• Zip2@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    48
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    And Spotify pass these savings onto the artists, right?

    • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      In effect, yes. Given that ~70% of revenue goes to rights holders, making the amount of revenue bigger by not paying 30% of subscriptions to Google, the savings are passed on to rights holders.

        • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          …I mean, 30% of the savings go to Spotify, so some part of it will indeed go to stock buybacks and executive salaries. Some of it will go to regular employee salaries, and some of it will go to pay for technical infrastructure, and some of it will go to pay for offices. Some of it will be spent on marketing, even.

          70% of it will go to rights holders, though.

            • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              1 year ago

              Again, not true - the royalty payments are based on revenue, not profit.

              To understand how absurd the claim that royalty payments are based on profits is, consider that Spotify has had a grand total of two profitable quarters throughout its whole existence - are you seriously claiming that no artist ever got paid outside those two quarters?

    • umami_wasabi@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Better be, but don’t be optimistic as they are called capitalist. You know what they love and hate.

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      16
      ·
      1 year ago

      Spotify pays around 70% to artists, and barely make money in the best quarters. If google was taking 30% it would not be feasible, so there had to be a deal. I’m surprised the deal is 0%, but it had to be much lower than 30%.

      • echo64@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        26
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Spotify pays 70% of its profits to artists. Not revenue. Almost all your subscription money and ad revenue goes to spotify. They just at some point decide that’s enough to take to spend on spotify, then give a tiny tiny amount to artists.

        • BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Not strictly correct. Spotify pays out from its net revenues (revenues when billing costs and tax are removed) and it pays to the various industry rights holders who then distribute the money. There are lots of complex deals in place and big rights holders are likely to have better deals than ad hoc users, plus it’s different in different countries.

          The 70% figure is a PR thing Spotify pushes about as part of its constant battles with rights holders on exactly how much it will pay them. It’s trying to claim most of the money goes to artists but it’s opaque how much goes where.

          • Bonehead@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Their last quarterly financial statements shows $65 million profit on $3.36 billion in revenue. So, yes.

          • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            70% of profits would be miniscule, but the figure is not true so you can safely disregard everything they said.

          • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Say they have 1 billion in potential profits.

            Wow heey look at all those CEOs, let’s use 900.000.000 to raise their salaries, or use it to buy up some competitor!

            Uh oh, nothing left for the artists… except some well known ones who’ll get a sweet deal.

        • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s patently false, it’s 70% of revenue that goes to rights holders.

          Seriously, why lie like this?

      • nicetriangle@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I like how in a thread discussing how Spotify had been lying about their cost structures you’re continuing to take their word for how fairly they compensate artists.

        • LufyCZ@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          They’re a public company, they’re required by law to share financial info.

          Do you perhaps have better data though?

          • nicetriangle@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            From what I understand that 70% they’re paying artists is from “profit.”

            And from another comment in this thread:

            Their last quarterly financial statements shows $65 million profit on $3.36 billion in revenue.

            And then you have stuff like this:

            https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/20/spotify-to-spend-1b-buying-its-own-stock/

            So lets assume they make $65 million in profit every quarter between when that article came out and April 21 2026 (the period the article states they were doing buybacks). I count 18 quarters in that period. So if my math is correct that is $1.17 billion in “profit” in the same period of time they plan to do $1 billion in stock buybacks. But artists are only getting 70% of said profits. So that’s about $819 million to artists in the same period of time Spotify is doing $1 billion in stock buybacks.

            So we have a mega corporation playing creative accounting and doing stock buybacks instead of paying artists more. Classic.

            • crystal@feddit.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              lets assume they make $65 million in profit every quarter

              Where do you get this number from?

              Hasn’t Spotify been operating at a loss for most of its existence? Wouldn’t that mean they paid 0€ to its creators most quaters (if it was actually calculated off profit)?

      • Flip@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The real problem with the way Spotify distributes the money, is that they distribute it per play. This seems reasonable on the surface, but I think it’s pretty shit. I want my subscription fee to go to the artists I listen to. Right now they’re going to what most people listen to. This effect is worsened by the per-label deals: imagine if Beyonce wasn’t on Spotify, that would be bad for Spotify right? This gives her label (and by extension all major labels) massive leverage over how this works. It massively favors big artists.

        The per-play model also enables playfarming as an economically viable scam.

        • nicetomeetyouIMVEGAN@lemmings.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          While sure, there is leverage, but it’s not like Spotify is being arbitrary about their content. I can listen to obscure stuff, and I do. Also don’t forget that big artists are often big for a reason and it’s usually not for a lack of talent, taste just varies but certainly there always is a market for ‘pop music’.