Norway Has Figured Out How To Solve The Problem Of Music Piracy

That's one way of putting it... And I guess that once artists completely give up on the idea of making any money w/ their music, the problem will entirely be solved.
 
Here's another interesting one which helps put things in perspective and see just how much streaming really means in terms of revenue...
 
http://www.theguardian.co...potify-youtube-payouts
 
In short: "92% of her income last year came from sales – $75,341 – with a further $6,380 coming from streaming services."
 

I will never warm to a service that expects me to listen to music on my frickin' telephone.
 
But then, I don't steal music either, so I guess I'm not part of the target demographic. Come to think of it, I'm not part of any target demographic - aside from AARP's constant come-ons to join in return for a free bag.

That's why I only "steam" my music. That way it's always hot AND wrinkle free!

musicman100
I still purchase CDs and DVDs ...from stores

Which do you prefer?

Most bands would make less money if there was no streaming. I think it's a great thing. There is more great music now than ever before. more variety , more talented players, better recording, etc etc. Embrace it or stick you head in the sand.

I use my 80GB iPod classic a lot when I am traveling but anything that requires I have an Internet connection to listen to music is pretty useless to me. I worry that at some point streaming will be the only way.
 
I was buying downloads for a while but I have mostly gone back to buying CDs. I like to own a tangible product.
 
I remember paying three or four pounds for an album back in the 70's. As a student I had to save up to buy one. I 40 years the price has tripled. By contrast another student staple, a pint of beer is around 20 times what it was in the early 70's Taking inflation into account an album is the cheapest it has ever been.
 
And I  (we) considered "In The Court of the Crimson King", "Grave New World", "Close to The Edge" and "Tarkus" etc to be worth several weeks disposable income each. Times have changed.
 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

bitflipper
I will never warm to a service that expects me to listen to music on my frickin' telephone.
 

I understand, but have you ever plugged any good ear buds...or IEM into a phone to at least get it out of the "transistor radio" category? 
Dang, you can't even buy a decent stereo nowadays anyway, much less speakers unless you want some stooped tower suckers that are silly expensive.

mixmkr

bitflipper
I will never warm to a service that expects me to listen to music on my frickin' telephone.
 

I understand, but have you ever plugged any good ear buds...or IEM into a phone to at least get it out of the "transistor radio" category? 
Dang, you can't even buy a decent stereo nowadays anyway, much less speakers unless you want some stooped tower suckers that are silly expensive.

I have to say, I've listened to some pretty sweet "audiophile" rigs in my time, but my Equator Audios (before a power surge blew 'em ) paired with ARC2 and my RME Babyface sound better than them all. I really mean that. 

Rain


Yeah, the link don't seem to work for whichever reason but it does work when I access it via history.
 
"
Keating’s biggest source of income last year was Apple’s iTunes Store, where sales of 32,170 single tracks and 3,862 albums netted her just over $38,195.
 
Meanwhile, 185 tracks and 2,899 albums sold through her profile on direct-to-fan site Bandcamp earned a further $25,575, while a mixture of physical and MP3 sales on Amazon earned her a further $11,571.
 
403,035 Spotify streams earned Keating $1,764, while more than 1.9m views of videos on YouTube – mostly those uploaded by other people featuring her music – earned her $1,248.
 
US personal radio service Pandora generated $3,258 of royalties – but from an undisclosed number of streams.
Keating also notched up 266,331 streams on SoundCloud and 222,226 streams on her Bandcamp site, neither of which generated royalties for her."

 
I think where people go wrong is in comparing streaming numbers with sales and having this expectation that the figures have some kind of relationship with each other. A stream is best compared to the audience for a radio broadcast than the sale of a CD. I'm not sure how much anyone should expect to get from a single listen of a track. I did read a breakdown of the figures in comparison to radio royalties - can't find the link but I seem to remember a Spotify stream royalty earning something like 15 times more than the royalty payment per radio listener.
 
Think of it like this: take an album that you've listened to on a regular basis for years. Divide the price you paid for that album by the number of tracks on it. Then divide that number by the approximate number of times you've listened to it (I know this is all guesswork but I don't think it's a stretch to say that you've listened to some of your favorite albums more than 100 times over the years). Does that seem like a fair price "per listen"? How does it compare to a Spotify stream payment?
 
One thing you have to remember with the streaming model is that artists are not going to get their money quickly. They'll earn money from fans slowly over the lifespan of that record, i.e. as long as the fan keeps listening to it. And of course, the more good tracks there are on an album, the more they're going to make. Gone are the days when artists got advances of hundreds of thousands of dollars for CD's which were sold on the basis of one or two great tracks and which were padded out with crappy filler tracks which didn't get listened to. There is now a huge incentive to write top quality songs that fans will listen to over and over, and to fill albums with those songs.
 

dubdisciple
At the same time streaming services (and i am including Youtube) are giving artists more options for getting their music heard outside of the Clear Channel Monopoly on radio stations and the few remaining record labels.

Looks like Google (that owns and operates YouTube) is no longer following their motto "Do No Evil" is now taking lessons from their cohorts in the record industry. Their recent 'take it or leave it' contracts with artists on the stream service do not appear to have the artists interest at heart.
 
More here
http://pando.com/2015/01/...reators-that-built-it/

MandolinPicker
Interesting article over at Business Insider. Seems streaming music has all but eliminated music piracy in Norway.
 
"In five years, the number of people admitting to illegally downloading files online has gone from 80% of survey respondents to just 4%. The survey also revealed that less than 1% of young people in Norway said illegal downloads were their main source of music."
 
More at http://www.businessinsider.com/norway-music-piracy-statistics-2015-1

.... or at least eliminating the possibility of admitting it.