Tidal Music Troubles in Norway

transmaster

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I follow Scandinavian music, I very much like Orchestral/Symphonic/Opera/Battle Metal that comes from there. I have several Google alerts set to tell me about new releases of such music from the region. I was alerted to this story on the news site "Local Norway". An issue that is all too common here in the States and has been since 2 rocks were clinked together in a Pacific Northwest cave 14,000 years ago. The underreporting of media plays for royalty payments (hmmm :rant: you owe me 2 Mammoth steaks). Tidal Music has been accused of under-reporting the play time by Norweigan Organization Tono which represents 30.000 rights holders. Pouring gasoline on the fire The financial daily "Dagens Naeringslic" reports there are 100's of millions of false plays of the most recent Kanye West, and Beyonce albums. The only reason why this is of any interest to me is, as you recall, the big hoop-de-doo about artists getting paid when Tidal was founded. Tidal was founded as a Spotify killer and now you see it is doing the same thing its founders accused Spotify of doing. Spotify is very popular in Scandinavia because it was founded in Sweden. I have Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited both of which are well populated by Scandinavian Artists. I also purchase and download HiRez music directly from some of these band's websites, good stuff.
 
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I have always liked how Apple deals with independent artists. Post your music on iTunes and you get 70 cents out of every dollar, plus you keep all of the rights to that music. I am not sure how Apple Music works to pay artists but I have never heard of games with play count.
AM may have a higher ethical standard, but I wonder just how would someone ever go about auditing any of them?
 
AM may have a higher ethical standard, but I wonder just how would someone ever go about auditing any of them?
You never hear because the standard practice is money is paid, and a non-disclosure agreement is signed so nobody learns about the pay-out.
 
Wow, had no idea artist were paid that low of a price per stream. No wonder they have to tour to make a living.
 
Wow, had no idea artist were paid that low of a price per stream. No wonder they have to tour to make a living.

The thing is they always have had to tour. The contacts that all but the biggest established bands have with the recording labels are like Tennessee Ernie Fords’ song “16 Tons”. The labels own everything. You start out with a big advance you have to pay back, charged for studio time, etc. The only way you can make any money is on tour.
 
And with it MQA I suppose...

That's perfectly fine with me. I'm in the camp that it's a pure money grab, create a new DRM to license. I doubt Apple would agree to it since they are the ones who fought to get rid of DRM, but since it's "lossless", i'm sure labels are fighting to bring it back.
 
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