#spotifygate

[miseryincluded]

Soooo I might be crazy but I’m still on the #conformitygate bus and might actually have something to contribute to the Byler community??

Basically I’ve been listening to the official Spotify playlist for Stranger Things ever since WSQK radio went down, and I’ve noticed that the first song of the playlist changes from time to time.

The last update has me scratching my head…

I remember times when both Running Up That Hill and Heroes were the top song respectively - I don’t think I took a screenshot it but I think RUTH was after Escape from Camazotz…?

I DO also remember Heart and Soul being at the top, which I thought was weird and Byler-coded AF… but anyway

Those have all been pushed down now…

I think Prince was at the top after The Rightside Up, which makes sense, as much as I hate it…

And I’ll admit I’ve been reading Dungeon Crawler Carl (fantastic) so I haven’t been listening in lately, but when I checked this morning I saw… Sh-Boom?

So I’m like okay I don’t know if I know this song… did they play it in the show?

And I hit play.

……

I feel like the music speaks for itself.

Yeah, I’ve lost my mind.

#crazytogether

[thebibliosphere]

I’ve talked about this with some friends, but the whole Spotify/audiobook drama legitimately makes me want to cry.

If you are unaware, earlier in the month, Spotify, who now owns FindawayVoices -- an audiobook distributor and one of the only major rivals to Audible on the creator end -- announced that their ToS would be updating.

The ToS updates were horrendous and basically allowed Spotify to make royalty-free translations of our works, as well as create derivatives, and basically just fuck us all over and feed all of our hard work into AI.

The backlash was so swift that less than 12 hours later, Spotify sent out a panicked “Sorry our wording wasn’t clear!” email with a promised update. Less than 24 hours later they issued a statement walking back the changes to the ToS, and have since been pulling a “we never said that, you misread our unclear verbiage” when in reality the verbiage was very clear (Not Spotify trying to pull a “gaslight gatekeep girl boss ✌️”), they just didn't expect to get dragged out into the metaphorical court of social media and get publicly annihilated with authors withdrawing their work from the platform and customers canceling their subscriptions left right and center.

Anyway, the walk back was acceptable enough for me to not feel the need to remove my work entirely from FindAway -- which is good because I would have lost access to the global audiobook market if I had, not to mention global library access. Which, again, is good. A significant chunk of my audiobook earnings comes from Libby, and I’d honestly be lost without that $20 every month. (we get paid quarterly but it breaks out to about $20 a month.)

What the walk back was not good enough for, was for me to trust them to keep streaming Hunger Pangs on their Spotify streaming service. Because quite frankly, I don't trust them not to pull some more ToS bullshit, and this is the part making me want to cry.

Why? Because I’m going through my royalty reports, and for the single month of December 2023 alone, Hunger Pangs was streamed so often it earned $400.

In one month.

That's more than I earn from Audible in a year.

That's more than I earn from kobo, b&n, libby, libro.fm and several author distributors combined in a year.

I’m going to scream.

[bblunatic]

If Spice Girls isn’t in your Top 5, then what are you doing with your life?

[ravensgpa]

I can’t tell if I should be ashamed or not of my minutes.

[wishuponadragon]

Boy oh boy, what a fine day it is! I think I’d like to get into k-pop! Now, let me just log in to Spotify and see what’s here...