Record Label Says That Pulling Music From Spotify 'Protects Artists'
from the no,-it-doesn't... dept
We've definitely seen plenty of confusion from record labels over the value of Spotify and similar services. But, a heavy metal/hardcore label, Century Media (which runs a variety of smaller labels: InsideOutMusic, Superballmusic, Ain't no Grave Records, Hollywood Waste and People Like You) has claimed that it's pulling all its music from Spotify to "protect artists." It's a funny way to "protect" artists by punishing fans who want to hear them. They complain that "physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active." Their assumption appears to be that correlation is causation, and merely removing their works from Spotify will now shoot sales back up. But that's not how things work. If anything, it seems likely that this move will accelerate their problems with physical sales. Not only will people not want to buy CDs, they won't even know about the musicians on this label. They'll just listen to someone else instead. The way you protect artists is by helping them to better connect with fans, not making it even more difficult. If I were a band on a Century Label, I'd be pretty pissed off that the label has unilaterally decided to piss off a bunch of my fans and stop many potential fans from discovering my music.
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Filed Under: music, record label
Companies: century media, spotify
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Derek Riggs must be making millions these days then.
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Never heard of him. Guess I better run down to the corner record store and pick up some of his stuff. Hopefully they'll have it on 8-Track so I can rock it in my Chevy Vega on the way over to the roller disco. ;)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Riggs
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let's talk to them in a few months and see if this worked for them rather than outright dismissing their strategy based on nothing but assumptions.
In the long term you're right that labels need to adapt to survive, but it doesn't always work that way in the short term.
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1 don't allow anyone to hear your product
2 don't allow anyone to talk about your product
3 profit
when do they file for bankruptcy.
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It occurred to me a couple months back that the failure of the record labels could come from two different directions. The failure of a single one of the majors would wipe out the industry, or the failure of several of the smaller labels.
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Rush
For example I have saved every single Rush album they have available. However out of the hundreds of songs, there is *one* song that is always left out because ``The artist or record label doesn't want this yada yada yada...''
It's just baffling to have 462 tracks, but one song from Moving Pictures is verboten!
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Re: Rush
For another example, but on YouTube, Vevo has made a large number of Weird Al videos available, yet there are a number that are not available in the US because of "Copyright Issues" I can buy the song on iTunes or buy the album at surviving music stores, yet I can't watch one out of 50 videos online.
And yes I understand the irony of not being able to watch something in the US online because of Copyright reasons.
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Re: Rush
Neil Peart rules!
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Re: Rush
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Don't worry, I'm pretty sure it's on the vinyl you bought.
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Re: Re: Rush
The artist/label has chosen to make this track unavailable. If you have the file on your computer, you can import it.
Xanadu (the studio version), 2112 and Cygnus X-1 are also in the same boat. It's really strange to me that out of all that music, these songs were specifically singled out. I'm just curious as to why.
Other then this, I'm enjoying Spotify.
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Well there's the problem...
What artists need are tiny royalty checks from the selling of shiny plastic discs.
So, yep, protecting their interests.
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You know what they say
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Of course, nobody will ever buy their records if they've never heard of them either...
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Not what the artists want
It would seem that the bands really like the idea of Spotify, so we have a case of the left hand not telling the right hand what it's doing.
Could someone please tell me why the labels still exist!
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Re: Not what the artists want
yes the labels are ZOMBIES.
how do you destroy zombies?
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Don't feed them brains. Funny that....
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Re: Re: Not what the artists want
Good luck with that.
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Rule #1 Cardio
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Re: Not what the artists want
inertia in·er·tia (ĭ-nûr'shə)
n.
The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force.
Resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change.
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Re: Re: Not what the artists want
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Re: Not what the artists want
Yeah, this surprised me too, because I know about (and in some cases, have met) many of the bands on Century. I doubt that the bands are happy at all about this.
Century is probably the biggest "indie" label out there - they're distributed by EMI - so maybe they've been hanging out with the RIAA folks for too long. Who knows.
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So Mike, how as the CwF sales been the last 3 months?
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When they mistake correlation for causation, then yes.
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So AC, how is that red herring you've been nursing for the last 3 days?
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I've seen Mike CwF a few times on Google+ in the past few weeks, and he lets paying members write up their favorite stories of the week(another part of CwF).
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Mike has also asked non-paying community members (like myself) to do the Favorites posts. My choice not to contribute comes from my desire to give as little information about myself as possible on the internet.
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Holy Christmas, have they been living under a rock? In case they haven't noticed, physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries PERIOD. Welcome to the new millennium gentlemen. You're about a decade late, and in for one helluva bumpy ride. Please turn off the lights on your way out.
In other news, Sony Entertainment pulls all their music from iTunes due to plummeting Walkman sales.
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R.I.A.A. = Real Ignorant Assholes of America
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Excluding yourself from a party and after being an asshole so everyone there is glad you didn’t show up, is a very nice gesture but certainly will no get you any sympathy.
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Don't doubt this a bit
Why?
Because Spotify is awesome, that's why. It's almost like having an infinitely big iPod with ever record ever recorded on it.
I've been using one of their competitors lately (Rdio) and I've been wondering myself why I would want to buy more recordings when everything I've every wanted to hear is only seconds away.
Ironically, this is one of the things that record companies have been asking for; i.e. getting recurring money from everybody. However, as in all things, the revenues from these services is limited. The pie has to be divided up and the companies that get most of the slices are the big guys because the number of their plays/downloads vastly outnumber the numbers of the little guys. So the small labels slice of the pie could be rounding down to (near/actual) zero.
There's no one good solution that will resolve everyone's problems.
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Re: Don't doubt this a bit
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Earth To Century Media!
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Re: Earth To Century Media!
Don't paint with too broad a brush.
I personally still buy CDs, since they are the best form of storage for songs that I want to keep - hence why I bought them in the first place. I can rip them to any required format, they are easy (and legal) to lend to friends.
In the last decade, I've lost too much hardware that, had I only owned digital copies, I would have lost my music as well. I realise there are services that allow me to redownload purchased content with no extra price, but the cost is usually tie-in to their services.
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Saving the world
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Protect more!
And then when Century Media sees 1000 illegal downloads on the Pirate Bay, it can claim 1 billion dollars in losses! Wow! That will really make the politicians move on anti-piracy legislation!
PS: This is what the labels have been doing for a LONG time. Price their product above what the market will bear, or place it on a market (physical CDs) that their costumers are abandoning, and then complain of unrealistic losses as people turn to more convenient sources.
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I would love to see him being protected LoL
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Shiny plastic discs
*Sigh*
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Re: Shiny plastic discs
File for divorce now before is to late.
[/joke]
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Re: Shiny plastic discs
http://ca.ibtimes.com/articles/195839/20110810/james-lee-phillips.htm
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Yeah so I hope someone checks back in a while. Mike, make a note? You should really revise some old articles sometime and see how their new and improved let's not allow anyone to listen to our music model has made them improve.
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Spotify is late to internet radio. Why promote it so much?
My question is what's different about Spotify from those thousands of completely free internet streams except that it has more advertising?
Late to the thread, and probably rhetorical anyway.
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Re: Spotify is late to internet radio. Why promote it so much?
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As for losing revenue? I doubt it. I'm currently listening to Leftfield's Leftism on Spotify, an album I love and have already bought twice (once on tape, then on CD). Despite loving the album, I'll never buy it again (what's the point?), but Leftfield still stand to get a small amount of revenue whenever I choose to listen to it on Spotify. A shame Century's bands don't stand to get revenue from their fans in the same way.
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100 years ago...
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Ever thought about that?
And I've heard plenty of people say that they don't feel the need to buy the music anymore if they can stream it from Spotify.
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If you ever read his words, I think he has.
"And I've heard plenty of people say that they don't feel the need to buy the music anymore if they can stream it from Spotify."
I've heard plenty of people say they would never buy a song from a contestant on The X Factor. That means nobody buys their songs, right?
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Infinite knowledge
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Re: Infinite knowledge
As for me, I never claim to have "infinite knowledge", but as a paying customer I do point out the many mistakes that stop me from buying what I wish to pay for. For my troubles, I usually get accused of "piracy" or told I'm wrong by the likes of you.
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Re: Re: Infinite knowledge
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GAH!
I was a "working" musician in metal bands for a number of years and we knew from the get-go (this is back in 2004 mind you), that we would NEVER make a huge amount of money from record sales. So what did we do? We concentrated on making cool merchandise than fans wanted to buy, played as many live shows as we could and delivered a performance we knew people would want to come back for.
We certainly didn't make the big bucks, but we made enough to go live, play, and go on tour relatively often. But the thing is: none of that would have been possible if we didn't actively encourage others to share our music for free. Without sharing no one would have heard us beyond the East Coast and we probably would not have been able to tour the West so early into our career.
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Weird.
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An independent record label chimes in...
Yes, streamed songs (Spotify, Rhapsody, Jango, Pandora) are paid at a much lower rate than digital sales (iTunes, eMusic), but it's still income that the label & the artist can split.
Seriously, that's completely backwards and a big disservice to their sub-labels & their bands.
P.S.- The comments about CDs being dead are not accurate. We sell less CDs than before, and more vinyl & more digital than before, but CDs are still strong, depending on the band.
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Re: An independent record label chimes in...
Indeed, but that's comparing apples and oranges. Streaming is a performance, whereas digital sales is a reproduction. They have different royalty rates.
Transposing this to the 1970's, it's exactly like Century is saying, "We're pulling our music off the radio, because we don't make as much as we do selling vinyl."
...I'm sure you know all this, it's for the benefit of other faithful readers.
Been an A.T. fan for twenty years, by the way. Sad that Phantom Limbs broke up.
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Iron Maiden mp3
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