[HN Gopher] Four Tet wins royalty battle over streaming music
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Four Tet wins royalty battle over streaming music
Author : mindracer
Score : 93 points
Date : 2022-06-20 18:12 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| iamben wrote:
| 13.5%? Jeez.
|
| No wonder so many 'signed' artists have a problem with streaming.
| And no wonder so many young artists are choosing to self release.
| We really are getting to a point where labels need to properly
| prove their worth.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| There was probably a time when a label was useful as both
| distributor and curator of a particular kind of music, and that
| could've been useful. Like, I dunno, 4AD records.
|
| But, having been born at the tail end of the 80s, I personally
| have never found labels to be anything more than an annoyance.
| Like: "Oh, you can't buy this band's first two albums anywhere
| because the label is pissed at the band for leaving and won't
| re-release them."
|
| I can think of maybe one or two smallish labels that I actually
| follow on Bandcamp because they specialize in niches I like,
| and there's a good chance that whatever they release will at
| least warrant a trial listen from me. But those are few and far
| between.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Label-as-curator is definitely a thing until the label gets
| too big. There were a few times in the nineties and noughties
| where I bought a sampler CD from a label because it had a
| track by an act I liked, and it would introduce me to other
| acts on that label who I went on to buy more stuff from.
|
| If a label owns subsidiary labels it is probably too big for
| this to work any more. If any of those subsidiary labels have
| multiple imprints of their own then it's definitely too big
| for this to mean anything, "Warner Brothers released this"
| tells you next to nothing about what to expect.
| vr46 wrote:
| Random thoughts:
|
| At various points in the past, record labels were the ones taking
| the big risks and getting the big paybacks, just like any
| business, fronting the funds for expensive studio time and the
| people to run them.
|
| And many bands took personal offence at this, and continue to do,
| despite being the beneficiaries of the whole sordid industry at
| the time. Now that the costs of production and distribution have
| dropped in certain areas - there's still things that you need
| Abbey Road Studio One and 96 expert musicians for - artists
| expect a fairer deal.
|
| But who decides what the value was of the label's work in the
| first place? If they did all the promotion and legwork to get the
| artist into the limelight and keep them there, does or doesn't
| that work deserve perpetual royalties?
|
| I don't know why streaming rights and licensing weren't newly
| negotiated deals but I guess for artists like FourTet who arrived
| when they did, downloads and streaming were covered by a
| 'digital' clause.
|
| Labels are full of people who love music and work their nuts off
| promoting musicians, building their web and social presences,
| getting them booked onto support slots, playlists, radio shows,
| festivals, cleaning up after them, and championing them, but
| labels are also cynical and heartless and will drop an act
| without compunction if sales don't happen. I've hundreds of
| brilliant promo albums on my shelves from my days on student
| radio and nearly all those acts released nothing more.
|
| Given the scale of competition and number of acts, I have no idea
| how anyone could be a sales success without a central
| organization coordinating things. I don't know much about Taylor
| Swift but is she a huge success without the involvement of a
| label?
| saaaaaam wrote:
| I managed a major territory for one of the biggest digital
| music distributors in the world. Digital distribution is the
| bit that gets music into DSPs like Spotify and Apple Music, and
| processes the resulting revenues.
|
| There are a significant number of very successful artists who
| do not have a label. We had lots.
|
| Even artists signed to major label deals are often doing a JV
| with a major after achieving traction themselves - or are doing
| an "artist services" deal where the label does some things but
| not others.
|
| Labels are great - but there are lots of artist making a
| success of things outside the traditional label model.
|
| There are, of course, also lots of artists with amazing music
| who go nowhere because they can't market themselves enough to
| get up the next rung of the ladder.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I'm noticing a lot of my favorite artists right now who do
| mixes of other people's work have more and more stuff that when
| I look at where I can get an HQ copy, it's ending up on
| Bandcamp more than Beatport these days, which is really cool.
| Not only is there more of a feeling that they're getting an
| equitable cut, it's also usually a lot more reasonably priced
| and gives options like limited edition LPs or cassette tape to
| get the music on.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| For anyone who hasn't listened yet, Four Tet is really good. A
| lot of base in very organic sounding samples from analogue
| instruments like hand pans, chimes, xylophones, steel pan drums
| and similar kind of percussion but it's still pretty much
| techno/house electronic music (not tech house) [1]. His newer
| stuff [2] is starting to sound a bit more synth based but it's
| still really top work.
|
| I'm glad they're doing something with fighting to get proper
| compensation, the industry really needs to check themselves in
| terms of respect for who's out there doing the hard creative
| work. Way to be a repellent to talent, Domino Records!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWInZ4N6C2g
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6T9Q5mUYqc
| smcl wrote:
| Yeah music like Four Tet is really nice for coding. I can also
| suggest Arms And Sleepers if that's your thing.
| technonerd wrote:
| dvs1 started a genius idea to help pay artist [1]. All the DJ
| has to do is import his playlist and enter the amount they want
| to share with the artist that were played in a given set. Not
| only is this man an absolute master behind the decks like you
| need to add him to your bucket list to see him hes that good.
| The dude reeks in passion for music and it shows in his DJ
| skills, it shows in the sound systems and warehouse he built.
| But he is also out there trying to help improve the scene.
|
| [1] https://aslice.com/
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > The difference is far from academic because most artists
| receive 50% of the royalties for a licence but a much lower
| figure, typically between 12% and 22%, for a sale.
|
| Hard to comprehend how a label can seriously claim they deserve
| 86.5% of streaming revenue. Not like they sunk any considerable
| money into Four Tet, just sat back and watched the money roll in.
| What a ripoff, that's 2.2 million streams to make $1000 on
| spotify.
| qazwse_ wrote:
| > After the advent of iTunes and Spotify, labels often argued
| that downloads and streams should be counted as sales.
|
| I'm guessing this is still the case for many artists. How can
| they argue this at all? Who is the sale to? I doubt the record
| labels would say that I purchased a song after listening to it on
| a streaming service.
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