One grift reveals another

The story in the Ars Technica link below is mildly remarkable but what caught my attention is a link in the comments concerning Spotify. It appears Spotify will no longer pay royalties for songs receiving less than 1,000 streams per year, instead redirecting those funds to artists with songs exceeding that threshold. The low-streaming musicians probably had low expectations of receiving any royalties at all but it's not clear if the musicians knew of this revised royalty arrangement.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/fbi-busts-musicians-elaborate-ai-powered-10m-streaming-royalty-heist/

https://www.indieonthemove.com/blog/2024/3/how-spotify-is-stealing-from-small-indie-artists-why-it-matters-and-what-to-do-about-it

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Thanks for the interesting reads :)
I wasn't surprised about the first one, as similar things have been done in the past, just minus the AI involvement.

The second part is more interesting to me, and - without saying that Spotify is on the right path there - I feel it is important to understand that cashing out tiny amounts of money once a year (or even tinier amounts quarterly) must be a total pain.
Just think of the transaction fees and the added overhead to account all of these payments.
If you kept the money until some threshold was reached (say: we'll only cash out amounts larger than $10, but keep your balance until that threshold is reached), then that would seem fairer, but you'd have a lot of money which technically isn't yours but needs to be balanced (depending on your legislation, you may even be obliged to pay interest on the not-yet-cashed-out amounts!). That's a nightmare, so I feel it is somehow reasonable to want to avoid that.

Giving that money to those who already earn a lot is however a questionable practice. Would be interesting to know how much Taylor Swift earns every year by collecting her bonus portion of the non-cashed-out royalties. Might turn out she gets a large chunk of that, depending on how they split it up, and that would really not make any sense.
They could have taken the opposite path and reduce the large receivers cash-out to pay for the added cost of cashing out tiny amounts to the starters... or - which would be my preferred solution - simply donate the non-cashed-out royalties to some good cause that supports music education.
If they really failed to inform their users about the whole issue, then that lack of transparency is the big mistake, not sure if that qualifies as "grift" though.

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So, the less successfull I am on Spotify the more money Taylor Swift makes. Bearing that in mind, I'm sure I could create a new business model where Ms. Swift would pay me money to not upload anything on Spotify.

Dick, please draft a letter to the Swift management: Dear all, I represent 3000 musicians who are all potential uploaders to Spotify. For a mere 0.5% share of your payout we undertake to never upload anything on Spotify. Please confirm your acceptance in writing.

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I think that the payout from streaming spotify even to very famous artists is not that great, they make their money from advertising on their youtube channels and from shows. With tickets now costing way more than a CD or LP used to cost, that's where the money is, I think. Adverts and shows.

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Although I'm not fooled by Spotify, I checked out this site. Hell and damnation! It offers jams with other musicians. Once again, what complications! You have to be a premium member to access the grail. But that's not enough, you have to be invited and the host can stop at any time. The moral of the story is that being premium becomes a bitter pill to swallow. If this isn't a scam, I'll be damned!
As for me, I'm nostalgic for the vinyl bins I used to consult after reading an article in a specialist magazine where the journalist's passion went beyond commercialism.
Today, we no longer listen to a musician, we follow the herd of the multitude. All you have to do is look at the home page and you're off somewhere else.
On the downside, I've paid for a subscription for my daughter (who's very young for my age 😂). She has to move with the times 😜 Consolation, she asks me for advice on her choices, the musical mire isn't enough for her. So nothing's lost...😂
The important thing to remember is that Spotify is a scam. Even pubs, bars and concert halls are increasingly taking advantage of musicians by devaluing their work.
Poor professionals, I pity you!
For TeeGee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spotify_streaming_records
‘An average remuneration for our artists of €0.0021 per stream’ (Spotify)
I'll stop here, I'm dizzy!

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Thanks for sharing some interesting perspectives Dick. I hadn't considered the transaction costs but you've first-hand experience in that area and I can appreciate how they could mount up and possibly cost more than the payouts. Your idea of donating to a musician's charity is a good one but it'd need to be thought through (which charity and which country etc). Describing it as grift is inaccurate though, I'd say it's closer to sharp business practice.

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What it amounts to is "We're now paying you so little it's not worth paying you at all". What's the next logical step? - musicians pay Spotify if they don't get enough streams?

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