Finish what you have started

[TinkyWinky]

I have to admit Spotify has been great for me, until recently.

First and foremost, more and more artists/managers (especially independent, often the best) are removing their albums from Spotify. This is no fault of the user and most suggestively points toward someone, somewhere along the line, being a little bit too greedy and not enabling artists and their management to profit enough from their endeavours. It seems that, much like the visual art world, new and emerging artists are made to pay more for their work (via commission etc) as some kind of fee for 'all the hard work' that goes into launching an artist, albeit very little work and completely immorral!

Secondly, instead of releasing half finished MAJOR updates, such as the most recent, why not finish what you started and release it when the build is finished - if you are unable to see that your released build is unfinished, then do a bit more beta testing - your forums suggest it would be very helpful.

I am a big fan of brand loyalty and I have been a paying member for over 5 years now and I am just about ready to wash my hands of Spotify. Much like facebook already has, Spotify seems to be selling the carpet right out from under it's guests feet.

Goodbye!

[Marco]

Heya!

I've moved your topic over here since it seems to be more of a general feedback topic than a single feature request (ideas exchange).

While I do agree in some parts, you might want to check out the Spotify artist page that explains royalty payouts in detail here.

Also the Your Music/New design beta went on for around half a year - if you want to join the next beta tests just look out for it in the forum. I've also created a list of all the ideas about Your Music / New design here if you want to add your kudos/comments to those. 😉

[TinkyWinky]

SO, 30 Million users (nearly) and $500 million paid in royalties in 2013.

Thats near enough $17 per year of my $120 paid in royalties. Thats around 14%.

Does that seem enough to you?

Secondly, onto the BETA. It doesnt really matter how long it takes you, if a Beta still has bugs in it, don't release, or release it as a Beta. End of.

Also, I would say this is much more of an IDEA than something I need help with. Can you move this post to a more appropriate area please.

[Peter__]

I'm not sure how the royalties are actually paid/worked out, but Spotify say 70% of subscription fees go directly to labels.

[TinkyWinky]

I'm only going by the information off of the Spotify Explained page, which Marco very kindly provided a link to. Frankly, it would be very hard for anyone to figure out exactly how much Spotify pay to their artists, without working from the inside. Furthermore, without sounding completely pessimistic, anyone who doesnt take what a multi-billion dollar company says without, at the very least, a pinch of salt is missing a trick. I suspect 70% may be a 'manipulated' figure.

[StevenR]

---

@TinkyWinky wrote:

SO, 30 Million users (nearly) and $500 million paid in royalties in 2013.

Thats near enough $17 per year of my $120 paid in royalties. Thats around 14%.

Does that seem enough to you?

---

You're working your percentage based on the 30 million users all being on Premium. In fact, that page says:

As of March 2013, Spotify had over 24 million global users. 18 million of them were using our free tier, wherein listeners pay for their consumption by viewing and listening to advertisements. At that time, as well, more than 6 million users were paying a $9.99 / £9.99 / €9.99 monthly subscription to use Spotify’s Premium tier.

Based on 6 million users paying $120 a year, I calculate that the $500 million in royalties as 69.44% of their income from Premium which I think is close enough to the 70% they quote to make no difference (seeing as we don't know the exact figures).

[TinkyWinky]

Sorry buddy, I'm not presuming that all users are premium.

I am using a very basic calculation of total number of users (which includes revenue from premium users and free users, from which advertising revenue is generated, amongst other things, such as affiliate revenue) divided by the total amount of royalties paid.

Nothing to do with premium, of which i have very little gripe with.

Either way you look at it, a lot of money is wandering astray from the numbers quoted on spotifyartists.com (old figures, probably expanded by now)

It doesnt take a lot of thinking about it to realise something is largely amiss!!

Spotify is a multiBILLION dollar company (and growing) and it only pays half a billion in royalties per year, as it stands. Maybe the pudding is yet to be prooved but, at this rate, its not surprising that independent/emerging artists are having a hard time, given the inverse nature of the current royalites system. It's certainly not cut and dry, but rewarding new artists for doing 'particualrly well' (relatively) would be a good start.

 I would be very interested to read the management figures for 2014, if anyone has them?