Spotify CEO Daniel Ek Says...

[King Postwhore]

Here is Ed Platt.   The bass player from Enchant giving you the %'s.

poems for your friend

[King Postwhore]

Goo goo, you are waaaaay off man.

[TAC]

Joe, that's cool, but Goo2 was asking how much of the $9.99 from an Amazon download (purchase) does the band get, not just a stream.

[King Postwhore]

Ah. Sorry. Thinking about the musicians.   

I like Spotify and Apple and Amazon for trying bands then buying albums. But I don't lean on them to listen to bands.

[TAC]

I found this article. It's 9 years old..

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110911/00284415891/how-much-does-band-make-various-music-platforms.shtml



Saw this one too.

https://www.dittomusic.com/blog/how-much-do-music-streaming-services-pay-musicians

[lordxizor]

The one interesting difference between Spotify and buying an album is that the artist gets paid by the listen. How many of us bought an album back in the day without hearing anything from it only to listen to it only once or twice because it was a complete dud? Band makes off with just as much money as they would if it was awesome. Now, with streaming, the better the album, the more listens, and the more money they make. Of course they always had incentive to make the best album they could, but the pressure is even higher now in a way.

[Buddyhunter1]

Question. How much goes to an artist for a 9.99USD album purchase in iTunes?

They get 60-70% of the album price.

They do?? That seems way too high. That doesn't go through a label filter first?

Oh it totally does. You should be thinking about the percentage of a sale that goes to the storefront, not how much goes to the artist. The storefront will always take a percentage of the sale, probably around a quarter or less. The rest goes to whoever put the music up, and unless the artist did that themselves, that money doesn't just go directly to the artist. If the label put it up, a good amount of it goes to them. Same for a third-party distributor, which outside of platforms like Bandcamp where anyone can upload anything, is basically required to get your music up for sale.

[Buddyhunter1]

The one interesting difference between Spotify and buying an album is that the artist gets paid by the listen. How many of us bought an album back in the day without hearing anything from it only to listen to it only once or twice because it was a complete dud? Band makes off with just as much money as they would if it was awesome. Now, with streaming, the better the album, the more listens, and the more money they make. Of course they always had incentive to make the best album they could, but the pressure is even higher now in a way.

This is kind of a moot point because remember, the payout per a single listen is around .003 cents. Say you've got an album with 12 songs on it. In order to give the band say, $10 that you would have given them for just buying the album, you'd have to listen to the whole thing 278 times. Technically possible, but very unlikely.

[TAC]

Right, but you're not giving the band $10 for buying the album. You might be giving them $2-$3 tops.

[goo-goo]

Right, but you're not giving the band $10 for buying the album. You might be giving them $2-$3 tops.

Right. The 30-40% is Apple’s cut. The rest goes to label, artist, producer (if the have percentage points per sale), etc.

This is why artists like Bandcamp. Their cut is 15% but you can sell the physical product, shirt, vinyl, susbcriptions, etc. They provide the frame work for storefront, it’s up to the artist to fill it up and sell it. And if you do it independently (not through label), you get all the profit.   

[Buddyhunter1]

Right, but you're not giving the band $10 for buying the album. You might be giving them $2-$3 tops.

I'm under the impression that the .003 cents from streams gets split amongst the label and the artist as well, so that's still well over 100 album listens you need to reach the same amount as a single album purchase.

[erwinrafael]

As of this moment, using the $0.003 per stream estimate, Spotify would be paying out USD10,680 to Haken's label for the album Virus which was released July 24. Which is the same payout they would have gotten from selling around 1,800 full album purchases in iTunes.

Estimated Spotify payout for DT's Distance Over Time using $0.003 estimate is USD97,405. Which is just barely over the payout they have from the song Pull Me Under, which as of now is estimated at USD89,473.

I have no point in my post, I just find this a fascinating exercise. 

[jingle.boy]

I found this article. It's 9 years old..

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110911/00284415891/how-much-does-band-make-various-music-platforms.shtml

I have to believe that this article, and goo-goo's assertion that ~70% goes to the artist is in the cases where the artists are self funded/produced.  If there's a label involved, there's no way that much is going to the artist.

[MoraWintersoul]

I defend Spotify for a few reasons. 1) It finally put the nail in my piracy coffin. Even if something isn't on Spotify, I learned to not go out and pirate it, and to enjoy what I can find with my subscription.

This only serves to make you feel good. It doesn't make any difference to the artist whatsoever.

I mean, I've been there. Spotify is made for people like you and me, amongst others, people who wanna listen to everything under the sun, and everywhere under the sun, by saving it offline (without having to do an increasingly inconvenient transfer every time I wanna switch music on my phone, as someone who has an older iPhone and an older laptop) and paying a small amount of money each month for that privilege. It's really great for me. And it's great for Spotify, who gets the most of my money. Not so much for the artist, who have no moral leg to stand on when they try and explain why we should still buy albums. They are reduced to asking for "support", instead of selling a product which is only available to own legally if you give money to their label or them. In the eyes of the average Spotify user, however, they already pay for music, and the artist has willingly (how willingly, when holding out on putting your discography on Spotify will net you negative publicity and people viewing you as stuck up and greedy) given it up anyway, so they must be getting enough out of it, right?

[Elite]

^ I’ve said the same thing (or meant to say the same thing) you just did, bit I put it under a layer of devaluation of music as an art form. Thanks for your take on it, which is a bit more to the core than my previous posts in this thread

[The Walrus]

I defend Spotify for a few reasons. 1) It finally put the nail in my piracy coffin. Even if something isn't on Spotify, I learned to not go out and pirate it, and to enjoy what I can find with my subscription.

This only serves to make you feel good. It doesn't make any difference to the artist whatsoever.

I mean, I've been there. Spotify is made for people like you and me, amongst others, people who wanna listen to everything under the sun, and everywhere under the sun, by saving it offline (without having to do an increasingly inconvenient transfer every time I wanna switch music on my phone, as someone who has an older iPhone and an older laptop) and paying a small amount of money each month for that privilege. It's really great for me. And it's great for Spotify, who gets the most of my money. Not so much for the artist, who have no moral leg to stand on when they try and explain why we should still buy albums. They are reduced to asking for "support", instead of selling a product which is only available to own legally if you give money to their label or them. In the eyes of the average Spotify user, however, they already pay for music, and the artist has willingly (how willingly, when holding out on putting your discography on Spotify will net you negative publicity and people viewing you as stuck up and greedy) given it up anyway, so they must be getting enough out of it, right?

Man at least I'm not straight up stealing the music like you. And I still buy plenty of physical media - lots of them in fact come from Spotify discoveries. Hell, one of them just arrived in my mailbox YESTERDAY (Empathica by Unreqvited, and I have proof). Don't tell me it only serves "to make me feel good" when you're the one justifying stealing music. Also I had like 6 other points there.

[ariich]

Right, but you're not giving the band $10 for buying the album. You might be giving them $2-$3 tops.

I'm under the impression that the .003 cents from streams gets split amongst the label and the artist as well, so that's still well over 100 album listens you need to reach the same amount as a single album purchase.

My understanding is that the 0.3 cents ($0.003) is the estimated average amount that goes to the artist. I think that the amount paid out to the content owner (usually the record label or distributor) is higher than that, various websites put it at more like 0.6-1.1 cents. So artists that own their own music (which is very few as almost all rely on label support) get a higher pay out because they keep everything.

Also reading into it, it's not actually a case of 0.3 cents per stream as such - Spotify has agreements with each content owner/distributor that apparently means it pays out something like 70% of its revenues (and keeps the rest to cover its costs and make profits). Other platforms approach it in the same way. So if revenues increase (which they have been doing) then the total pot to be paid out also increases. If the number of streams doesn't rise, then the per-stream rate will also rise. So the various quoted figures are the current estimates based on two known factors (Spotify's revenues and total number of streams) and estimated proportion that on average would go do the artists.

[ariich]

I defend Spotify for a few reasons. 1) It finally put the nail in my piracy coffin. Even if something isn't on Spotify, I learned to not go out and pirate it, and to enjoy what I can find with my subscription.

This only serves to make you feel good. It doesn't make any difference to the artist whatsoever.

I mean, I've been there. Spotify is made for people like you and me, amongst others, people who wanna listen to everything under the sun, and everywhere under the sun, by saving it offline (without having to do an increasingly inconvenient transfer every time I wanna switch music on my phone, as someone who has an older iPhone and an older laptop) and paying a small amount of money each month for that privilege. It's really great for me. And it's great for Spotify, who gets the most of my money. Not so much for the artist, who have no moral leg to stand on when they try and explain why we should still buy albums. They are reduced to asking for "support", instead of selling a product which is only available to own legally if you give money to their label or them. In the eyes of the average Spotify user, however, they already pay for music, and the artist has willingly (how willingly, when holding out on putting your discography on Spotify will net you negative publicity and people viewing you as stuck up and greedy) given it up anyway, so they must be getting enough out of it, right?

^ I’ve said the same thing (or meant to say the same thing) you just did, bit I put it under a layer of devaluation of music as an art form. Thanks for your take on it, which is a bit more to the core than my previous posts in this thread

How do these arguments reconcile with some of the facts and analysis I've been posting in the thread which show that:
 - in real terms the music industry is making as much revenue as it did in the 70s and 80s;
 - artists are now getting as big a share of revenue again as they were back then (more so than in the 80s in fact); and
 - artists can make a lot more now from concerts (and to some extent merch) than they could back then.

[Buddyhunter1]

Right, but you're not giving the band $10 for buying the album. You might be giving them $2-$3 tops.

I'm under the impression that the .003 cents from streams gets split amongst the label and the artist as well, so that's still well over 100 album listens you need to reach the same amount as a single album purchase.

My understanding is that the 0.3 cents ($0.003) is the estimated average amount that goes to the artist. I think that the amount paid out to the content owner (usually the record label or distributor) is higher than that, various websites put it at more like 0.6-1.1 cents.

Hmm, interesting. I know there's some distribution services like DistroKid who charge you a flat yearly subscription fee to distribute your music on streaming and digital store services, and (at least claim to) not take any share of the revenue generated from the actual music. If an independent artist is using that and actually gets almost a full cent per stream that doesn't sound... terrible. Though maybe since they aren't an actual label Spotify doesn't pay as much anyways.

[Stadler]

The one interesting difference between Spotify and buying an album is that the artist gets paid by the listen. How many of us bought an album back in the day without hearing anything from it only to listen to it only once or twice because it was a complete dud? Band makes off with just as much money as they would if it was awesome. Now, with streaming, the better the album, the more listens, and the more money they make. Of course they always had incentive to make the best album they could, but the pressure is even higher now in a way.

Look at it the other way; I've listened to Yes' "Going For The One" and Genesis' "ABACAB" perhaps thousands of times.  Not counting reissues and what not, I paid about $12.00 for both, once, back in the 80's.   

[Elite]

I’m not disputing any of that, really. Especially your third point I believe is very important, but I also consider that a direct result from recorded music being essentially worthless. Artist have to gig more and sell other stuff to make a profit. I’ve see several of my favourte bands being absolute on point with their merchandise gamethe last couple of months especially, which is good to see. It’s sad though that bands can’t seem to get by with just their main craft, which should be selling music (or bringing live music to people).

It also depends on what you consider music to be; is recorded music merely a vehicle and live music the actual experience? Or should recorded music be an experiece in itself, one that’s worth paying for?

[Stadler]

Can't say i'm surprised the CEO of the death of music also has no idea how good music is made.

Really? Really?

I mean even setting aside my personal opinion of Spotify (glorified pirating) it just doesn't strike me as a company run by people who are passionate about music at all. Sure, everything is about money to a certain extent but his comments makes me question if it's possible to have any more of a cynical approach to music as an art form?

It's a business in a capitalist economy, my guy. It's not the first one to exist in the music industry. Spotify is anything but the DEATH of music, that's some extreme hyperbole; I would argue YOU are the one with the extreme cynicism in this case. "Glorified piracy"? Please. That's like paying for your Netflix sub is glorified piracy, or that going to a movie theater is glorified piracy because half the cost of the ticket goes straight to the venue instead of directly to the filmmakers.

I guess i'm oldschool, I prefer owning something and collecting things I like rather than renting it (which is basically what you do with Spotify). If you love Spotify for the accessibility that's fine but why defend a company that screws over the artists? The sad reality is the only benefit to being on Spotify is exposure which in itself can be good but when you get nothing financially out of it then it's just kind of sad for the music industry.

As far as the "i want to sample stuff before i buy it" i think thats a reasonable argument and I usually always buy stuff I have heard before but there's other sources like Youtube or whatever else where you can check a band out. Spotify in that sense is a lose-lose from my perspective because you're either using the free version which is crammed with commercials OR you have to pay a subscription fee where none of the money really goes into supporting any of the artists anyways.

It's a bit of a double edged sword for me though. I got some of my own music on Spotify because people do use it and it brings some exposure and accessibility, but on the flip side if someone burned the Spotify headquarters down with gasoline i'd probably bring out the champagne. 

You're preaching to (my) choir on the "holding something" but don't make the mistake:  the ownership of the WORK is no different.  You (and I; I have something like 30,000 songs on my iPod and at MOST 100 are down-load only) own a piece of plastic.  WE DO NOT OWN THE WORK.  We have a license for it.   So do the people that download, or that listen on Spotify.   The licenses are slightly different, but not materially.

I'm sorry, I get the love for our artists, but I really don't see the basis for the hyperbole of Spotify "killing" anything. 

[TAC]

I’m not disputing any of that, really. Especially your third point I believe is very important, but I also consider that a direct result from recorded music being essentially worthless. Artist have to gig more and sell other stuff to make a profit. I’ve see several of my favourte bands being absolute on point with their merchandise gamethe last couple of months especially, which is good to see. It’s sad though that bands can’t seem to get by with just their main craft, which should be selling music (or bringing live music to people).

It also depends on what you consider music to be; is recorded music merely a vehicle and live music the actual experience? Or should recorded music be an experiece in itself, one that’s worth paying for?

Back in the 70's the goal was for the band to tour was to promote the album. That has morphed into the exact opposite. Hell some bands just tour now, especially the older ones.

I don't think bands have ever been able to make a living selling music.

[TAC]

I'm sorry, I get the love for our artists, but I really don't see the basis for the hyperbole of Spotify "killing" anything.

Amen, Brother.

I have never gone into a record store and pondered, gee how much is the band getting if I buy this album.

Well, I have, but out of curiosity, certainly not as of actually caring.

[Zantera]

You're preaching to (my) choir on the "holding something" but don't make the mistake:  the ownership of the WORK is no different.  You (and I; I have something like 30,000 songs on my iPod and at MOST 100 are down-load only) own a piece of plastic.  WE DO NOT OWN THE WORK.  We have a license for it.   So do the people that download, or that listen on Spotify.   The licenses are slightly different, but not materially.

I'm sorry, I get the love for our artists, but I really don't see the basis for the hyperbole of Spotify "killing" anything.

I don't know if it's the case anymore but I want to say I remember certain music being taken off Spotify in the past, i'm guessing due to licenses expiring or whatever else - not that different from how you have certain movies on Netflix for like a year or two but then they might be gone. Not to the same extent but I remember there was some band or album that for whatever reason went off one day. Not sure if that can still happen anymore though. But that combined with the fact that as a streamer, you are dependent on their servers and accessing it - which you might have available 95% of the time but there might always be that situation when it doesn't work for whatever reason. That's why I prefer owning something and having it either in physical form OR as mp3 on my computer/phone or whatever. I can see value in 'renting' it (Spotify and similar services) if you have no interest in owning the art or maybe you want to save space (vinyl and CDs take up space after all) and I guess it's kinda like buying a car VS leasing a car where you can make arguments for both ways being 'the better one'.

In the end I think mostly what let me down on Spotify was the limitations and having to go outside Spotify to listen to a lot of stuff I like. I know you can add your own music/mp3s into it, but for me it just felt easier to not hassle with it at all. I will admit I'm probably extra salty towards Spotify because I've had several music discussions with people recommending something I know they will like, but it's met by "Oh its not on Spotify, guess I'll check out something else" which isn't really Spotify's fault as much as it is a backlash of people getting more 'comfortable' with the easy options and refusing to do the 'digging' to find new stuff. As for the other options like Google Play or Tidal or what else is out there, I honestly haven't encountered anyone using it (or talking about using it) so I can't really say.

Don't mean to sound grumpy about it. 

[The Walrus]

The criticism about Spotify's limitations baffles me because imo it's limitless (other than the very few artists who aren't on it) and has opened up entirely new ways of listening to and appreciating music for me. Spotify also has a bunch of options and settings that make it convenient for me to use (last.fm scrobbling, equalizer, car view, ability to instantly look up and recover any playlists you've ever made). Not saying you're wrong, everyone's different, but I see no limitations to it. And as far as 'easy' vs. 'digging'... hell, thanks to Spotify I've found more underground, obscure, wild experimental music than I EVER thought existed.

[Zantera]

The criticism about Spotify's limitations baffles me because imo it's limitless (other than the very few artists who aren't on it) and has opened up entirely new ways of listening to and appreciating music for me. Spotify also has a bunch of options and settings that make it convenient for me to use (last.fm scrobbling, equalizer, car view, ability to instantly look up and recover any playlists you've ever made). Not saying you're wrong, everyone's different, but I see no limitations to it.

Even if you have 75% of all the music that exists in the world on there (which is a number i'm just pulling out of my ass) that's still a crazy amount of stuff that's left off. Then again it depends on you as a person and what you are interested in exploring. I'm sure there's people who will never explore anything outside of Spotify and they will still discover lots of stuff they feel passionate about.

[The Walrus]

The criticism about Spotify's limitations baffles me because imo it's limitless (other than the very few artists who aren't on it) and has opened up entirely new ways of listening to and appreciating music for me. Spotify also has a bunch of options and settings that make it convenient for me to use (last.fm scrobbling, equalizer, car view, ability to instantly look up and recover any playlists you've ever made). Not saying you're wrong, everyone's different, but I see no limitations to it.

Even if you have 75% of all the music that exists in the world on there (which is a number i'm just pulling out of my ass) that's still a crazy amount of stuff that's left off. Then again it depends on you as a person and what you are interested in exploring. I'm sure there's people who will never explore anything outside of Spotify and they will still discover lots of stuff they feel passionate about.

Yeah, but is that actually a bad thing, or is it just the reality of a subscription service? Netflix doesn't have everything either. If I'm not listening to any of that music, if I'm not even aware of this music that exists and isn't on Spotify, and I'm still discovering more than enough music every day to keep me occupied and busy exploring, I'm literally not missing out on anything.

[Buddyhunter1]

The criticism about Spotify's limitations baffles me because imo it's limitless (other than the very few artists who aren't on it) and has opened up entirely new ways of listening to and appreciating music for me. Spotify also has a bunch of options and settings that make it convenient for me to use (last.fm scrobbling, equalizer, car view, ability to instantly look up and recover any playlists you've ever made). Not saying you're wrong, everyone's different, but I see no limitations to it. And as far as 'easy' vs. 'digging'... hell, thanks to Spotify I've found more underground, obscure, wild experimental music than I EVER thought existed.

This likely doesn't bother most people, but one big limitation with it is the lack of customization. Say you want to edit all the movements of Messiah Complex together into one track so it all plays together whenever it comes up on shuffle. Tough shit. Or if there's a track with one of those stupid "hidden songs" resulting in there being 10 minutes of silence that you'd rather just edit out. No can do. I recently got fed up with the ridiculously quiet vocal mixing on Devin Townsend's The Death Of Music (topical ) so I went into Cubase and did some light mastering work on it and got it sounding much better. Was only able to do that because I had the actual file on my computer.

[The Walrus]

The criticism about Spotify's limitations baffles me because imo it's limitless (other than the very few artists who aren't on it) and has opened up entirely new ways of listening to and appreciating music for me. Spotify also has a bunch of options and settings that make it convenient for me to use (last.fm scrobbling, equalizer, car view, ability to instantly look up and recover any playlists you've ever made). Not saying you're wrong, everyone's different, but I see no limitations to it. And as far as 'easy' vs. 'digging'... hell, thanks to Spotify I've found more underground, obscure, wild experimental music than I EVER thought existed.

This likely doesn't bother most people, but one big limitation with it is the lack of customization. Say you want to edit all the movements of Messiah Complex together into one track so it all plays together whenever it comes up on shuffle. Tough shit. Or if there's a track with one of those stupid "hidden songs" resulting in there being 10 minutes of silence that you'd rather just edit out. No can do. I recently got fed up with the ridiculously quiet vocal mixing on Devin Townsend's The Death Of Music (topical ) so I went into Cubase and did some light mastering work on it and got it sounding much better. Was only able to do that because I had the actual file on my computer.

I'm not saying there's no validity to this criticism but to me this is complaining about what the filmmaker did with their film and then complaining that you can't chop it up your own way on the Netflix app. But since you have the actual MP3, you can do that and sync it with Spotify and listen to it in the mix with all your digital stuff. And then the file still exists for your own use everywhere else. I don't see the problem, you literally just solved it with the perfect solution.

[cramx3]

The criticism about Spotify's limitations baffles me because imo it's limitless (other than the very few artists who aren't on it) and has opened up entirely new ways of listening to and appreciating music for me. Spotify also has a bunch of options and settings that make it convenient for me to use (last.fm scrobbling, equalizer, car view, ability to instantly look up and recover any playlists you've ever made). Not saying you're wrong, everyone's different, but I see no limitations to it. And as far as 'easy' vs. 'digging'... hell, thanks to Spotify I've found more underground, obscure, wild experimental music than I EVER thought existed.

This likely doesn't bother most people, but one big limitation with it is the lack of customization. Say you want to edit all the movements of Messiah Complex together into one track so it all plays together whenever it comes up on shuffle. Tough shit. Or if there's a track with one of those stupid "hidden songs" resulting in there being 10 minutes of silence that you'd rather just edit out. No can do. I recently got fed up with the ridiculously quiet vocal mixing on Devin Townsend's The Death Of Music (topical ) so I went into Cubase and did some light mastering work on it and got it sounding much better. Was only able to do that because I had the actual file on my computer.

This type of discussion just shows how we are all music dorks  I'd love to see this same topic being discussed on a pop or general rock forum where people aren't this detailed and interested in music like we are here.  I don't mean that to make fun of you or anyone here (I include myself as a music dork) but the way prog fans consume music is very different than the average person IMO. 

[Zantera]

The criticism about Spotify's limitations baffles me because imo it's limitless (other than the very few artists who aren't on it) and has opened up entirely new ways of listening to and appreciating music for me. Spotify also has a bunch of options and settings that make it convenient for me to use (last.fm scrobbling, equalizer, car view, ability to instantly look up and recover any playlists you've ever made). Not saying you're wrong, everyone's different, but I see no limitations to it.

Even if you have 75% of all the music that exists in the world on there (which is a number i'm just pulling out of my ass) that's still a crazy amount of stuff that's left off. Then again it depends on you as a person and what you are interested in exploring. I'm sure there's people who will never explore anything outside of Spotify and they will still discover lots of stuff they feel passionate about.

Yeah, but is that actually a bad thing, or is it just the reality of a subscription service? Netflix doesn't have everything either. If I'm not listening to any of that music, if I'm not even aware of this music that exists and isn't on Spotify, and I'm still discovering more than enough music every day to keep me occupied and busy exploring, I'm literally not missing out on anything.

Like I said it's very subjective and depends on the person. I've always had a strong curiosity to find and discover new things and for me it always feels a lot more exciting if the thing I'm discovering isn't something everybody is talking about. Finding a band that isn't on every "best albums ever made"-list or finding a movie that isn't on Netflix that blows me away feels really cool because it's like you're discovering hidden gems. But you are right in the sense that 'ignorance is bliss' kinda, like if you have no idea what you are missing out on and you enjoy the stuff you focus on, then ofc it won't feel like a detriment to yourself.

Just one example I could give is my favorite band Cardiacs - are not on Spotify at all. And when I recommend them, that seems like a road block for some people. And that kinda sucks but just looking at it from my own perspective, if I hadn't gone outside the box then I would have missed out on this wonderful band that is closer to my heart than pretty much anything else musically. I know for sure there's other bands I like that are not on Spotify but that one example alone makes me happy I'm not putting limitations on myself. I guess the only limitation is my own thirst for discovery.

[Buddyhunter1]

But since you have the actual MP3, you can do that and sync it with Spotify and listen to it in the mix with all your digital stuff. And then the file still exists for your own use everywhere else. I don't see the problem, you literally just solved it with the perfect solution.

Great, but you still need to buy the album to get the MP3 in the first place. What are we debating about again?

[ariich]

I’m not disputing any of that, really. Especially your third point I believe is very important, but I also consider that a direct result from recorded music being essentially worthless. Artist have to gig more and sell other stuff to make a profit.

I'll come onto the point about whether music is any more worthless now in a moment, but first I'll just say that I agree that it's harder for most artists to make a living from recorded music, and that making money from touring and merch is partly a response to that. However, it only works because people are willing to pay for them, which they are - more than ever in fact. And it's not like you can disentangle it and try and claim that the music has no value, it's the merch that has the value - the only reason people are willing to pay for the merch or concert tickets is because of the music. So I guess that's my first thought on whether music is worthless now.

My second thought is back to my previous posts - the fact that recorded music makes as much money now (in real terms) as it did in the 70s and 80s. As many of us have said previously, the reason it's harder for most musicians to make a living now is that there are so many more musicians now. But, to talk in economic terms, just because there's been a huge surge in the supply of music it doesn't mean the demand should necessarily increase. Maybe demand (in financial terms) will continue to increase as it has for the past 5 years or so and people will pay more and more for subscription services and it will become more lucrative for musicians, hard to say what will happen, but as things are right now the pie isn't any smaller than it was, there are just more people able to make and release music so they each get a smaller slice of that pie.

I’ve see several of my favourte bands being absolute on point with their merchandise gamethe last couple of months especially, which is good to see. It’s sad though that bands can’t seem to get by with just their main craft, which should be selling music (or bringing live music to people).

It also depends on what you consider music to be; is recorded music merely a vehicle and live music the actual experience? Or should recorded music be an experiece in itself, one that’s worth paying for?

Let's turn that thought around - what's the purpose of making music? Is it to make money? Or is it to create something that means something to the artist and hopefully speaks to other people? I kind of agree with Stadler that it's worth considering the difference between art and commerce. When more of the money was made directly from selling recorded music, they were probably impossible to disentangle, and I imagine that probably played a part in why label/management interference in the music itself was so extensive. It might be coincidence, but there's much less studio/management interference in the music these days.

[The Walrus]

People buying recorded music was the real death of music. Who would want to see live music when they can just listen to the song over and over at home?