NAPSTER IS STILL ALIVE!!! !
An AI infested its rotten corpse and is pulling a Weekend at Bernie’s with it.
Well, you need music to get the corpse to dance.
Nice
Wait… Napster still exists?
They’re very AI centric these days, but their streaming service isn’t bad.
well that’s an utterly horrifying page
3 of 5 of their “AI Agents” depicted in that frontpage clip don’t contribute anything. How fitting.
The site confused me on what Napster is trying to be.
For reals. I have no idea what their company is.
They deserve to be destroyed.
Lars, is that you?
Why? Honestly curious.
Any company largely depending on AI does. Any CEO of such company doesn’t deserve freedom ever again.
limewire still exists.
If I hear bearshare still exists I’ll be convinced it’s 2005
That’s why the payout per stream is number 1.
I mean, on the off chance someone even uses Napster.
At bandcamp.com you buy the track or album and the artist gets about 85% of the money
One time.com, at bandcamp.com
If you’re old enough to get this joke, your back hurts
Hey! Some of us watched that movie when we were four
Do you know if they receive anything from non-purchased streams on bandcamp? I’m just curious
they do not, but most artists still encourage listeners to listen on bandcamp since so few artists on streaming services are getting all that many repeat listens, and if you repeat an album enough bandcamp will encourage you to purchase. once you get to that point, and buy maybe 1 album a month (about the same price as spotify premium) you will end up getting more money into the hands of artists, and especially the small artists who are around you in your city, than you ever would have paying for Tidal
Works for me despite knowing I can just clear the cookies. But then again I have over 600 purchases on bandcamp as music seems to be the only medium where I can buy digitally and the money actually reaches the creator.
Stopped streaming around 2014 and went back to a local library + jellyfin. I never liked or used Spotify due to their UI and very unfair way of distributing the money (I can listen to my favorite artist all month and my money still goes to Taylor Swift). And even back then other streaming services I used like Rdio and Google Music constantly got worse for some reason.
I thought bandcamp got bought out or changed some policy that everyone said bandcamp is going downhill?
There are also services like Mirlo, Subvert or Jam Co-op that provide a similar service but are cooperatively owned and haven’t just fired half their staff.
Isn’t there still Bandcamp Fridays where 100% goes to the artist?
There is. I don’t think it’s every Friday, but it’s announced well in advance. A nice carrot to go grab everything you’ve been meaning to…
Yep. Currently it’s the first Friday of roughly 8 months in the year. Next one is the 7thof August.
You should see how much money artists make from the sale of a physical album - may as well be nothing. It all goes to publishers, distributors, execs, producers, marketers, and everyone apart from the artist. Decades ago when albums were AUD$30, about $3 of that made its way to the actual artist if they were lucky.
Artists haven’t made money from their music sales since long before streaming was a thing. They’ve always made almost all of their money from concert ticket sales and merchandise sold at shows.
While getting virtually nothing for all the times their music is streamed might seem bad, it isn’t looking at the whole picture. More streams = more fans = more concert ticket and merch sales. Streaming services are a net positive for artists overall.
Your examplewould be #1 on OPs list by an order of magnitude
Sure, but it would be way, way less overall revenue for the band than the streaming services.
They pay this to the actual musician or to the publishers that will then give even less to the real artist?
I suspect that depends on whether you’re self-published or have a record deal somewhere.
How do you stream music from Google Play? I know that you can stream music with YouTube, but Google Play?
I still miss that music app. It was the best. Deep catalog, and because Google is creepy like that, a very good understanding of what I consider local - it would recommend shows to me for bands I’d not heard of but were playing near me (literally nearby, not just in my state, or like Spotify did, “in my country”, but within 5 miles or so) and that it, in the wisdom of its algorithm knew I would like.
Why does everything get worse?
I’m not a fan of Google, especially in the last handful of years…but Google play music was great. I miss it.
This is referencing Google Play Music from back before it was shutdown in favor of YouTube Music. In that case, this is from around 10 years ago give or take
I wonder if the numbers are that old, too? There’s a source organization listed, but not a link to the specific data. If it’s old, I’d like to know that. If it’s new, I’d like to check it for the Qobuz payout (which I’ve heard is slightly better than Tidal.)
Probably
Has anyone seen how AI-pilled Napster is now? Their home page makes me wanna throw up.
Napster still exists?
No it doesn’t, but someone bought the name and started a completely new music thing with that name
They are paying those AIs really well though!
I should have studied AI instead of music and arts
Unironically, durh 😜 Two notoriously difficult fields in which to find stable work vs. studying to become one of few humans who will ever understand a burgeoning industry in its infancy?
I am in a similar boat though (aren’t we all). Maybe AI can teach me enough about itself for me to become useful to it…
Overly complicated industry presented as overly simplistic graphic gets tons of votes from uneducated denizens. More at 11.
To name one thing: each of these uses a different definition for what a stream constitutes.
I’m not sure “per stream” is a useful metric, as artists don’t see equal stream counts from each of these platforms due to huge difference in these platforms’ reach. YouTube ranks low on this list, but I imagine they’re the highest if sorted by total stream count. So while YouTube may pay low “per stream”, they may still be the larger revenue source for some artists just due to the total plays they receive over other platforms. Not saying this in defense of YouTube or any other streaming platforms, just saying this in defense of math; I can’t imagine that many artists on these platforms are receiving larger checks from Napster each month than they are from YouTube.
There’s lots of other factors to consider, too. Each of these platforms have varying degrees of providing alternate revenue to artists, through ad subsidies, merch stores, concert ticket sales, etc. Also, how much the platform pays out per stream, and how much the artist receives per stream, aren’t always going to be the same amount, as labels will generally take a cut of this revenue first.
This graph really doesn’t tell a full story.
I think the point is to make the audience consider whether they’d like to support the artists they listen to by using something other than YouTube/spotify
Wait…Napster now legit?
Have not paid attention (or money for music) in years. Thought they were pirates…
Years ago some company bought the rights to the Napster name and tried to run a streaming service by that name. You can guess how successful that’s been given nobody’s heard of the thing they tried to make with the name they bought
This is something that would really benefit from a bar chart because the numbers are wildly different and they aren’t round enough for humans to easily handle.
Qobuz is missing and would be no. 1
Been thinking about Qobuz. I cancelled Spotify a couple years ago now and have just been relying on physical media and bandcamp, but I have been considering giving this a try. Any good?
Good selection, but their algorithm wasn’t great. Ex. I would be listening to a metal song, and it would pull up Rolling Stones next. Yes those are both things I enjoy listening to, but if I’m blasting Korpiklaani, I’m probably not in the mood for Beast of Burden.
Not too much of an issue, since I usually listen to albums, but still annoying. I’ve had much better luck with Tidal’s algorithm.
Good selection, but their algorithm wasn’t great. Ex. I would be listening to a metal song, and it would pull up Rolling Stones next.
That’s exactly what YouTube Music always did for me. In fact, it would do that after just one or two songs. I tell it to play an artist or a specific album and the 2nd or 3rd song would be completely unrelated, along with everything after it. It was like it never even considered any sort of continuity unless I was playing a specific playlist made ahead of time.
Just started trying Qobuz a few days ago, so it can’t possibly be any worse than what I was already dealing with there.
They changed it a while back so that you can’t download an album you buy as a whole unless you get their app, you have to do individual tracks. Just a small pain point that makes me annoyed at them. But, I sill end up going there because of the surprisingly high amount of music that I have only found for purchase there, and nowhere else
Oh, it isn’t a steaming service like Spotify? That is what I would be getting it for.
Oh no, it’s a regular streaming service, just a little clunky eg, they want you to use their app on your phone and a webpage on your computer.
I switched awhile ago and some minor hassles but it’s also been pretty fun. They try a lot of neat themed curated playlists, so today I was listening to a playlist El Sonido New Yorkquino, which was a blast.
Got it. Thanks!
They have a streaming service as well as a store page! I can’t speak to it though, I’ve never tried it
#2 at US$0.01873 but yeah. Definitely not mad that’s where I’m spending my streaming money.
Google play is there and hasn’t existed for years, list might be outdated
Qobuz ftw… no money to the US (besides artist or record label i suppose), good quality. Don’t feel like I’m sacrificing at all
Except I have like 12k streams on Spotify and have never gotten anything from them. I have a small number on other platforms and have received at least something from them.
Maybe they only pay once you reach some amount? I know that Steam don’t pay you until you reach at least 100us, and 12k sum to 52us.
I’m sure that’s probably the reason but at the same time, I’m getting paid from the other platforms where I have far far less streams.
I was very confused by your post because “us” was read by me as “microseconds” instead of how you meant it as “USD”.
I was thinking “100 microseconds is a really short play time; surely people listen it the tracks for at least that long.”
How much do terrestrial radio stations pay for each play?
Are there separate payments to the songwriter and label, or is the penny the full payment?
From what I’m reading, only the songwriter gets paid for terrestrial radio play in the US. Crazy stuff. This is crazy, considering that there are some covers that were hits when the original song wasn’t. I don’t know if this has changed recently though.
Also, the amount apparently varies based on several factors, with all kinds of different bonuses at different thresholds, etc: https://www.bmi.com/creators/royalty-policy-manual#id-533115
