarely find any new music worth listening to and when I do I can buy the song or album and still come in way below spending $10/month and then I have the songs forever (off-line, etc.)
Why does it boggle your mind that other people have different listening habits to you?
It's an odd month when I download fewer than five or six albums, old and new, in addition to checking out some curated playlists of singles. $10/month is well worth it.
It doesn't boggle my mind that other people have different listening habits. It boggles my mind that you can find enough good music to justify the price. 5-6 albums a month - yes that boggles my mind.
“occasionally find something tolerable”, “hard to find”, “rare for me to like the whole album”, listens to radio stations that only play ten songs etc = “don’t like music” to me.
I dont mean you don’t like ANY music, but it sounds like you don’t like MOST of it. People who really like music like myself know how to find stuff I like, and I add maybe 15-20 albums to my Music collection each month a this point. I used to buy hundreds to a thousand dollars or more worth of music every year prior to this from iTunes, Boomkat, Bandcamp, etc. Consider your mind boggled.
It’s the way radio stations have worked, thought their payout per song is a lot more (though my cousin and others have said, over the years, that many smaller stations don’t pay).
the problem between the streaming companies and the music industry has always been the amount paid per song. The label doesn’t always get the biggest share. But the real problem is that we now know that ,people simply won’t pay more the]an $9.95 per month for music. There are other services, such as Tidal and QoBuz (which I subscribe to) that offer uncompressed streaming for more per month. But the equation is the same. Few people subscribe to these higher end services.
so the problem is that a streaming company can’t make money at $9.95 a month. Their payout of royalties and that of running the business is higher than that. It’s why Spotify and Pandora relied on a constantly renewing stream of outside investment to keep going. Most all streaming services over the years have gone out of business. A few have been bought out, and THEN gone out of business. Even Sony failed at this.
pandora is in a lot of financial trouble now. Spotify which went public last year, is having financial problems. I believe that, in the end, those left standing will be those that are owned by much larger companies who are using them to entice people to their ecosystems. Companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and possibly a very few others. They can offer this as a service, and not worry about being profitable as long as they feel they’re gaining more than they’re losing by having more customers overall.
so what does this mean to those who spend a lot of money producing this music? It means that they have to hope that they get so many streams, on average for their offerings, that the very small amount they get for one stream isn’t that important. This is working for digital books, where Amazon and others offer free books, and amazon offers a service for $9.95 a month (which I belong to) that allows you to read any book or series that’s available to it. Not all books, but a very large, and growing percentage. Authors say they prefer it even though they get very little per read, because people are more likely to read when it’s as thought it’s for free, and unlimited. It’s good because people will read all 10 books in a series when it doesn’t cost more than that $9.95 a month for that and everything else. Authors therefor get readers who wouldn’t otherwise buy all 10 books. Do that a few times a month, and you save big.
same idea with music. Is it working? Many artists are happy. Some are not. That’s nothing new.
I would not say many artist are happy. Unless you have major hits you basically don’t get paid. Amazon is a terrible example. Like Google they exploit the work of others to make billions but want to pay pennies. I have yet to speak with a creative who prefers this Amazon service. They are usually laughing at the totals.
You get paid. Look, most acts are failures, and have always been. It costs too much to support new acts without established acts taking some of the burden. They don’t want to share. Streaming give unknown acts some income, where they would have had none before. Not having to press a CD means bringing costs way down. With som many people thinking that it’s perfectly ok to pirate music, cause it’s so hard to get caught, many acts got nothing for much of what they did, particularly indie acts.
but with steaming, people are listening to music they wouldn’t listen to before. They don’t have to depend on radio to play something they never heard.
youre completely wrong about the Amazon service. The writers who participate in it have said that their incomes went up. There have been surveys and studies. I’ve spoken to a number whose books I read. They are all happy with it. They don’t have to participate in that, they can simply charge per book.
The money is "still" and always been in Touring. I'm an Apple Music subscriber and why it's costing me 120 dollars for the year I'm going to 5 summer concerts which cost roughly $400. The money is always with live performances. The music on CD or streaming is just the appetizer.
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Quite likely a burgeoning of the starving artist segment of society. Creatives like musicians, writers, and artists are already underpaid for the most part IMO. They better not lose their day jobs so to speak.
And songwriters, composers, and producers do not tour or sell merchandise. Song royalties are a significant portion of their income. One of the major consequnces of music streaming is that it has destroyed the royalty rates for songwrites, composers, and producers. Record sales have been eroded by music streaming services that currently operate under an unsustainable business model. The only way Apple, Spotify, Google, Pandora, can make money is by paying EXTREMELY low royalty rates to music creators.
I dont mean you don’t like ANY music, but it sounds like you don’t like MOST of it. People who really like music like myself know how to find stuff I like, and I add maybe 15-20 albums to my Music collection each month a this point. I used to buy hundreds to a thousand dollars or more worth of music every year prior to this from iTunes, Boomkat, Bandcamp, etc. Consider your mind boggled.
but with steaming, people are listening to music they wouldn’t listen to before. They don’t have to depend on radio to play something they never heard.
youre completely wrong about the Amazon service. The writers who participate in it have said that their incomes went up. There have been surveys and studies. I’ve spoken to a number whose books I read. They are all happy with it. They don’t have to participate in that, they can simply charge per book.