# Spotify; confession, figures and question...



## otterhouse (Sep 6, 2007)

(posted this on the Gramophone forum, but no answers yet, so try it here!

Starting with a confession and a question;

As I hardly buy any CD's anymore, it has been more than two years since I last bought a Gramophone magazine... Think it was june 2011, and although I peeked once and a while on this forum, my connection with the magazine was broken. But, since I discovered Spotify, the "need" for a magazine like the Gramophone grew and... I bought the 2013 awards issue. The combination of the Gramophone magazine and Spotify is like an "all you can eat" ticket in a paistry shop... Not only in the reviews (not all recordings are on Spotify *yet*), but also the advertisements make me hungry and explorative... 

At the same time, there are many discussions about the benefits (or rather, disadvantages) of Spotify for the music industry. Surprisingly little on the effects it has on the Classical music industry, except short shoutouts like:

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippedd...fy-should-classical-artists-pull-out-too.html

--Question--!
Now, for my own understanding (and for the story below), a question: Does anyone know if classical labels are payed "per track"? Does a short Schumann piece from the Davidsbundlertanze earns a label the same amount of money as a 25 minute Mahler track? Or is there an other arrangement made for that? 
-- --

In the early days of CD, large works were devided in separate tracks, even "theme 1, theme 2 development" etc sections. If Mahler of Bruckner symphonies are payed per track, that would be an interesting extra income for classical labels, I guess... ;-)

But wait, did'nt Spotify pay *anything*, or way too less for artists? And does nobody use Spotify for listening to classical music? Well, yes and... no. It's interesting to look at the amount of plays a spotify artist has had. Ok, someone like the now obcure pianist Pierre alain Volondat dit not go above the 1000 plays so far for any of his tracks; but someone like Roland Poitinen has some amazing amount of followers and track listenings...

see --> https://scontent-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1379793_10201744600569486_680127183_n.jpg

Now note, and the label Bis does this quite cleverly, the separate "tracks" come from different re-packagings on Spotify, each with an own trigger to "lure" the listners to the same recording(s), analog to what this article:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130501spotifypackaging

describes in "what is lacking" in the sense and cleverness of classical labels...

and see, a Scarlatti recital by Yegvreni Sudbin get's over a million trackplays, small pieces by Eric Satie, played by pointinen (again, in different repackaging!!) a multitude of that...!

Again, maybe Spotify does not pay much:

http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/07/3...t-pay-now-and-how-much-should-artists-demand/

but in the long tail thought, all these bits and pieces add up to some nice earnings for "dead" CD's...

A vague stockmusic company called "Cavendish" has around 20 million plays per smartly tagged collections like






and not only for Mozart, also their Bach, Beethoven etc collections let them earn a nice amout of income. And remember, it's not only Spotify, but also comparable services like Deezer, Rhapsody etc and future services like Google play music...

So, questions are,

1) do long tracks generate the same amount of money on Spotify as short tracks?

2) Looking at the figures and the future; if you tag your music cleverly (and do that in numurous repackagings so the user can *find* your music, also read http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Why-Classical-Fans-NEED-Co... ) is a service like Spotify a welcome new source of income for the classical music industry?

PS, Spotify and web-streaming services do not nessicarily have to "replace" other ways of listening to recorded music (over 1000 CD's I'm not throwing away!!), but can be a new way to explore music....

Rolf
http://classical-lp.blogspot.nl/


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## Gilberto (Sep 12, 2013)

otterhouse said:


> (posted this on the Gramophone forum, but no answers yet, so try it here!
> 
> So, questions are,
> 
> ...


#1 ...amount of revenue generated (per track vs. per time). I've wondered that myself. I have listened to Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans a number of times over the last week or so. Four tracks total about 78 minutes. And I've listened to some albums of short guitar pieces; one of which was close to the same amount of time but totaled 20 tracks. I have never seen a clear cut explanation of how this is sorted out in payment.

#2 ...I have noticed a plague of digital repackaging on spotify that clutters up the works. I'm sure it generates new sources of income for somebody; but haven't a clue if that is altogether a good thing. For instance, I just performed a search of Chet Baker. Apparently, the list is generated by latest copyright date of the album. What I see in the first twenty Chet Baker albums is one Concord compilation and repackaged material of dubious source on these labels: Ideal Music, Ninth Right, Eighth Right, Marmot Music, Seventh Right, Golden Records, Upon My Soul, Magnitude, Jazzwave, Trunk Records, Entertainment Supplies, JEI, Ludoxx, crwth, Pink Dot Records, Han-ki, Sensational.

Ummm yeah, Chet did his best work for these labels.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

It appears that spotify is based entirely on a per-track model and therefore a 3 minute pop song is no different to a half hour Mahler movement but getting details on this is pretty much impossible. Understandably so as the deals spotify strike with record labels are confidential. A few years back ECM and Naxos disagreed with spotify over royalties and threatened to leave. ECM did leave but Naxos didn't, whether this was over the issue of track lengths I am not sure. http://www.spotifyclassical.com/2010/12/my-guesswork-on-whats-going-on-between.html

The 'repackaging' idea for classical works is important as they are trying to direct your random browsing into things you may want that you had not considered. Someone in the comments was complaining about 'dumbing down' of artist's works by putting them on compilations, but that has been going on a long time in the classical world where the concept of an album makes a lot less sense. Albums in the classical world have been pairing one composer's works with another for a long time, or two entirely different style works from the same composer. Compilations such as 100 greatest Brahms/Karajan/Choral/Adagios allow you to investigate music in whichever way suits you and can link you to other things you weren't aware of. Something like Naxos's _Music for the Zombie Apocalypse_ which ranges from von Bingham to Gloria Coates along with obscure Beethoven and familiar Mozart opens up the classical listening compared to the same two violin concertos that get compiled together.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Regarding pay rate: A lot depends on whether you consider Spotify to be more like radio, more like sales, or somewhere in between. The pay rate is in between, closer to radio, though radio often pays nothing to the artist (or maybe it's nothing to the composer/songwriter and a tiny amount to the performer, can't remember). Those who have revealed their Spotify pay rates publicly are getting something in the neighborhood of $0.002 to $0.005 per play per track.

If we compare Spotify to sales we should count the per-play rate multiplied by the number of repeated listens on Spotify by one person, compared to a sales price divided by the number of repeated listens by one buyer. (It's still smaller, but at least then you're comparing the same sort of thing.)


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Sigh . . . 

A bit off topic, but when I installed Spotify it promptly searched my hard drive and somehow determined all the music I already have access to, including all the stuff that was previously on the drive (and presumably still is somewhere in a former drive image) but had since been moved to an mp3 CD and to another computer dedicated to music listening. I found this VERY unnerving and deleted the nosy thing right away. No Spotify for me. Rhapsody's search engines are terrible, but I have learned to live with them. I'll not put up with software taking over my system without my permission.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

you can set that in the preferences-- what, if anything, it imports from your local files.


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## HoraeObscura (Dec 4, 2012)

otterhouse said:


> 1) do long tracks generate the same amount of money on Spotify as short tracks?


How do artists get paid on Spotify? - Spotify
https://www.spotify.com/about-us/artists/get-paid-from-spotify/


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Well Rolph, looks like we are doing better for you than rmcr, anyway.


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## otterhouse (Sep 6, 2007)

Thanks, looks like it's paid per track and that some companies block the large tracks for that reason...!
Still finding new things on spotify also obscure labels and artists I lost track of...

Rolf
http://classical-lp.blogspot.nl


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