Here's how much musicians make online from Spotify, iTunes and YouTube
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In 2010, data journalist and information designer David McCandless published an infographic on his Information is Beautiful website showing how much musicians earned online from sales and streams of their music.
It caused quite a stir within the music industry, which even then was debating what the emergence of streaming services like Spotify would mean for artists. In 2015, that debate is still going on, and it's even more heated.
Now McCandless has created a new version of the infographic, updated for 2015.
Finding audiences, selling albums and earning a living is no easy thing for a musician; it’s why record labels came to exist in the first place . But an increasing number of acts today, in a music world now dictated by digital downloads and social media, is increasingly finding another way.
Pitches from brand new bands and artists not tied to a public relations company are unarguably the ones that catch the most skepticism from journalists. Sometimes it only takes an unfamiliar name amid an avalanche of emails from recognizable PR reps for a writer to pass you over. If they've actually opened your message, then any sort of blunder could easily cost you.
Fat Possum Opens Its Own Vinyl Pressing Plant to Meet (It's Own) Demand
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Memphis Record Pressing, a new vinyl pressing plant dreamed up and run by Fat Possum founder Matthew Johnson, that is ready for business 10 months after construction began in March of this year.
The True Story of How Vinyl Spun Its Way Back From Near-Extinction
"I’ve had 3,000 Modest Mouse records stuck in customs that’s cost me $100,000 at Christmas," Johnson tells Billboard on a frigid night at an East Village bar. "I’m tired of all that shit. I hate this business. It's getting so bad. If I want to sit down, I feel like I have to cut a tree down, cut it into boards, make a chair -- it’s ridiculous. You used to not have to worry about manufacturing. Now you do."
Black Friday Brings Rough Sales Numbers for Music Retailers, High Notes for Vinyl and Online
Not one to mince words unless it's to speak in metaphors, Johnson is referring to one of the most pervasive problems in pressing records: backorders. Though the recent vinyl boom has been a boon for manufacturers like Nashville's United Record Pressing or Canoga Park, Calif.'s Rainbo Records, it's also resulted in a sales surge that often overwhelms the country's existing 16 plants, as Vice's Motherboard pointed out earlier this year. "United is five months backordered, and everyone else is that or more," says Johnson. "We used to be able to get these turned around in seven weeks."
Benji Rogers, Founder And President Of PledgeMusic, Looks Back On 2014 - hypebot
See on Scoop.it - For Musicians
At the moment each company's brand is in fact competing with the very artists on whose music they depend. Direct-to-fan tools that allow a deeper engagement within the streaming skin will be a major factor in the next couple of years or else they will be much like RSS readers. You can have your favorite, but in the end they all do basically the same thing. It doesn’t really matter which one you use.
Streaming will grow to a healthy size but not without the artists. The streaming companies need to understand that all the cleverly spent marketing dollars in the world will not make their brand more appealing to potential subscribers than an artist's will. The artists are the ones with that power. If the artists are given the tools, and therefore the incentive, they will bring the subscribers and all boats will begin to rise.
3) What was the big shift or story of 2014 that will have a major effect on your business/sector in 2015?
The first steps towards direct-to-fan in the streaming services are now being tested, and this is one of the brightest paths that I have seen open in the music space for a long time. It’s slow and rudimentary, but it has started. It will be a financial game changer for all involved and will remove all talk of windowing if it becomes a priority for one of the major players in the space. If it is not prioritized, then we will see more of the same, with artists removing or windowing releases to get the financial and data upside that comes with involving your fans at a deeper level elsewhere.
Why Musicians and Advertisers Need Streaming Internet Radio
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The music industry asserts that its only hope for getting back to siphoning piles of money from consumers is to increase music sales. This ignores an important fact. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reported that Internet radio streaming generated 27% of all industry revenue in the first half of 2014. That is only 1% less than CD sales (By the way, who buys CDs anymore?). Spotify alone claims to have paid $2 billion in artist royalties since 2008. Revenue generated by streaming services are actually propping up the industry, not destroying it.
Economic Incentives are Aligned
National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) studies show music exposure through steaming services and radio actually boosts music sales. This is supported by a Pandora study from November 2014 and a Nielsen report in 2013 that stated, “users of on-demand music streaming services are 90 percent more likely than the average consumer to be heavy spenders on music.” Famously, Daft Punk leveraged exposure on Spotify to drive first week sales of 339,000 copies of its album Random Access Memories. Add to this the fact that digital downloads have fallen in markets not served by leading streamers Spotify and Pandora, and the argument blaming Internet radio for declining sales disintegrates. Data suggests the opposite is true.
Trends: Direct-to-fan developments with Bandcamp | Complete Music Update
See on Scoop.it - For Musicians
Despite the booming streaming music market – and the very vocal debate about the pros and cons of freemium and premium subscription services that has rumbled on for much of the year – for me the most exciting development in music enabled by the internet remains direct-to-fan, and the ability for artists and their business partners to better service core fanbase, who are often willing to spend more money on their favourite acts if only the industry provides the products and services on which they can spend.
And just like the streaming market, the D2F domain has also seen quite a bit of development in the last year, though you still sense that some labels, far from seeing direct-to-fan as another area for industry growth (possibly the biggest area), instead see the rise of D2F platforms as a threat. “I understand where that comes from”, says Bandcamp Editor At Large Andrew Jervis, “and perhaps we still have to do a better job educating people what Bandcamp is about”.
“It’s true that when we started we were primarily a tool for artists to sell to their fans directly”, he goes on, “so I can see why labels might see that as a threat. But there are lots of labels using the site, and we’re actually just launching a range of features specifically for labels, to make the platform more intuitive to use. Some of the big labels to recently join include Sub Pop, Epitaph and Anti – in fact there’s a whole slew of them”.
Labels can join the direct-to-fan party on two levels, first by assisting their artists in developing their D2F businesses, and also by building their own direct fan channels as a label brand.
Mi2N.com - PledgeMusic And Bandzoogle Partner To Deepen Fan Engagement
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Bandzoogle, the leading website platform for bands and musicians, and PledgeMusic, the world's leading online direct-to-fan music community, have announced a mutually beneficial partnership to help artists succeed. Using Bandzoogle's platform, artists and bands can now easily integrate their PledgeMusic direct-to-fan campaign onto any page of their Bandzoogle-powered websites.
This opportunity allows artists to deepen their engagement with their fans when they pledge support, making them a part of the music making journey. Pledgers using the PledgeMusic platform can receive behind-the scenes access to media, photos, videos and more while records are being made, and have the opportunity to access limited-edition items such as signed clothing, instruments and keepsakes as well as once-in-a-lifetime experiences such as a private house concert, guitar lessons from a rock star and a day on the town with their favorite band.
With this new partnership in place, fans can easily support their favorite artists' projects. The exclusive items and experiences will be displayed on Bandzoogle sites via a grid layout matching the website's theme, and can be featured on a specific page or an existing music and merchandise store.
BitTorrent Opens Its Paygate Premium Content Bundles To All Artists, Giving Creators A 90% Cut
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BitTorrent Opens Its Paygate Premium Content Bundles To All Artists, Giving Creators A 90% CutPosted Nov 17, 2014by Ingrid Lunden (@ingridlunden)1,567
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BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer file distribution network that has been repositioning itself as a legit friend and home to the creative industries, is today embarking on the latest phase of its strategy to build a bigger business model for itself, and the musicians, filmmakers and others whose content gets distributed on its network. It is opening its paygate-based business model to all artists and others who would like to use BitTorrent to distribute their content.
At a time when there is a lot of debate over whether services like Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube or Amazon are really giving creators the returns they deserve when their content is downloaded or streamed on those platforms, BitTorrent believes that it has the answer: giving artists a 90% cut of all sales around a model that features a flexible model: you can take some content for free, get some behind a paywall; or see the content move to paywall after a certain number of visits for example.
“Taylor Swift sparked debate over the state of music in recent weeks; the value of a stream, the value of a record. The value of art shouldn’t be up for debate. It should be up to artists,” said Matt Mason, chief content officer for BitTorrent. “Our goal with BitTorrent Bundle is to restore control to creators. We’re opening up applications for paygates to all
publishers: allowing artists to sell content direct to fans, on their terms, while keeping 90% of sales revenue.”
The sales of digital music have exceeded those of physical formats, such as CDs and records, for the first time in Finland as digital services accounted for 58 per cent of all music sales between January and June.
Last year, over 60 per cent of music revenues was derived from the sales CDs, DVDs and records.
The music industry, however, expects the share of physical formats to increase this year due to an anticipated rise in sales in the final quarter of the year – and especially during the holiday season.
In spite of the growing popularity of streaming services such as Spotify, the value of music sales decreased by 11 per cent year-on-year in the first half of the year largely due to slumping CD and DVD sales. The sales of records, in turn, continued to pick up – surging by as much as 52 per cent between January and June – but remain relatively insignificant for the entire industry.
The figures are based on information gathered by IFPI Finland from its member organisations.
To an extent, the increase in digital music sales is attributable to the fact that for the first time the figures also include music streamed on Youtube. A survey carried out by IFPI Finland has found that Youtube is the most popular online streaming service, with 59 per cent of respondents saying that they use the popular video-sharing website to listen to music.
Regardless, the radio has retained its position as the most popular medium for listening to music, with as many as 86 per cent of Finns saying that they listen to it on a weekly basis. The most popular device to listen to music, in turn is a car audio system, according to the survey.
With the survey finding that some 68 per cent of Finns have yet to try a single streaming service, IFPI Finland expects streaming subscriptions to increase further. Similarly, over half of Finns have yet to buy music downloads.
Streamed Services to Push Digital Music Sales to $14bn by 2019, Juniper Research Finds
See on Scoop.it - Music Business - What's Up?
A new report from Juniper Research found that the digital music industry will experience slow growth in revenue over the next 5 years, from $12.3bn this year to $13.9bn in 2019. The research found that a strong performance in the robust streamed music sector, will largely be offset by decline in revenues from legacy services such as ringtones and ringback tones.
Pureplay providers face challenge from OTTs
According to the new report - Digital Music: Streaming, Download & Legacy Services 2014–2019– the market will be characterised by consumer migration to cloud based services. It observed that offerings from pureplay music providers, such as Spotify and Pandora, will increasingly find themselves competing with personalised services from the leading OTT (over-the-top) players, including Apple and Google.
However, the report cautioned that piracy was still responsible for major revenue leakage, particularly in emerging markets, such as China, where only a small percentage of content is legally acquired. Nevertheless, it pointed to instances where the industry had successfully reined in such activity, such as a Singaporean bill that allows the blocking of sites that contain infringed content.
Music discovery remains a challenge
The report argues that music consumption is set to become a highly sociable activity, with features such as music discovery and social media integration that connects music fans. However, finding ways to expand the pool of their subscribers and increase the ease of discovery remains a key challenge for streaming companies.
Juniper believes that smartphones and tablets will be the main platforms of growth, although digital music revenues on the PC/laptop will remain robust over the forecast period. Additionally, emerging markets are expected to strengthen in terms of digital music consumption, as disposable income levels continue to rise and streaming services expand into these regions.
I like everything. Or at least I did, for 48 hours. Literally everything Facebook sent my way, I liked—-even if I hated it.
It’s so funny that I stumbled upon this article this morning, because I woke up irrationally livid at Facebook anyway. Why? Because for a while now, I feel like FB has been closing me in a box, and unless I play by their rules, I am losing access to the people who want to be reached by me.
I have almost a million followers on FB. But I reach a very small percentage of people with every post on average. And this isn’t by my fans’ choice. Not a day goes by when I don’t see comments like, ‘Hey why am I not getting your updates anymore?” I’m helpless to explain exactly why, but I have a good inkling.
In order to scale with the number of people we collect on our accounts, FB has had to implement technology to filter our feeds. Because they’ve learned that “social” media is just that, and we can’t just dump people when we get bored with them or want to move on in life. So the FB algorithm filters my content based on how many likes people make on the things I share. (Because closing people into interest pockets makes it easier to make money on them, I get it.)
So how do I, as an individual, fight this type of “downgrading” of certain types of content I share? Well, I could cater to the algorithm more. I could do this by sharing things I know will be popular!
Easiest way to do that? Share pictures of my face, my body and things based on my appearance.
This sucks.
Yes, I guess this is human nature to give feedback on our appearances, that’s why we’re swimming in a world of selfies. But because our new virtual statuses are built on this type of feedback, it is training us to output things that will be popular, and that, in turn, tells women that achieving high statuses online means sharing things about their looks. To the detriment of anything else. Or else get buried and excised from the people around you. In a sense, we’re hostage to the algorithm.
Who thinks this is a good thing?!
And I think this is more than just about my own online engagement, it’s about FB specifically. I see way less of this on other platforms, this filtering of “everything but the most reinforced” content. FB is training people to feed the algorithmic machine with things that will please the most mainstream. Reinforcing the median taste level. I think this methodology is marginalizing people who think out of the box, closing them in enclaves of people who only like exactly what they like. Trapping us in our own echo chambers of reinforcement, where we’re not influencing or being influenced by opposing thoughts. And in addition, we’re being tricked into believing that our small worlds are much bigger than they really are in the grand scheme of things.
Neither of these things is helping anyone’s reality.
I don’t think it’s healthy. Or good for us as a society. I think the internet is an amazing place, where you can connect with people who are like you, and be accepted when you don’t feel accepted in real life, but the drive to make money and clean up the platform to scale properly is not helping us, it’s taking the good things about what the internet can do to the opposite extreme.
Don’t look for my account to share more selfies than usual, or pictures of me in cute outfits. That’s not my style. Look for me to share the exact same stuff I always do.
Unfortunately, you might have to go way out of your way to look at all.
For some artists, the situation is all too much. “There are tons of musicians who are leaving the business,” said Rebecca Gates. “In droves.” In the long term, the exodus will hurt us all, from musicians to consumers to the streaming services, according to some.
“We’ll get the culture we pay for,” Ribot said. “I don’t think people will care if it’s just artists getting hurt. But this is going to be destructive to our culture.”
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Artists Own Music @artistsownmusic - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
