Music industry better off with streaming...

+48V

hi-fi or die
The disruption dust up and "cheatin' bastards" bitchfest appears to be settling. Overall music revenues are up and streaming subs are leading the pack. It was a wide and jagged corner to turn but now even the ex CEO of Warner Music is advocating streaming as a blessing.

CNBC interview with Edgar Bronfman Jr.:
"Music is probably better off — under a subscription model — than it was in the eighties and nineties when it was selling albums..... More people will be buying music, maybe spending less … at the end of the day it broadens the distribution base and can grow it beyond where it was in the physical days.”
_______________________________________________________

Some fat facts to chew here. Yeehaw?
 
Somewhat related to your topic is a comment I heard Todd Rundgren make in a interview the other day. The interviewer made the statement that streaming music services were really hurting artists because of the loss of royalties.

Todd thought just the opposite was true for the majority of artists based on two points. One was that music streaming allowed artists to get their music out to the public easier, quicker and cheaper and bands no longer needed a record company or record deal to promote them and get their music out there. The second point he made was that artists being able to make a living from royalties is not the way artists made a living throughout the history of music. The traditional and most profitable way for a artists to make money from their music was touring/live performances. Streaming allows them to build a audience (just like radio used to) and then go out and book shows.
 
Somewhat related to your topic is a comment I heard Todd Rundgren make in a interview the other day. The interviewer made the statement that streaming music services were really hurting artists because of the loss of royalties.

Todd thought just the opposite was true for the majority of artists based on two points. One was that music streaming allowed artists to get their music out to the public easier, quicker and cheaper and bands no longer needed a record company or record deal to promote them and get their music out there. The second point he made was that artists being able to make a living from royalties is not the way artists made a living throughout the history of music. The traditional and most profitable way for a artists to make money from their music was touring/live performances. Streaming allows them to build a audience (just like radio used to) and then go out and book shows.

I listened to the new Todd Rundgren release on Apple Music Streaming the other day.I had not listened to any of his work in about a hundred years prior. I located it as Apple had it listed under new releases. I clicked and played it.
The same thing for Ray Davies, John Mellencamp,Robin Trower,Taj Mahal & Keb Mo, Steve Earle &c. and so on. I listen to and buy LP's primarily and use streaming to explore different "genres" and try out the music (both new and old) before purchasing the physical media.
 
Last edited:
While it's true that "artists being able to make a living from royalties is not the way artists made a living throughout the history of music," royalties were an important part of an artist's income for much of the 20th century. Arguing that they've gone away now and you might as well get used to it is a little like arguing antibiotics weren't around for most of human civilization, and you might as well get used to them not being available or effective going forward.

People will still make music - clearly, they are - but it's made a life that was often precarious more so. As I've noted here before, I have a relative who had a minor hit record a couple of years ago. The royalties from streaming were as close to zero as you could get using applied math; she toured constantly to survive. It was a decent, fun ride for a young person, but you can't build a life out of it, you know?

And here's the thing: it's not like the money has gone away. It's just been redistributed up to the record companies and, especially, back to close proximity to the servers - ie, Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music.

I'm not entirely against streaming: I have a Spotify account (mostly for my family) and pay for classicalradio.com and SiriusXM's stream. I used to subscribe to Pandora and Slacker as well. As music discovery, they're great, and add to my traditional radio listening. But I still make it a point to buy the music I like best - mainly classical and jazz - these days. I buy a lot as downloads from Bandcamp and Hyperion.

A good read on the subject is the new book "The New Analog," which makes a decent argument for what we lose when we rely too much on streaming.

s.
 
Last edited:
While it's true that "artists being able to make a living from royalties is not the way artists made a living throughout the history of music," royalties were an important part of an artist's income for much of the 20th century. Arguing that they've gone away now and you might as well get used to it is a little like arguing antibiotics weren't around for most of human civilization, and you might as well get used to them not being available or effective going forward.

I don't think the antibiotics analogy actually fits here since Todd's argument was not an anti-technology or anti-progress argument. He was just stating that being a musician traditionally meant that the artist supplied the product and was then directly paid for that product. Records and radio was a model that technology provided to widen the market for people to ask for the musician to supply his product and get paid directly. His opinion is that streaming or social media allows musicians today to bypass the Record label/radio model and see if they can find a market for their music. He said that the Record label/radio model always ripped off the majority of musicians and provided fewer choices to the market. Perhaps his looking at it strictly from a market based system is a luxury he can afford since he benefited greatly from the old system.

I think the greater underlying problem is not how people are getting their music but that there are too many people who don't want to pay for music or even go see it live. Musicians can't be expected to provide their product for free.
 
I can't speak to the economics of the streaming industry other than I agree an artist should be compensated fairly for his/her/their work. How "fairly" is defined is clearly a complex matter. I am a more recent convert to streaming. Where I live we had data limits with our broadband provider until a few years ago. Now I stream all day while working from home - by definition that isn't critical listening, but I enjoy the music nonetheless. It's one more option for enjoying music, be it LP, CD, SACD or FM. Other than FM, it's the most convenient and accessible method. I am willing to pony up for a few subscriptions that allows for this convenience.
 
Name artists do well, unknown artists do not under streaming.
Unknown artists don't do well regardless.
Because, artists that are self publishing their own music, are not going to streaming.
Huh? Sorry, but this is simply not true.
Unless the artist gets 100% of the streaming proceeds, I will never support. That is me though.
100% ehh. Now that's a new one. How is that even reasonable let alone fair? So everyone but the artist works and provides enormously expensive services for free in your world?
 
So as technology becomes more sophisticated , the artists are so supposed to go back to the 1950's model to make money ? I have yet to hear anything intelligent come out of Todd's mouth .
 
Another hat being tossed into the ring: Streaming services may have the unintentional, yet beneficial effect of forcing labels to be a bit more selective of the caliber of artists they choose to promote to the masses and also allow the music listener/consumer to step around the not so distant past tactic of using the proverbial hook of a radio single or two to unwittingly encourage the consumer to purchase what ended up being a rather mediocre or downright subpar effort. Royalty rate points aside, most music buyers I know (including myself), appreciated the short-lived Blockbuster Music stores and similar services that predate file sharing because they allowed the consemer to listen to an entire release, make a genuine, fleshed-out choice as to which release(s) they enjoyed in full and were more than willing to purchase versus hearing a lead single on the radio, "taking a chance" on purchasing the source album of said single, and resultingly feeling gipped for having spent an average of $14-$16 on an album they truly did not like in full and would simply toss into a never-play-again pile or sell back to the music store or a resale shop at a loss.

At the end of the day, it's better to promote a smaller "crop" of genuinely talented singers, songwriters, and individuals who can masterfully play real instruments. Continuing to flood the market with cut-and-paste pop will lead to record execs scratching their heads as interest in their product wanes, sales fall, and margins shrink. Revenues may be up in 2017 as making music available in an all you can eat buffet style is still somewhat novel. My best guess is that once the majority of people become truly used to having access to millions of tracks at their fingertips, listening to music will become even more of a background/wallpaper type activity, overchoice turns to overwhelm, boredom sets in and consumers find something else to spend their money on. I read a study a few years back which claimed most listeners listen to the music of their youth (adolescence through about the age of 25 or so) and rarely venture beyond that established base as they age. Assuming such is true, the largest catalog on Earth is not going to magically force consumers to continually spend money on the same songs over and over again, especially in light of the rapid shift away from physical formats (most recently the Compact Disc) to ephemeral "streams."
 
Last edited:
overchoice turns to overwhelm

This describes my limited experience with streaming. I sign up with Tidal, search and find a few artist but I don't like to listen to just one or two artist. I like play lists and I found that to be limiting.

I think for many people streaming works because they listen to songs once and then move on to something new. For me I listen to music many times but I randomize play lists. When I was on Tidal I was completely overwhelmed and I was always hitting the next button again and again until I just gave up and switched on JRiver and my own music.

Not saying that streaming isn't great for a lot of casual listening and background, and I can see the allure but it doesn't work for me and until I can get Tidal or one of the other streams to generate a Playlist with hundreds of songs that I actually want to listen to i am going to remain on the sidelines. Also the Playlist that Tidal has canned completely suck IMHO.
 
For discovery, Pandora is hard to beat. Then move to one of the full services to explore albums. Allmusic.com helps narrow down the album selection. Works for me, but my musical interests are far more diverse than most, and almost completely exclusive of rock, so ymmv.
 
Streaming will never replace OWNING a physical or digital copy of music. Name artists do well, unknown artists do not under streaming.

I myself will not pay a monthly subscription for streaming. I did not subscribe to any PC games either for the same reason. Cost too much.
It's saving me a ton of money. I have a 16 year old with a strong love for music. If I had to buy all those CDs every month I would be more broke than I am now!
 
Last edited:
Streaming will never replace OWNING a physical or digital copy of music. Name artists do well, unknown artists do not under streaming.

I myself will not pay a monthly subscription for streaming. I did not subscribe to any PC games either for the same reason. Cost too much.

For 90% of the general public it sure will. Have you seen the piles of CDS at yard sales and thrifts lately?

Streaming is the new CD.
 
For 90% of the general public it sure will. Have you seen the piles of CDS at yard sales and thrifts lately?

Streaming is the new CD.
Those piles of CDs at yard sales is just a testimonial to the durability of the medium, and not necessarily the popularity of what is on them. People's interests in music change, but also a lot of people are ripping their cds to flac and Mp3 so the disc isn't seen as needed any longer, not necessarily that everyone is now streaming. When I start to see huge piles of cds at the landfill then I will know that the cd is dead. Until then I just see used cds as an opportunity to inexpensively expand my library onto my very inexpensive hard drives.
 
I can't speak to the economics of the streaming industry....
Me neither and honestly it isn't my job to look into it. They are responsible for the contracts they sign and for the deals they make. I don't believe in stealing music, but if I legally pay for it, I am not going to feel guilty about it any more than someone that bought a Ford worried about buggy whip makers. The Paradigm has shifted.

Digital and the internet are market changers. I still think people will make music because the desire is there. It may not be an extravagant living, but for only the very elite artists, but those that have an audience will still be able to perform to make money, which is how things have been for centuries.

The paid/freemium steaming market was an answer to the P2P market that made it easy to share one album with millions of people (Napster had 80 million registered users and they weren't the only service out there). The artist gets zero from that type of transaction (other than the initial sell of the CD), so streaming was an answer to nearly zero vs being paid something for their work. No, not everyone will succeed in this market place, but that was the case before streaming, as well.

The CD market, even before streaming was popular (Spotify launched in the US in October 2008 on a limited roll out), was on a downfall. The labels made a killing selling us that Kind of Blue (as one example) album again in the new digital format. Then they made money again on the re-master. It took a downturn as P2P became popular and when people had their back libraries filled up.

Soundscan data for compact disc sales up from 1995 till 2014:

2014: 140.9 million
2013: 165.4 million
2012: 193.4 million
2011: 223.5 million
2010: 239.9 million
2009: 294.9 million
2008: 360.6 million
2007: 449.2 million
2006: 553.4 million
2005: 598.9 million
2004: 651.1 million
2003: 635.8 million
2002: 649.5 million
2001: 712.0 million (Note: First declining year)
2000: 730.0 million
1999: 648.1 million
1998: ~578 million*
1997: 504.6 million
1996: 448.4 million
1995: 368 million

CDs aren't dead, but it is hard to argue that they aren't fading into a niche business.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom