tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/music-streaming-26926/articlesMusic streaming – The Conversation2024-02-05T13:34:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2220832024-02-05T13:34:50Z2024-02-05T13:34:50ZSpotify daylist: algorithms don’t just react to your music taste, they shape it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573058/original/file-20240202-25-9ehpr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=137%2C23%2C3733%2C1198&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/people-headphones-yong-boys-girls-listen-1470062831">SpicyTruffel/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As I sit at my desk writing this article, Spotify picks the next track on my algorithmically generated “daylist”. Today’s selection has the slightly strange – and yet very specific – title “lo-fi anti-folk wednesday early morning”. For the record, I’m definitely not anti-folk. Putting that odd label aside, it’s a fairly typical scene. </p>
<p>We are familiar with algorithms on tech platforms choosing music, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-netflix-affects-what-we-watch-and-who-we-are-and-its-not-just-the-algorithm-169897">TV</a>, <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/01/how-retail-changes-when-algorithms-curate-everything-we-buy">products</a> or even <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/north-america/united-states/new-york/what-really-happened-when-let-tiktoks-algorithms-plan-holiday/">travel destinations</a> for us. </p>
<p>Even something as seemingly personal <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137270061">as music taste is transformed by the way these platforms intervene</a>. By matching music choice to the time of day, the daylist is just another way of embedding predictions about our music taste even further into our daily or even hourly routines.</p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/spotify-wrapped-how-sharing-your-music-tastes-can-drive-feelings-of-fomo-196825?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Spotify Wrapped: how sharing your music tastes can drive feelings of Fomo</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-cope-when-you-lose-access-to-a-digital-world-you-love-199447?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">How to cope when you lose access to a digital world you love</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/we-are-living-in-a-digital-dark-age-heres-how-to-protect-your-photos-videos-and-other-data-220933?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">We are living in a ‘digital dark age’ – here’s how to protect your photos, videos and other data</a></em></p>
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<p>We have lived with streaming for quite some time. For many people, our music choices have gone from being informed by radio, music press, magazines and TV shows, to a fine-grained level of personalisation. </p>
<p>While you might look at your daylist and think that Spotify knows your music tastes intimately, it is equally the case that the algorithm has shaped those tastes over time.</p>
<h2>Predicting – and changing – tastes</h2>
<p>For over 15 years Spotify, like other streaming platforms, has been trying to predict or “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo183892298.html">compute tastes</a>”. </p>
<p>Streaming platforms in general have the data about us, but they also have the data about everyone streaming on that platform. Even with all of this data available, taste remains elusive. Research has shown that the focus isn’t necessarily upon accurately predicting taste, but on trying to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183518820366">predict things like attention or engagment</a> in its place.</p>
<p>If you use data to analyse and predict an individual’s music taste, then you will inevitably have some impact on them. This problem is well established in sociological research. Put simply, when you study the social world you are also <a href="https://www.routledge.com/After-Method-Mess-in-Social-Science-Research/Law/p/book/9780415341752">likely to change it</a>. People alter their behaviour in response <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/517897">to being analysed</a>. </p>
<p>When we imagine our tastes, we assume there is a starting point. We imagine that our tastes exist and that these algorithmic systems are learning to respond to them. But taste does not exist in a vacuum. If Spotify keeps offering you particular genres or artists, you become much more likely to develop an interest or even a preference for that music. This, then, produces more data to reinforce that prediction. </p>
<h2>A recursive society</h2>
<p>An automated song choice, or even an algorithmically generated playlist, isn’t all that consequential in isolation. It is the repetition of this process over time that matters. It is through constant exposure to these personalised predictions that our taste itself mutates in response to what we are exposed to. </p>
<p>The way that the repeated loops of algorithm feedback fold into our music taste is one instance of a broader change that I’ve described in my research as the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517221104997">recursive society</a>”. In a recursive society we are surrounded by repeated analytic and algorithmic processes that have continued over a significant period. </p>
<p>Choices and their outcomes have become more algorithmic and less human. This occurs repeatedly over time, each informing the next steps. The result is that society and our individual experiences are a product of recursive processes in which the automated analysis of data shapes and impacts the choices we make and the choices made about us. This also goes back before Spotify, to include things like CD recommendations on Amazon. </p>
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<img alt="A happy young woman standing on a bus or train, wearing large headphones and looking at her mobile phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573053/original/file-20240202-19-go03hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573053/original/file-20240202-19-go03hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573053/original/file-20240202-19-go03hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573053/original/file-20240202-19-go03hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573053/original/file-20240202-19-go03hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573053/original/file-20240202-19-go03hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573053/original/file-20240202-19-go03hd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Daylist: chill happy wednesday commute.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-young-asian-woman-passenger-listening-2323273785">oatawa/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>As these choices feed the same cycles again and again, the result is that it becomes impossible to separate ourselves, our identities, our knowledge and our tastes from loops of algorithmic processing. We can’t separate music taste from the algorithms. Even if you stopped using streaming platforms and their recommendations today, they have influenced you. And, should you do this, the places you turn to to discover music are likely to be a product of other people being influenced in their choices. </p>
<p>These processes have no point of origin, we have been living <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695120959254">among them for too long</a>. You may not remember a time before you consumed music and other culture through streaming platforms. </p>
<p>Of course, musical taste has never really been entirely personal. It has always been a product of how we are socialised into culture through friendship networks, location, family, media coverage, institutions and wider cultural scenes. </p>
<h2>Daylists and our identities</h2>
<p>This matters because our tastes in things like music are central to how we formulate and present <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-music/article/abs/beyond-the-high-fidelity-stereotype-defining-the-contemporary-record-collector/5376383A0A230A0EF28876154BA5FF69">our identities</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/music-in-everyday-life/EE77B0AC56959E4874C2BF5B48A0F7E2">how we connect with people</a>, develop a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Culture-Class-Distinction/Bennett-Savage-Silva-Warde-Gayo-Cal-Wright/p/book/9780415560771">sense of belonging and position ourselves</a> within society. If algorithmic systems are shaping our tastes, they are also shaping how we understand ourselves.</p>
<p>Spotify daylists tell us something about how our tastes are being anticipated in ways that keep us using these systems. Their detailed and responsive adaptation to the time of day and to the different facets of our music listening tell us just how detailed the data about our tastes has become. </p>
<p>The daylist can only exist in a recursive society, where we are familiar with personalised systems that have accumulated and analysed data about us over long periods of time. If it reveals anything about us, it is that through many algorithmic loops our tastes are being constructed for us over time – changing, rather than reflecting, who we are.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Beer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Thanks to algorithms, our music choices have gone from being informed by radio, music press, magazines and TV shows to a fine-grained level of personalisation.David Beer, Professor of Sociology, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2199672024-01-29T19:05:00Z2024-01-29T19:05:00Z‘I almost feel like stuck in a rut’: how streaming services changed the way we listen to music<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571076/original/file-20240124-21-k70316.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C23%2C7904%2C5237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brunette-young-woman-listening-music-while-2237530313">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Music streaming can alter what was once a private activity into something more seemingly public. </p>
<p>Around 2016, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780429264856/music-sociology-rapha%C3%ABl-nowak-andy-bennett">streaming became the dominant</a> way people engaged with recordings of music. Users engage in a constant process of renting music, by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2016.1264101">perpetually paying</a> to use these services or by providing access to user data. Streaming services operate simultaneously in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196318000196">two types of markets</a>: the circulation of music for users; and the exploitation of users’ data and attention.</p>
<p>With this sharing, music streaming has altered the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-58290-4_14">social experience</a> of listening to music. Now, anyone with an account could potentially be listening in and seeing what music we choose to spend our time with.</p>
<p>So how does “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/people-cant-stop-spotify-snooping-on-friends-exes-and-crushes-11674784904">Spotify snooping</a>” and streaming music more generally change the way we listen to music?</p>
<h2>The ubiquity of music</h2>
<p>To understand the changing nature of music listening, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437231219142">I interviewed</a> 49 users of streaming services about how they listen to music.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003273363/streaming-sounds-michael-james-walsh">key finding</a> is these services render music more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1758742">ubiquitous</a> across everyday life. </p>
<p>As one interviewee explains, streaming:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>has made it easier for me to have it as a part of a soundtrack to my life, a part of what I do. Because it’s just so integrated. With technology it just allows things to be so simplified for us that we can just access music at a click of the finger. I think that therefore music is much easier for me to have it kind of flowing through.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570764/original/file-20240123-25-vhbibo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A girl with headphones on a bus." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570764/original/file-20240123-25-vhbibo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570764/original/file-20240123-25-vhbibo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570764/original/file-20240123-25-vhbibo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570764/original/file-20240123-25-vhbibo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570764/original/file-20240123-25-vhbibo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570764/original/file-20240123-25-vhbibo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570764/original/file-20240123-25-vhbibo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Music streaming has become the soundtrack to our lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/a-woman-with-headphones-sitting-on-a-bus--aogki3JmjQ?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplas">Matthew Michael/Unsplash</a></span>
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<p>Music streaming technologies seek to shape how users engage with music through algorithmic features, such as platform-curated playlists. Users are required to navigate features that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305119880006">decide, filter and select</a> what to expose listeners to.</p>
<p>As one participant’s describes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I almost feel like stuck in a rut… I’m like, ‘I actually do really want to find something new.’ And I’ll go out and find that. But even though it’s not Spotify’s fault, I kind of feel a little [trapped] in the world that I’ve set up for myself by listening to certain types of things. I guess the algorithm promotes what you’ve already been listening to and only gives you often slight variations on what that is because it doesn’t want to freak you out. And I guess that’s its job. It can be a little limiting sometimes.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stream-weavers-the-musicians-dilemma-in-spotifys-pay-to-play-plan-151479">Stream weavers: the musicians' dilemma in Spotify's pay-to-play plan</a>
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<h2>Who’s listening in?</h2>
<p>Because streaming services also act as social media platforms, your listening habits can potentially be viewed by outsiders, the users I spoke to talked of a need to navigate music streaming carefully.</p>
<p>One interviewee spoke of the “social pressure” to curate what he is listening to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m also slightly conscious of how much I’m listening to something and, you know, like it’s not … is it embarrassing, but is it? Am I listening to it too much? Should I be listening to more varied music because I want to seem, I don’t know, like should I listen to more varied music? And so that kind of plays around in the back of my head as I’m choosing music as well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other people <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/of-interest/2023/12/29/spotify-wrapped-year-end-review/">recoil</a> at being rendered into a series of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-58290-4_3">data points</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570765/original/file-20240123-29-bz731n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman looks down on her phone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570765/original/file-20240123-29-bz731n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570765/original/file-20240123-29-bz731n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570765/original/file-20240123-29-bz731n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570765/original/file-20240123-29-bz731n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570765/original/file-20240123-29-bz731n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570765/original/file-20240123-29-bz731n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570765/original/file-20240123-29-bz731n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How do our listening habits change when anyone else could be listening in?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/person-standing-while-holding-phone-BECWWmIuJ2k?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Melanie Pongratz/Unsplash</a></span>
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<p>As one participant suggests:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>sometimes you listen to things in a personal context, you know, I guess if the music you’re listening to is reflective of how you’re feeling, you don’t necessarily want to reflect how you’re feeling or communicate how you’re feeling with other people. Yeah, and if that’s being broadcast, it’s a little bit off, isn’t it? Awkward, you know.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This knowledge of how streaming services trace and allow others to follow users comes to frame the experience of using the service itself. </p>
<p>Another interviewee described once privately listening to songs on their iPod:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it was sort of a bit anonymous as well. I like that you could just sort of you know … I could just be in bed, for example, with the headphones in listening and it wasn’t sort of necessarily recorded online. And I suppose I have to admit there’s a part of me that feels a little bit resentful that you can’t just sort of download things the way you could in the past and have it […] [to] listen indefinitely.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/audio-cassettes-despite-being-a-bit-rubbish-sales-have-doubled-during-the-pandemic-heres-why-157097">Audio cassettes: despite being 'a bit rubbish', sales have doubled during the pandemic – here's why</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Fading passions</h2>
<p>While streaming <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/media/spotify-streaming-music-podcasts-audiobooks-3e88180d">undoubtedly commands</a> a significant way we now engage with music, some interviewees also indicate it has changed their relationship with music: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I guess having ownership over music feels different to having, you know, like a subscription. I feel less passionate about streaming services […] I think I just feel more passive with Spotify I guess, like, less active. Because every time I try to be active I just get frustrated at not being able to find what I want […] Like, there was just so much more effort involved in music before whereas I think when something becomes less – less effortful perhaps it becomes less special, you know. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570766/original/file-20240123-17-t08a61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A record shop" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570766/original/file-20240123-17-t08a61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570766/original/file-20240123-17-t08a61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570766/original/file-20240123-17-t08a61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570766/original/file-20240123-17-t08a61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570766/original/file-20240123-17-t08a61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570766/original/file-20240123-17-t08a61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570766/original/file-20240123-17-t08a61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Physical formats like vinyl can feel more tangible and so more special.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/a-woman-standing-in-front-of-a-display-of-records-ItgwitBR4no?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Joss Broward/Unsplash</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>These experiences could also partly explain the resurgence in physical formats such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/12/vinyl-sales-us-report">vinyl</a> and even <a href="https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/first-vinyl-now-cassette-tapes-are-making-a-comeback-20221227-p5c8wy">cassette</a>.</p>
<p>Streaming technologies not only change how we access music recordings but also are associated with changes in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856516673298">social experience</a> of listening to music. </p>
<p>Streaming allows people to incorporate music ubiquitously and musically inflect everyday life in increasingly varied ways. But it can also transform private acts of listening into public ones to be viewed with risk if not managed carefully.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael James Walsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To understand the changing nature of music listening, I interviewed users of streaming services about how they listen to music.Michael James Walsh, Associate Professor in Social Sciences, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2013422023-03-30T15:18:03Z2023-03-30T15:18:03ZHappy songs: these are the musical elements that make us feel good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514002/original/file-20230307-14-g0510v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=172%2C35%2C4620%2C3154&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The music we listen to can have a profound impact on our mood. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cool-skater-girl-dancing-street-508069501">Merla/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Music has a unique power <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel-Vaestfjaell/publication/258173113_Emotion_Induction_through_Music_A_Review_of_the_Musical_Mood_Induction_Procedure/links/02e7e527c81174366e000000/Emotion-Induction-through-Music-A-Review-of-the-Musical-Mood-Induction-Procedure.pdf">to affect the way people feel</a> and many people use music to enhance or change their mood, channel emotions and for psychological support. </p>
<p>The strong emotional impact of music is derived from its profound physical and psychological effects. For example, listening to relaxing music often has a positive impact on the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1959222/">autonomic nervous system</a> (which regulates many key bodily functions), by slowing breathing, regulating heart rate, lowering blood pressure and reducing muscle tension.</p>
<p>Listening to music also affects us at a deep physiological level, as it has a strong impact on the <a href="http://www.downloads.imune.net/medicalbooks/Neurochemistry%20of%20music.pdf">endocrine system</a>, which is responsible for hormone production. </p>
<p>Music can stimulate the release of the neurotransmitters which affect experiences of pleasure by increasing the production of dopamine (the reward hormone), reducing levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) and increasing salivary immunoglobulin A – an antibody responsible for strengthening the immune system.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/apBWI6xrbLY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys creates a strong emotional uplift.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, these benefits are only experienced if we listen to music that we enjoy. <a href="http://www.brainvitge.org/papers/Science-2013-Salimpoor-216-9.pdf">Familiarity</a> also affects enjoyment, but even new music can stimulate positive physical and psychological responses if it is similar to other music that we like.</p>
<p>Music we don’t like can have a strong adverse effect upon mood and wellbeing. Individual differences mean emotional <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735618754688?journalCode=poma">reactions to songs differ</a> depending on the participant’s preferences and associations they might have with the music. If we don’t like the song (or it brings back negative memories), it won’t make us happy, regardless of the quality.</p>
<h2>Creating a personal soundscape</h2>
<p>Portable listening devices and music streaming platforms have made it possible to choose from an unprecedented selection of musical styles. People can now listen to their favourite music any time, anywhere. </p>
<p>This means music can be used to create a personal soundscape. This is common when using public transport, for example, as many passengers use headphones to create an individualised sonic environment as a distraction from the less pleasant aspects of travelling on crowded and noisy transport systems.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.prnewsblog.com/news/health-wellbeing/15034/music-psychologist-reveals-the-formula-for-the-happiest-song-ever/">recent survey</a>, 71% of 2,000 participants reported that music was the strongest influence on their mood and almost 75% regularly listened to music to cheer themselves up. In response to these findings, I conducted a review of published research, to find out which musical features tend to be present in “happy” songs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young man in a green jacket listens to music on headphones while travelling on the London Underground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514005/original/file-20230307-172-ep55u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514005/original/file-20230307-172-ep55u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514005/original/file-20230307-172-ep55u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514005/original/file-20230307-172-ep55u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514005/original/file-20230307-172-ep55u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514005/original/file-20230307-172-ep55u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514005/original/file-20230307-172-ep55u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Listening to music on your commute can create a ‘personal soundscape’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-october-2017-people-commuting-742307254">Paolo Paradiso/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>It should be remembered that musical preferences and expectations are culture dependent. For example, some Asian cultures have different associations between positive/negative emotions and major/minor chords, so <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.170952">western “happy songs” may not be globally interpreted as such.</a></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-your-culture-informs-the-emotions-you-feel-when-listening-to-music-171248">How your culture informs the emotions you feel when listening to music</a>
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<p>Within western cultures, there are certain components of popular music which are commonly linked with positive emotions. Music that is perceived as “happy” is usually written in a major key with a bright tone, featuring instruments with a bright timbre, such as trumpets or electric guitars.</p>
<p>“Happy” music usually adds <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.170952">the seventh note of the scale</a> to the main three notes in the chord. This creates a brief feeling of tension – or pleasurable expectation – followed by relief or resolution when the harmonic progression proceeds as our previous listening experience predicts.</p>
<p>For many people, listening to music becomes an immersive <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00906/full">flow experience</a> which can distract from everyday concerns. Active musical participation through dancing or singing along brings additional enjoyment. </p>
<p>A simple, consistent rhythm based on two or four beats in a bar increases a song’s “<a href="https://mashable.com/ad/feature/science-of-pop-music">danceability</a>”, while a binary structure – verse-chorus-verse-chorus – helps to establish familiarity so the song quickly becomes “<a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/features/pop-science/">sing-alongable</a>”.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HgzGwKwLmgM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Songs people have said they use to improve their mood include Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People generally <a href="https://mashable.com/ad/feature/science-of-pop-music">prefer familiar music</a>, or music which quickly becomes memorable. The most enjoyable songs are likely to be those which strike a satisfying <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982219312588">balance between predictability and surprise</a>, providing an experience familiar enough to be pleasurable while avoiding being too simplistic or formulaic.</p>
<p>Unexpected changes can intensify emotional responses. Listeners often derive the most pleasure from music when they are fairly sure about what will happen next but then an unexpected chord progression or key change provides a surprise.</p>
<p>Based on previous experiences, listeners develop expectations about a piece of music. While familiar music tends to give the most pleasure, it also needs to contain enough “surprise” elements to retain enough interest to create a state of flow. This explains the use of a bridge or the middle eight (a section which is different from the verse and chorus) in many songs.</p>
<p>Although “happy songs” are usually written in a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301724912_Beyond_Happiness_and_Sadness_Affective_Associations_of_Lyrics_with_Modality_and_Dynamics">major key</a>, they sometimes include a section in a minor key to add interest. </p>
<p>Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys begins with a verse in a minor key and then creates a strong emotional uplift as it switches into a bright major key for the chorus.</p>
<h2>The speed of happiness</h2>
<p>Faster music tends to induce more positive emotions than slower music. Research suggests that music that is perceived as happy is usually performed at a tempo between <a href="https://mymodernmet.com/10-happy-songs/">140 and 150 beats per minute (BPM)</a>. Songs people have said they use to <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7k00dawKjXgBBuq2nZyHmO">improve their mood</a> include Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now at 156 BPM.</p>
<p>Tempo is a confounding variable because <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735618754688?journalCode=poma">faster music increases arousal/excitement</a>, but this may not always be associated with happiness. There may also be <a href="https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/fac/marketing/mogilner/Mogilner_Shifting_Meaning_of_Happiness_SPPS_2011.pdf">age-related differences</a> in interpretation. </p>
<p>What is certain is that music can have a profound effect on our sense of wellbeing. Just stick on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTdihu-mp90">James Brown’s I Got You</a> (or whatever might tempt you to do a happy dance) and start to feel good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201342/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Bonshor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Happy’ music is usually written in a major key with a bright tone, featuring instruments with a bright timbre, such as trumpets or electric guitars.Michael Bonshor, Course Director, Music Psychology in Education, Performance and Wellbeing, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2009862023-03-09T23:37:04Z2023-03-09T23:37:04ZJunos 2023 reminds us how Canadian content regulations and funding supports music across the country<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515325/original/file-20230314-4604-k54jmx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C24%2C4119%2C2410&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tobi accepts the Juno Award for Rap Album/EP of the Year during the Juno Awards in Edmonton on March 13, 2023. Tobi is among the many Juno-nominated and Juno-recognized artists who have received grants partly funded by Canadian radio profits. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Timothy Matwey</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As we celebrate <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/music/junos/2023-junos-will-celebrate-the-50th-anniversary-of-hip-hop-with-all-star-performance-1.6764442">another year of Canadian music at the Juno Awards</a>, let’s consider the broader music ecosystem that facilitates a vibrant component of our multifaceted culture and identity.</p>
<p>An essential component of this ecosystem supporting musical artists has been the policy of Canadian Content (CanCon) regulations for music radio. </p>
<p>CanCon policy hasn’t only ensured Canadian music is played on the radio, but notably, that radio profits are redistributed to artists through grant programs — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2021.2010028">something critical for artists’ viability and success</a>. </p>
<h2>Revitalization in digital era</h2>
<p>Currently, there is debate on how to implement similar regulations for streaming media. <a href="https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-11">Bill-C11, An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts</a> has been passed by the Senate (with contentious amendments), and is now being <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/senate-showdown-ahead-minister-rejects-some-bill-c-11-amendments-1.6304526">debated in the House</a>.</p>
<p>The few large multinational corporations that make use of Canada’s creative sector should also contribute to the public funding of the arts, contributing to the revitalization of music in Canada in the digital era. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A singer seen seated at a piano." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515324/original/file-20230314-3596-fjivlu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515324/original/file-20230314-3596-fjivlu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515324/original/file-20230314-3596-fjivlu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515324/original/file-20230314-3596-fjivlu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515324/original/file-20230314-3596-fjivlu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515324/original/file-20230314-3596-fjivlu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515324/original/file-20230314-3596-fjivlu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aysanabee, who was nominated for Contemporary Indigenous Artist or Group, performs during the Juno Awards in Edmonton on March 13, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Timothy Matwey</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Music industry highly consolidated</h2>
<p>On one hand, the music industry in Canada is highly consolidated, with three record labels (Universal, Warner, Sony), three streaming companies (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music), and one live concert and ticketing company (LiveNation/Ticketmaster). </p>
<p>They are all non-Canadian. They have market power that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2021.2010028">shapes the industry to favour superstars, lessens the ability of working musicians to make a living wage and limits the diversity</a> of Canadian music.</p>
<p>On the other hand, public programs support diverse Canadian music heritage and the development of Canadian artists. This year’s Juno nominees include at least 85 artists who have received a total of 433 grants from <a href="https://www.factor.ca/">FACTOR</a> (The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/junos-50th-anniversary-how-we-remember-these-award-winning-hit-singles-161951">Junos 50th anniversary: How we remember these award-winning hit singles</a>
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<p>FACTOR, along with public and community radio, the Polaris Prize, provincial music industry associations and other public-serving organizations and regulations help ensure the diversity and abundance of music outside of the purely profit-driven system.</p>
<h2>Bill C-11</h2>
<p>Bill C-11 has potential to address the limitations of the corporate music model and provide musicians with more opportunities to earn a livelihood by increasing opportunities for grants. But these concerns have been overshadowed by the sprawling nature of the bill and its legislative amendment process.</p>
<p>Bill C-11 <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/online-streaming-act-cancon-future-1.6749795">proposes</a> an update to the Broadcasting Act to include online platforms in <a href="https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/home-accueil.htm">CRTC</a> regulation and CanCon rules. </p>
<p>In terms of streaming music (like on Spotify or Apple Music), this would mean including music by Canadian artists on the curated playlists provided by the platform, and companies paying in to a media fund that would provide grants for Canadian artists.</p>
<p>Algorithms are <a href="https://www.christinebauer.eu/publications/ferraro-2021-break-the-loop/ferraro-2021-break-the-loop.pdf">not neutral</a>: they train us as much as we train them. Using them to promote local music or Canadian music may inspire a wider variety of music heard on streaming services. </p>
<h2>Regulations done properly</h2>
<p>Some critics say C-11 would cause financial hardship and <a href="https://openmedia.org/article/item/whats-wrong-with-bill-c-11-an-faq">unintended consequences for content creators</a> and open the door for CRTC interference in <a href="https://cippic.ca/en/node/129549">freedom of expression</a> and lead to government control over social feed algorithms. </p>
<p>Many remain <a href="https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/02/quebec-demands-changes-to-bill-c-11-as-it-wakes-up-to-the-implications-of-losing-control-over-digital-culture-regulation/">unconvinced that the centralization of regulation</a> is worth the overreach of the bill.</p>
<p>Researchers in public policy and communications have amplified some creators’ concerns that given the role of broadcasting as a settler nation-building project entrenched in systemic racism, new policy would need to do more to safeguard interests of <a href="https://theconversation.com/online-streaming-act-claims-to-level-the-playing-field-but-for-whom-179051">Black, Indigenous and racialized content creators</a>.</p>
<h2>Major Senate change</h2>
<p>A major Senate amendment proposed limiting the bill to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/online-streaming-act-cancon-future-1.6749795">maintain the autonomy of individual creators posting online, and curbing the CRTC’s discretionary power</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-heritage-minister-rejects-key-c-11-amendment-puts-himself-on-potential/">But Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Canadian Heritage, has rejected Senate amendments</a> and the process is yet again under fire.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1633825038083268608"}"></div></p>
<p>The non-profit Open Media dedicated to “<a href="https://openmedia.org/about">keeping the internet open, affordable and surveillance-free</a>,” notes a key Senate amendment “considerably <a href="https://openmedia.org/press/item/bill-c-11-passes-the-senate-with-a-huge-fix">reduces the risk of ordinary Canadian user-uploaded content being regulated as broadcasting content</a>” but flags problems with how age restrictions on content would be managed. </p>
<p>It’s good to have critics ensure regulations benefit all artists and users and that the bill does not <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-margaret-atwood-on-bill-c11-and-why-bureaucrats-shouldnt-tell-authors/">tell people what to create</a>. Yet much of the writing on C-11 has dismissed CanCon regulations for the streaming era altogether.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-we-be-forced-to-see-more-canadian-content-on-tiktok-and-youtube-161318">Should we be forced to see more Canadian content on TikTok and YouTube?</a>
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<h2>Why CanCon matters</h2>
<p>In radio, CanCon refers to regulations that began in 1971. By playing more music by Canadians on the radio (initially 30 per cent Canadian music over the broadcast week, <a href="https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/cancon/r_cdn.htm">now at least 35 per cent</a>), the aim was to grow domestic music industries. </p>
<p>In the same era, major labels <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2020.1769151">invested in Canadian record pressing plants</a> to help overcome the costs of importing records.</p>
<p>By the end of the 1970s, evidence of music industry growth in Canada was apparent, with <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/archives/cancon-junos-radio-music-industry-1.6050466">more recording taking place in studios and an increase in performance royalties being paid to songwriters</a>.</p>
<h2>Music grants for artists</h2>
<p>Two avenues of support for artists in Canada are campus/community radio and grants, often from FACTOR. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2021.2010028">research</a> found artists overwhelmingly emphasize the importance of grants to their careers. While some note barriers to access with writing and receiving some grants, grant funding remains crucial.</p>
<p>Both the Community Radio Fund of Canada and FACTOR receive money from <a href="https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/general/ccdparties.htm">Canadian Content Development (CCD) contributions</a>. These come from commercial radio stations with annual revenue above $1,250,000. English-language stations that meet this criteria pay $1,000 plus half a per cent on all revenues above $1,250,000.</p>
<p>To support music in Canada, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/01/03/apple-becomes-1st-company-worth-3-trillion-greater-than-the-gdp-of-the-uk/?sh=1e8cfacf5603">corporate music streaming services</a> should pay into CCD funds. </p>
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<img alt="People seen by a table with tshirts." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514316/original/file-20230308-1075-gmgavo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514316/original/file-20230308-1075-gmgavo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514316/original/file-20230308-1075-gmgavo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514316/original/file-20230308-1075-gmgavo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514316/original/file-20230308-1075-gmgavo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514316/original/file-20230308-1075-gmgavo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514316/original/file-20230308-1075-gmgavo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Mike DeAngelis, left, and Max Kerman of The Arkells seen with band merchandise in Toronto, Jan. 16, 2023. The group won the Juno for Group of the Year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
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<h2>Lower charting success</h2>
<p>Our research <a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-spotify-criticisms-point-to-larger-ways-musicians-lose-with-streaming-heres-3-changes-to-help-in-canada-176526">has documented a decline in the number and variety of charting artists and songs today in Canada</a> which coincides with lower charting success of Canadian artists. This can be correlated to a lack of CanCon regulations in streaming, versus in the 90s when CanCon regulations affected how Canadians listen to music.</p>
<p>In satellite radio, CanCon regulations mean <a href="https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2012/2012-629.htm">a certain per centage of channels must be Canadian</a>.
While these regulations aren’t perfect (Canadian channels are grouped together far down the channel lineup), artists have benefitted from royalties.</p>
<p>This was made evident in the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2022/10/25/final-nail-in-the-coffin-why-siriusxm-dropping-cbc-radio-3-is-potentially-catastrophic-for-canadian-artists.html">uproar surrounding the cancellation of CBC Radio 3</a> on SiriusXM, a channel that was a stable source of income for artists and labels.</p>
<p>Beyond reforms to C-11, <a href="https://winnspace.uwinnipeg.ca/handle/10680/2042">we argue</a> guidelines governing corporate mergers should centre the concerns of workers and consumers, benefiting many sectors in Canada, including music. </p>
<p>Both government actions would help address the most immediate danger facing Canadian music today: media consolidation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Fauteux has received past funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew deWaard has received past funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brianne Selman has received past funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p>Here’s how radio Canadian content policy started, and how Canadian legislation, C-11, could contribute to supporting and growing home-grown music in the digital era.Brian Fauteux, Associate Professor Popular Music and Media Studies, University of AlbertaAndrew deWaard, Assistant Professor, Media and Popular Culture, Department of Communications, University of California, San DiegoBrianne Selman, Scholarly Communications & Copyright Librarian, University of WinnipegLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1940872022-12-06T13:13:46Z2022-12-06T13:13:46ZMusic streaming in South Africa – new survey reveals musicians get a raw deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494168/original/file-20221108-19-6x725n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ihor Melnyk/Getty Images</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Musicians worldwide have been placing their tracks with global streaming platforms such as <a href="https://www.spotify.com/ng/free/">Spotify</a> for many years. South African musicians, however, have <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-lockdown-live-streams-working-for-south-africas-musicians-144946">reported</a> only sparse earnings from streaming music online. </p>
<p>When our <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-lockdown-live-streams-working-for-south-africas-musicians-144946">2020 survey</a> revealed this, we wondered if part of the reason was inexperience. At the time, COVID lockdowns had made live performances impossible, driving many South African musicians to try what looked like an alternative revenue stream.</p>
<p>In 2022 we broadened and deepened that research. And we discovered that earnings from music streaming remained poor. Further, <a href="https://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=540735">major</a> <a href="https://grassrootsmusicnetwork.org/live-streaming-music-uk-a-report-for-musicians/">international</a> <a href="https://grassrootsmusicnetwork.org/live-streaming-music-uk-a-report-for-musicians/">studies</a> were also now <a href="https://grassrootsmusicnetwork.org/live-streaming-music-uk-a-report-for-musicians/">demonstrating</a> the same earnings trend everywhere. </p>
<p>Those studies suggested that, without urgent reform, the entire streaming system was rigged against musicians. And genres and musicians on the periphery of the western-dominated music industry were hit hardest. </p>
<p>We heard from 279 music role players – artists, venues and local platforms – and took the international findings on board. The <a href="https://iksafrica.com/reports/Digital-Futures-Two-Taking-Music-Online-in-South-Africa.pdf">full report</a>, Digital Futures 2 Taking Music Online in South Africa, confirms, with much more nuance, that our 2020 findings were correct. </p>
<p>A much bigger sample spread across all provinces demonstrated that South African musicians weren’t beginners in the world of streaming: 77% of respondents had some involvement even before COVID struck. Just over 40% used methods including site analytics to monitor their business performance. But despite this, and despite the data also showing improved audiences and that more artists now owned their streaming rights, the earnings picture remained just as bleak.</p>
<p>“Poor” or “very poor” was how 63% of respondents rated their earnings. At best, streaming provided a supplement to other music-related earnings such as live performance or hiring out equipment. At worst it was a drain on them – because of platform fees. Without sponsorship, streaming would be impossible for most.</p>
<h2>Musicians are the losers</h2>
<p>South Africa’s musicians pay a dollar-equivalent fee to post their music on an international platform. They are allocated a payment whenever a track is streamed. But each stream is at best a few hundredths of a US cent, depending on the platform. What listeners pay doesn’t go directly to the artist. It goes into a global pot and is then allocated – after platform service fees are deducted. Allocations are made via complex algorithms based on many factors, including the artist’s existing share of the market and where their listeners are based.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-lockdown-live-streams-working-for-south-africas-musicians-144946">Are lockdown live streams working for South Africa's musicians?</a>
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<p>South African artists find themselves in the same boat as their international counterparts, even those in countries with far stronger digital infrastructures. The <a href="https://www.wipo.int/portal/en/index.html">World Intellectual Property Organization</a> goes as far as to suggest that streaming, currently controlled by a handful of global platforms, is corroding the ecosystem that nurtures music creativity. </p>
<p>Despite rising platform and label revenue from streaming, “there has been no trickle-down to performers,” the organisation <a href="https://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=540735">says</a>.</p>
<h2>Even worse in South Africa</h2>
<p>In South Africa, these problems are intensified by a massive <a href="http://www.digitaldividecouncil.com/what-is-the-digital-divide/">digital divide</a> and an undeveloped policy environment. Official policy on copyright – including the proposed <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/2/220608B13D-CopyRight-2017_Final.pdf">Copyright Amendment Bill</a> – does not even discuss engagement with the dominant global platforms. Neither does it address the possibility of new forms of royalty designed for streaming rather than broadcast or publication. </p>
<p>South African audiences lack easy, affordable digital access. Production and the constant online promotional engagement needed by musicians are constrained by the same circumstances. </p>
<p>Survey respondents, meanwhile, expressed urgent concern about digital piracy, theft of intellectual property, illicit sharing and how social media companies “work off our original music”. Load-shedding, regularly scheduled power cuts due to a creaking power infrastructure, was often mentioned. Power problems particularly affect music whose largest potential audiences are in townships (often underdeveloped urban areas populated by black South Africans) or rural areas. One wrote: “Some of my fans don’t understand the streaming technology; some don’t have phones that allow them to stream.” Another: “Poor network and load-shedding compromise production.”</p>
<p>Our conclusion is that unless change happens, streaming offers a very limited future for South African musicians. </p>
<h2>What’s needed</h2>
<p>Respondents called for faster official action on bridging the digital divide and on developing other demand-side stimuli for the South African music industry. It is not enough to assist music creators (the supply side) if audiences cannot afford or access their products. Government should collaborate with the royalty collection agencies to engage with global platforms, respondents said. </p>
<p>Longstanding discontents around the efficient collection and disbursement of royalties in South Africa are now joined by an urgent need for policy engagement with global platforms to seek more equitable payment regimes. (Depressingly, though, collection agencies and labels were still characterised as poor communicators with musicians, as they had been in 2020.)</p>
<p>The musicians and music-providers who responded to this survey demonstrated solid practical experience in managing their activities. They acknowledged that “the world is changing fast”. They named areas where they would welcome further training and information, because “we need to create more consistently, regardless of the landscape of the country’s support.”</p>
<p>One striking and positive finding was about how respondents saw their reasons for streaming. In thematic analysis of all the open responses, a sense of social mission and purpose constantly recurred: inspiring listeners; providing hope; “expressing feelings that people are afraid to express”; and advocating for the beauty of Africa’s music heritage. Our respondents know they may be on their own and may not make money from posting music online, but they do it “not for seeking attention or likes, but to share our ghetto experiences and stories.”</p>
<p>But musicians need to eat in order to tell their stories. National training and demand-side interventions can help, but the problems of musicians with the streaming system are global and systemic, and need attention from policymakers on that level too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell leads the research team at IKS Cultural Consulting which conducted the survey. Her contract work there on this project was funded by Concerts SA</span></em></p>New survey shows poor earnings from music streaming made worse by the digital divide and a lack of policy.Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1877192022-08-01T15:40:07Z2022-08-01T15:40:07ZAs tech giants face a financial downturn, some new players are focusing on people over profit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476908/original/file-20220801-38718-j81vln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=70%2C46%2C7732%2C5158&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Emerging technology business models aim to empower consumers</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/modern-education-diverse-students-using-gadgets-1517791583">Harbucks / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The tech industry has been rocked by recent economic woes. While once thought of as close to <a href="https://www.businessofbusiness.com/articles/is-netflix-recession-proof/">recession proof</a>, companies from Netflix to Meta are suddenly experiencing serious financial setbacks. As the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/23/big-tech-recession-concerns/">reported</a> last week: “Big tech is bracing for a possible recession, spooking other industries”. Meta (the company that owns Facebook) has seen its share prices drop by more than 50% this year, with its iconoclastic CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/mark-zuckerberg-meeting-vacation-annoyed-b2131732.html?amp">visibly frustrated</a>” at recent company Q&As with employees.</p>
<p>There are a range of reasons for this downturn, including a <a href="https://news.crunchbase.com/layoffs/tech-companies-downturn/">troubling mix</a> of reduced consumer spending and fears of an uncertain future. The tech-focused Nasdaq index has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/29/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html">dropped</a> 24% in value since January in this year alone, while lay-offs have been <a href="https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/tech-layoffs-2022/">announced</a> across the industry – with some reports counting more than <a href="https://layoffs.fyi/">60,000</a> tech redundancies globally so far this year.</p>
<p>In addition to cutting staff, technology companies are passing on these problems to consumers. People are already facing higher prices for some streaming services, and more increases are expected. Netflix has <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/netflix-raises-subscription-fees-in-israel-ireland-and-france/">raised prices</a> for consumers in countries including the UK and the US. They are also <a href="https://nerdist.com/article/netflix-stopping-password-sharing-with-price-increases/">trying to stop</a> people from different households sharing passwords. Amazon has also <a href="https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/amazon-prime-raising-prices-reactions">been criticised</a> for increasing its subscription fees recently for Prime delivery and streaming services.</p>
<p>Users have been <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/cost-of-living-crisis-uk-streaming-netflix-b2060295.html">cancelling subscriptions</a> to cut costs. Many of these services have become heavily embedded in our lives, however, with new technologies fundamentally transforming the way people interact, communicate, work and entertain themselves in recent years. </p>
<p>But there are growing concerns about the way these companies operate, aside from their profit levels and cost burden at a time of belt-tightening. Many users resent the fact that they still have relatively <a href="https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/streaming-heading-toward-breaking-point-consumers">little power</a> over how these technologies are developed and consumed. Tech corporations largely set the prices and conditions for both users and workers.</p>
<p>While many consumers accept this state of affairs, others are attempting to challenge huge tech conglomerates with platforms that give consumers, creators and workers more power. This idea is extending into data use as well. Even before the economic downturn, people were raising serious concerns about the use of algorithms to shape what we listen to and watch, for example, as well as <a href="https://www.groupsolver.com/blog/groupsolver-insights/your-data-is-big-techs-most-profitable-product/">questioning</a> business models based on <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/18/how-does-google-make-money-advertising-business-breakdown-.html">profiting</a> from user data.</p>
<h2>Emerging tech alternatives</h2>
<p>New tech startups such as browser provider Gener8 are seeking to target this consumer dissatisfaction. With <a href="https://www.realitytitbit.com/bbc/gener8-dragons-den">tens of thousands</a> of users already, this platform allows users to choose their <a href="https://gener8ads.com/products/browser">privacy levels</a> and get paid for the data collected from their search activity. They can also use these funds to directly support ethical projects of their choosing.</p>
<p>Across a range of other sectors, <a href="https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/our-work/opinions-information-reports/opinions/non-standard-employment-and-platform-cooperatives-digital-transformation-iy-own-initiative-opinion">platform cooperatives</a> want to revolutionise industries including transport and delivery by providing workers with fair wages and better conditions. Consumers are also given more say with the ability to jointly own, design and run these platforms according to their needs. Such initiatives are <a href="https://techmonitor.ai/regulation-compliance/why-platform-cooperatives-have-yet-to-challenge-big-tech">just starting</a> to make inroads against their much more powerful for-profit corporate competitors.</p>
<p>This movement is also affecting the entertainment industry by attempting to challenge for-profit streaming services. Means TV was created by the media producers Naomi Burton and Nick Hayes – famous for their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq3QXIVR0bs">viral campaign ad</a> for New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez. It <a href="https://means.tv/pages/info-meanstv">bills</a> itself as the “world’s first worker-owned, anti-capitalist streaming service”, with a democratic, cooperative structure in which all decisions are made by its employees, cooperative contractors and content creators. Members pay a US$10 (£8.18) monthly fee, but there are also reduced rate options for those who cannot afford this amount. </p>
<p>One full-time employee <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/means-tv-streaming-service-leftist-worker-owned">told the Guardian</a> that what makes Means TV so special is that the platform enables people to make TV and other media content with a small amount of money. Its subscription charges and donations directly fund artists so there are no pressures relating to advertising or corporate overheads.</p>
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<img alt="Laptop, tablet and phone showing a streaming platform, financial charts, coffee cup" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476913/original/file-20220801-20-b7jveo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476913/original/file-20220801-20-b7jveo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476913/original/file-20220801-20-b7jveo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476913/original/file-20220801-20-b7jveo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476913/original/file-20220801-20-b7jveo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476913/original/file-20220801-20-b7jveo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476913/original/file-20220801-20-b7jveo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">New tech business models aim to change how workers and creators are paid, as well as provide consumers with more choice and control in areas such as data.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/interface-video-distribution-service-subscription-streaming-1708763950">Metamorworks / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The cooperative music streaming service Resonate applies the same concept to the music industry, in that it is <a href="https://opencollective.com/resonate">owned</a> by “artists, listeners and workers”. While less explicitly political than Means TV, Resonate still aims to provide consumers with a new level of power and control. </p>
<p>Under the logo “play fair, pay fair”, the platform gives users <a href="https://resonate.is/pricing/">monthly credits</a> to spend as they listen to music and after streaming the same track nine times, it is added to their library. It advertises itself as ad and bot-free, and doesn’t sell user data. Resonate’s payment system was also designed to pay artists fairly and more with each listen. By 2021, the service had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jan/16/spotify-are-selling-adverts-not-music-how-to-stream-ethically#:%7E:text=Resonate%20has%201%2C500%20members%20but,and%20Sonstream%20just%20over%201m.">almost 1,400 monthly users</a> and could potentially handle another 2 million users, according its creators.</p>
<p>These are just a few examples of alternatives that, more than simply rivalling popular tech giants’ offerings, provide people with greater power over the technology they consume. And while these ethical alternatives are still relatively small, they could signal the beginning of an important new era of consumer power for the tech sector.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Bloom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Emerging platforms are challenging traditional tech giants by giving consumers and workers more powerPeter Bloom, Professor of Management, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1723012021-11-23T05:26:28Z2021-11-23T05:26:28ZAdele has successfully asked Spotify to remove ‘shuffle’ from albums. Here’s why that’s important for musicians<p>Adele’s long awaited, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/arts/music/adele-new-album-30.html">newly released fourth studio album</a>, 30 was guaranteed to make waves in the international music scene as Adele’s first full-length record in over six years. This week it made the news for a different reason. </p>
<p>In response to Adele’s request, Spotify has hidden the shuffle button from all albums accessed via the streaming music platform. In a <a href="https://twitter.com/Adele/status/1462260324485242881?s=20">viral tweet</a> immediately following the release of “30”, Adele commented “We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason… our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended. Thank you Spotify for listening.” </p>
<p>To which Spotify’s official Twitter account responded, “Anything for you.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1462260324485242881"}"></div></p>
<p>The move is likely to be well-received by Adele’s popstar peers, such as <a href="https://twitter.com/ladygaga/status/1266220379934097409?s=20">Lady Gaga</a> who implored the public listen to her album Chromatica start to finish when it released in 2020. </p>
<h2>Shuffle away</h2>
<p>Spotify’s shuffle button randomises songs. It is neither new nor unique. In the early 1980s, shuffle was available on CD players and MP3 players. It served as a staple for Spotify’s largest competitor Apple, via iTunes and long-forgotten devices such as the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/4/22561092/apple-bring-back-ipods-2021-music-services">iPod and iPod shuffle</a>.</p>
<p>Shuffle is essentially a random number generator that picks the next songs based on chance. The problem is true randomness means the same song might sometimes play repeatedly. In 2014, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/spotify-made-shuffle-feature-less-random-to-actually-feel-random-2020-3">Spotify tweaked their algorithm</a> to make shuffle seem more random.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mood-music-and-money-what-our-spotify-playlists-reveal-about-the-emotional-nature-of-financial-markets-166166">Mood, music and money: what our Spotify playlists reveal about the emotional nature of financial markets</a>
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<p>Shuffle is still available on Spotify for playlists, but users must now access it via a menu when listening to albums as opposed to having the option right next to the play button. A <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/21/22794838/spotify-adele-stop-shuffling-albums">statement from Spotify</a> hailed their “new premium feature […] to make play the default button on all albums”. This change applies to all albums, not just Adele’s 30, and features on both mobile and desktop versions of Spotify. </p>
<p>Spotify has faced dissatisfaction and criticism from musicians who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/arts/music/streaming-music-payments.html">decry the appalling low streaming payout rates</a> to artists, and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/spotify-teardown-book-streaming-music-790174/">academics</a> who raise concerns over the platform’s lack of transparency around data. </p>
<p>But Spotify has rarely changed course in response to critique – yet Spotify willingly removed the feature from album pages <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/21/spotify-hides-shuffle-button-adele-albums-should-tell-a-story">upon Adele’s request</a> to preserve the continuity of her album – a sign of the artist’s immense clout. </p>
<h2>The album is not dead</h2>
<p>Spotify’s decision to hide the shuffle button contrasts accusations that Spotify is responsible for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/aug/17/they-could-destroy-the-album-how-spotify-playlists-have-changed-music-for-ever">“killing” the musical album</a> as we once knew it. </p>
<p>As the largest music streaming service by paid subscription, Spotify is a powerful force in the global music industry. Artists, labels and production companies have taken note from Spotify as to what works and doesn’t work on a music streaming platform. </p>
<p>Though revenues from streaming are far lower than purchases or individual downloads, <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/drake-is-the-biggest-artist-of-all-time-on-apple-music-and-spotify-generating-over-50m/">superstar artists like Drake</a> have taken advantage of streaming services to garner billions of streams that pay out millions of dollars in revenue. </p>
<p>Even so, the numbers are underwhelming for mid-tier and independent artists. According to <a href="https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/26/band-1-million-spotify-streams-royalties/">Digital Music News</a> a niche EDM artist who managed the impressive feat of having listeners stream their music one million times over four months only generated about US$5,000 (A$6,924) in 2013. </p>
<p>One important issue is curated playlists. Much like radio stations, Spotify features playlists of the top charting songs in various regions, but unlike radio stations Spotify has a vast library of playlists to match every genre, mood, and moment handpicked by curators or created and shared by other users. </p>
<p>Producing “playlistable” songs that are more likely to be placed on a popular genre or mood playlist is now a <a href="https://www.tunecore.com/blog/2017/12/playlists-important-ever.html">crucial strategy</a> to build a following, attract labels and earn a living in music – but doing so comes at a cost. Orphan songs separated on a playlist from their album will not be experienced as part of a story in the context as artists like Adele intended. </p>
<p>The imperative to create popular singles is not new, the music industry is and has been centred around the hits, but the shifting logic of digital music streaming puts pressure on artists to examine carefully the cost and benefits of creating longer form art. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-music-industry-is-booming-and-can-afford-to-give-artists-a-fairer-deal-168587">The music industry is booming and can afford to give artists a fairer deal</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Beginning in 2014, <a href="https://www.billboard.com/pro/billboard-200-makeover-streams-digital-tracks/">Billboard started calculating</a> album equivalent units, or the number of streams that would count as one album sale when determining an album’s position on Billboard Charts. Having more songs on an album means more streams, which could translate to a higher chart position. It also means more money. </p>
<p>Artists have released longer albums, such as Kanye West’s recent album Donda (Deluxe) with a track listing <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/kanye-west-donda-deluxe-edition-1257889/">topping 30 songs</a>. This strategy could be seen to lead to more padding and fewer hits, ultimately diluting powerful records with bland or forgettable tunes, “as if artists are curating playlists rather than crafting cohesive projects”, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/k78djy/please-stop-making-really-long-albums">according to this VICE article</a>. </p>
<p>Adele’s insistence on the importance of streaming the twelve tracks on 30 in their proper order, and Spotify’s capitulation to her request, will resonate with artists who have been urged by labels, publishers, or the industry writ large to create “playlistable” singles or lengthier albums.</p>
<h2>Long live the album</h2>
<p>The death of the album has been forecast for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2008/aug/29/thedeathofthealbum">over a decade</a> and streaming services like Spotify have been one of the many potential culprits blamed. Yet artists are still releasing full, artistically realised albums in 2021. </p>
<p>In 2015, I <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/6bDQfeydgm6pShTUBkoHxg?si=ryXeS-qXSLel01SYaOsJ8g">released an album with my band</a> on streaming services including Spotify and Apple. My band-mates and I experienced firsthand the time and expenses needed to produce a full-length original album. We agonised over the track listing and waited until the full album was finished before we released any of our songs.</p>
<p>Six years later, I fully agree with Adele. I prefer to listen to my album in its intended order and I hope others will too. Like me, the average artist lacks Adele’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59365019">persuasive</a> influence to change the design of a major music streaming platform in order to tell a more cohesive musical story. </p>
<p>But that’s exactly what Adele and Spotify have done. Now you are encouraged to stream 30 by Adele in the order the artist intended.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye is the drummer and co-songwriter for Parallel Path. </span></em></p>Adele released her fourth studio album 30 and wants people to listen to the songs in the order she intended - asking Spotify to remove the “shuffle” function from her album.D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, Assistant researcher, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1692722021-10-24T07:22:34Z2021-10-24T07:22:34ZApple’s iPod came out two decades ago and changed how we listen to music. Where are we headed now?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427944/original/file-20211022-19-ls3you.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C35%2C5938%2C3911&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On October 23, 2001, Apple released the iPod — a portable media player that promised to overshadow the clunky design and low storage capacity of MP3 players introduced in the mid-1990s. </p>
<p>The iPod boasted the ability to “hold 1,000 songs in your pocket”. Its personalised listening format revolutionised the way we consume music. And with more than 400 million units <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/rise-and-fall-apple-ipod-2020-1?r=US&IR=T">sold since its release</a>, there’s no doubt it was a success. </p>
<p>Yet, two decades later, the digital music landscape continues to rapidly evolve.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6SUJNspeux8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Steve Jobs, then-chief executive of Apple, introducing the iPod in 2001.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A market success</h2>
<p>The iPod expanded listening beyond the constraints of the home stereo system, allowing the user to plug into not only their headphones, but also their car radio, their computer at work, or their hi-fi system at home. It made it easier to entwine these disparate spaces into a single personalised soundtrack throughout the day.</p>
<p>There were several preconditions that led to the iPod’s success. For one, it contributed to the end of an era in which people listened to relatively fixed music collections, such as mixtapes, or albums in their running order. The iPod (and MP3 players more generally) normalised having random collections of individual tracks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427953/original/file-20211022-23-11z1vkk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sony Walkman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427953/original/file-20211022-23-11z1vkk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427953/original/file-20211022-23-11z1vkk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427953/original/file-20211022-23-11z1vkk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427953/original/file-20211022-23-11z1vkk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427953/original/file-20211022-23-11z1vkk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427953/original/file-20211022-23-11z1vkk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427953/original/file-20211022-23-11z1vkk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It might seem clunky now, but the original iPod was much sleeker than older portable cassette devices such as the Sony Walkman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then during the 1990s, an MP3 encoding algorithm <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pGhIDQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA445&dq=mp3+fraunhofer&ots=AMSYOhB5UQ&sig=CrnewI4eSiOiWQgMiuiTO8NFRYs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=mp3%20fraunhofer&f=false">developed</a> at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany allowed unprecedented audio data compression ratios. In simple terms, this made music files much smaller than before, hugely increasing the quantity of music that could be stored on a device.</p>
<p>Then came peer-to-peer file-sharing services <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/31/napster-twenty-years-music-revolution">such as Napster</a>, Limewire and BitTorrent, released in 1999, 2000 and 2001, respectively. These furthered the democratisation of the internet for the end user (with Napster <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/31/napster-twenty-years-music-revolution">garnering 80 million users</a> in three years). The result was a fast-changing digital landscape where music piracy ran rife.</p>
<p>The accessibility of music significantly changed the relationship between listener and musician. In 2003, Apple responded to the music piracy crisis by launching its iTunes store, creating an <a href="https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-digital-rights-management">attractive model</a> for copyright-protected content. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the iPod continued to sell, year after year. It was designed to do one thing, and did it well. But this would change around 2007 with the release of the touchscreen <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/2604020/the-evolution-of-apples-iphone.html">iPhone</a> and <a href="https://www.androidauthority.com/history-android-os-name-789433/">Android</a> smartphones.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stream-weavers-the-musicians-dilemma-in-spotifys-pay-to-play-plan-151479">Stream weavers: the musicians' dilemma in Spotify's pay-to-play plan</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Computer in your pocket</h2>
<p>The rise of touchscreen smartphones ultimately led to the iPod’s downfall. Interestingly, the music app on the original iPhone was called “iPod”. </p>
<p>The iPod’s functions were essentially reappropriated and absorbed into the iPhone. The iPhone was a flexible and multifunctional device: an iPod, a phone and an internet communicator all in one — a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/29/my-electronic-swiss-army-knife-readers-on-10-years-of-the-iphone">computer in your pocket</a>.</p>
<p>And by making the development tools for their products freely available, Apple and Google allowed third-party developers to create apps for their new platforms in the thousands. </p>
<p>It was a game-changer for the mobile industry. And the future line of tablets, such as Apple’s iPad released in 2010, continued this trend. In 2011, iPhone sales <a href="https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-q4-2011-results-28-27-billion-revenue-17-07-million-iphones-11-12-million-ipads-4-89-million-macs-sold/">overtook the iPod</a>, and in 2014 the iPod Classic was <a href="https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-14-this-week-in-tech-history-apple-ipod-classic-discontinued.html">discontinued</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike the Apple Watch, which serves as a companion to smartphones, single-purpose devices such as the iPod Classic are now seen as antiquated and obsolete.</p>
<h2>Music streaming and the role of the web</h2>
<p>As of this year, mobile devices are responsible for <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/">54.8% of web traffic worldwide</a>. And while music piracy still exists, its influence has been significantly reduced by the arrival of streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube.</p>
<p>These platforms have had a profound effect on how we engage with music as active and passive listeners. Spotify supports an online community-based approach to music sharing, with curated playlists. </p>
<p>Based on our listening habits, it uses our activity data and a range of machine-learning <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2959100.2959120">techniques</a> to generate automatic recommendations for us. Both Spotify and YouTube have also embraced <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/19/15833880/spotify-sponsored-songs-playlists-test">sponsored content</a>, which boosts the visibility of certain labels and artists.</p>
<p>And while we may want to bypass popular music recommendations — especially to support new generations of musicians who lack visibility — the reality is we’re faced with a quantity of music we can’t possibly contend with. As of February this year, more than 60,000 tracks were <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/over-60000-tracks-are-now-uploaded-to-spotify-daily-thats-nearly-one-per-second/">being uploaded</a> to Spotify each day.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427952/original/file-20211022-40051-11o18w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427952/original/file-20211022-40051-11o18w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427952/original/file-20211022-40051-11o18w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427952/original/file-20211022-40051-11o18w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427952/original/file-20211022-40051-11o18w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427952/original/file-20211022-40051-11o18w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427952/original/file-20211022-40051-11o18w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427952/original/file-20211022-40051-11o18w.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">According to Statista, Spotify had 165 million premium subscribers worldwide as of the second quarter of 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>The experience of listening to music will become increasingly immersive with time, and we’ll only find more ways to seamlessly integrate it into our lives. Some signs of this include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Gen Z’s growing obsession with platforms such as TikTok, which is a huge promotional tool for artists lucky enough to have their track attached to a viral trend</p></li>
<li><p>new interactive tools for music exploration, such as <a href="http://radio.garden/visit/perth/cKenL5sw">Radio Garden</a> (which lets you tune into radio stations from across the globe), the <a href="https://eternalbox.dev/jukebox_index.html">Eternal Jukebox for Spotify</a> and <a href="https://github.com/ShunSawada/Music-information-processing/issues/28which">Instrudive</a></p></li>
<li><p>the use of wearables, such as <a href="https://www.bose.com.au/en_au/products/frames.html">Bose’s audio sunglasses</a> and bone-conduction headphones, which allow you to listen to music while interacting with the world rather than being closed off, and</p></li>
<li><p>the surge in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/legalentertainment/2021/02/09/the-future-of-live-events-ar-vr-and-advertising/?sh=412c20c42b65">virtual music performances</a> during the COVID pandemic, which suggests virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality will become increasingly accepted as spaces for experiencing music performances.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The industry is also increasingly adopting immersive audio. Apple has incorporated Dolby Atmos 3D spatial audio into both its Logic Pro music production software and music on the iTunes store. With spatial audio capabilities, the listener can experience surround sound with the convenience of portable headphones.</p>
<p>As for algorithms, we can assume more sophisticated machine learning will emerge. In the future, it may recommend music based on our feelings. For example, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071581918301654">MoodPlay</a> is a music recommendation system that lets users explore music through mood-based filtering.</p>
<p>Some advanced listening devices even adapt to our physiology. The Australian-designed <a href="https://www.nuraphone.com/">Nura headphones</a> can pick up information about how a specific listener’s ears respond to different sound frequencies. They purport to automatically adjust the sound to perfectly suit that listener.</p>
<p>Such technologies are taking “personalised listening” to a whole new level, and advances in this space are set to continue. If the digital music landscape has changed so rapidly within the past 20 years, we can only assume it will continue to change over the next two decades, too.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/goodbye-ipod-classic-31512">Goodbye iPod Classic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169272/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart James has previously received funding from the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries (DLGSC). </span></em></p>The iPod was a marvel: a sleek device that let you pocket your favourite tunes and roam around town. Today it’s more or less obsolete — but its impact has been evident.Stuart James, Lecturer and Research Scholar in Composition and Music Technology, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1685872021-09-28T15:46:22Z2021-09-28T15:46:22ZThe music industry is booming and can afford to give artists a fairer deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423602/original/file-20210928-23-ghioyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=299%2C95%2C7688%2C3389&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-happy-attractive-asian-woman-using-1716071020">Shutterstock/Chaay_Tee</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Shares in Universal Music Group <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/universal-music-group-shares-surge-stock-market-debut-2021-09-21/">surged</a> after its US$40 billion (£29.5 billion) flotation on September 21, suggesting many people think the music business has a strong future. One of them, Lucian Grainge, the company’s chief executive, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/21/universal-chief-growth-digital-listening-boom-record-music-flotation-lucian-grainge">believes expansion will be driven</a> partly by changing consumer habits and the exploitation of undeveloped markets in some of the world’s largest countries. </p>
<p>Industry statistics appear to support Grainge’s optimism, with total global revenue in the music industry increasing by <a href="https://www.ifpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GMR2021_STATE_OF_THE_INDUSTRY.pdf">54% between 2014 and 2020</a>. The upswing, after more than a decade of decline, is being driven by online streaming, which now has a healthy share (62%) of overall revenue.</p>
<p>Most of that revenue ends up with the record labels, and as one of the “big three” (along with Warner and Sony), Universal stands to reap substantial rewards from this situation. Indeed, the company’s <a href="https://www.vivendi.com/en/publication/financial-report-and-unaudited-condensed-financial-statements-for-the-half-year-ended-june-30-2021/">double-digit growth</a> in revenue over the last year indicates the strong financial health of the music industry.</p>
<p>The streaming platforms themselves, though, have so far struggled to become profitable businesses – partly due to the expensive licensing deals they have to pay the record companies. Spotify has made <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/loss-making-spotify-will-continue-to-focus-on-growth-over-profit-for-next-few-years/">substantial losses</a> throughout its existence. (Others, like Amazon and Apple, use music streaming as just part of their portfolios, making it difficult to identify its precise contribution.) </p>
<p>Musicians, meanwhile, remain in the most precarious position, even while the industry they work in is booming. In the UK, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/music-creators-earnings-in-the-digital-era/executive-summary#executive-summary-of-main-findings">62% of musical artists earned no more than £20,000 in 2019</a>. </p>
<p>In the past, they were able to add to what they made in streaming royalties – it takes around <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream?r=US&IR=T">250 plays on Spotify to make US$1</a> (£0.74) – through live performances. But this has been severely curtailed by the pandemic, which has affected not only ticket sales, but also merchandise and record sales at concert venues.</p>
<p>Out of this fertile soil of discontentment have grown musician-led campaigns like <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/music-theatre/2021/02/broken-record-music-streaming-spotify-tom-gray">Broken Record and Keep Music Alive</a>, whose influence in the UK led to an official government inquiry in 2020 looking into the economics of music streaming. </p>
<p>One of the main recommendations of its <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmcumeds/50/5003.htm#_idTextAnchor000">recently released report</a> is for the government to establish a mechanism for delivering “[equitable remuneration]” to musicians. This would aim to give them something like a 50/50 split with record labels from royalties, as opposed to the current roughly estimated <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18910/pdf/">55/30/15 split</a> between label, platform and artist respectively. </p>
<p>The UK’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/competition-and-markets-authority">competition regulator</a> is now set to investigate the power of the companies that dominate the UK’s music industry. And while any recommendations would relate only to the UK, as the <a href="https://www.ifpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GMR2021_STATE_OF_THE_INDUSTRY.pdf">world’s third-largest music market</a> (after the US and Japan), it could still prove influential elsewhere.</p>
<h2>A different tune</h2>
<p>But big questions remain about the future direction of the music industry. Relations between record labels and the streaming platforms will need to be continually scrutinised, especially where there are concerns of potential monopolies. </p>
<p>And while fairer distribution of revenue among labels, platforms and musicians will improve the artists’ position, real change can only come from increased revenue. One answer to this problem would be to reconsider how much money we are prepared to spend on accessing music. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Silhouette of guitarist in field at sunset." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423613/original/file-20210928-26-78uzsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423613/original/file-20210928-26-78uzsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423613/original/file-20210928-26-78uzsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423613/original/file-20210928-26-78uzsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423613/original/file-20210928-26-78uzsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423613/original/file-20210928-26-78uzsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423613/original/file-20210928-26-78uzsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Time to shine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/silhouette-musician-guitar-sunset-field-music-458805415">Shutterstock/Song_about_summer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Monthly subscription fees for some of the major streaming platforms <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/15416/pdf/">hover around £9.99</a>, which is extremely good value for access to most of the music that has ever been recorded. </p>
<p>This price point has been maintained for more than a decade, perhaps because of the general feeling that easy access to “freemium” models, particularly YouTube Music, has placed a ceiling on the cost of subscriptions.</p>
<p>But the <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/uk-vinyl-sales-in-2020-are-the-highest-since-the-early-90s-2846310">rise in vinyl sales</a> in recent years, alongside the increasing popularity of streaming platforms like <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-mps-plans-for-music-streaming-mean-for-artists-and-listeners-164532">Sonstream and Bandcamp</a>, which enable listeners to pay their favourite artists directly, suggest that consumers are becoming more aware of the need to support musicians. </p>
<p>Streaming is likely to continue to dominate the music industry. But there are changes, driven both by political inquiry and consumers’ habits, which will hopefully establish a more equitable ecosystem, and allow for a fairer way of paying artists for their work. For whatever business model for music lies ahead, it cannot survive without providing fair financial backing to sustain the creativity of new musical talent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Big labels are making big money from streaming.Andrew White, Visiting Professor of Creative Industries and Digital Media, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1663462021-08-20T04:28:35Z2021-08-20T04:28:35ZTikTok is partnering with a blockchain start-up. Here’s why this could be good news for artists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417154/original/file-20210820-17-cq7hr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C19%2C3334%2C2335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Bechervaise/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 17, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/tiktok-sounds-streaming-crypto-blockchain-nfts-audius-1211699/">TikTok announced</a> it will partner with Audius, a streaming music platform, to manage its expansive internal audio library.</p>
<p>Audius was not the obvious choice for partnering with the short video giant. A digital music streaming start-up founded in 2018, it isn’t one of the major streaming services such as Apple Music or Spotify. </p>
<p>And, even more unusual, Audius is one of the first and only streaming platforms run on blockchain.</p>
<h2>Remind me, what is blockchain?</h2>
<p>Blockchain is a technology that stores data records and transfers values with no centralised ownership. </p>
<p>Transaction data on these systems are stored as individual “blocks” that sequentially link together when connected by timestamps and unique identifiers to form “chains”. </p>
<p>For music, this means individual songs are assigned unique codes, and clear records are stored each time a song is played. It can also mean more streamlined and transparent payments.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/demystifying-the-blockchain-a-basic-user-guide-60226">Demystifying the blockchain: a basic user guide</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Platforms like Spotify and Apple Music use a “pro-rata” model to pay artists. Under this system, artists get a cut of the platform’s overall monthly revenues generated from ads and subscription fees, as calculated by how many times their music was played.</p>
<p>The pro-rata model has been criticised by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/22/743775196/the-success-of-streaming-has-been-great-for-some-but-is-there-a-better-way">independent artists and analysts</a> for maintaining a “superstar economy” in which the most popular artists claim a majority share of monthly revenue. </p>
<p>Facilitated by its blockchain system, Audius uses a “user-centric” model, where artists receive revenues generated by the individual users who stream their music directly. </p>
<p>That is, payments are generated for artists more directly from people streaming their songs.</p>
<p>While the biggest streaming players have refused to abandon pro-rata payments, Deezer — a French music streaming service with around 16 million monthly active users — has taken the <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/deezer-plans-2020-user-centric-payment-system-pilot-launch/">first steps towards user-centric</a> payments. </p>
<p>Now, it seems TikTok may be poised to follow.</p>
<h2>And how does TikTok work?</h2>
<p>At over 800 million monthly active users, TikTok is the world’s largest short video platform and has become a significant force in global music industries. </p>
<p>Once on TikTok, songs can be used as background for short videos — and can go viral.</p>
<p>Currently, putting independent music on TikTok requires the help of a publisher or companies like CD Baby or TuneCore that charge a fee or take a cut of revenues. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-secret-of-tiktoks-success-humans-are-wired-to-love-imitating-dance-moves-133057">The secret of TikTok's success? Humans are wired to love imitating dance moves</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Audius will enable independent artists to upload music directly to TikTok. This would be a boon for musical artists given the centrality of music on TikTok and the platform’s propensity for <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/14544/3496">failing to properly credit artists for their work</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17510694.2021.1939541">Recent research</a> into blockchain systems in book publishing suggests the technology can lead to improved tracking of intellectual property and increased royalty payments to independent authors. The same may be true for independent musicians on TikTok, but a history of overstated claims and unfulfilled promises warrants measured expectations.</p>
<h2>Is this a fairer payment system?</h2>
<p>So far, TikTok has made no indication the company will use Audius’ blockchain technology to implement a user-centric revenue model, but the incorporation of royalty payments per video plays is a reasonable expectation. </p>
<p>When artists are paid from a platform like Spotify, they are paid in money. But Audius conducts blockchain transactions using its in-house cryptocurrency called $AUDIO. </p>
<p>Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies stored on public ledgers rather than in banks and used to make transactions facilitated by blockchain systems. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/tiktok-sounds-streaming-crypto-blockchain-nfts-audius-1211699/">Audius’ co-founder claims</a> most users are unaware or uninterested in the cryptocurrency underpinning the platform — but the price of $AUDIO <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/audio-market-cap-surges-past-%241b-after-tiktok-audius-partnership-news-2021-08-17">spiked on coin markets</a> immediately following the announcement. </p>
<p>Because cryptocurrencies operate on a volatile market, if artists were to collect payments in $AUDIO it might be impossible to predict whether their income would amount to fair compensation.</p>
<p>Artists’ income won’t only be tied to how often their music is listened to, but also to market speculation.</p>
<h2>So, what does this mean for artists?</h2>
<p>Some independent artists may be wary to handle payments through a decentralised digital currency subject to fewer regulations and unpredictable value fluctuations — not to mention the <a href="https://theconversation.com/bitcoin-isnt-getting-greener-four-environmental-myths-about-cryptocurrency-debunked-155329">environmental costs</a> associated with mining and maintaining cryptocurrency. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bitcoin-isnt-getting-greener-four-environmental-myths-about-cryptocurrency-debunked-155329">Bitcoin isn't getting greener: four environmental myths about cryptocurrency debunked</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>And a user-centric model is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444820953541">not without flaws</a>. For the model to be truly tested requires full cooperation from record labels, music publishers and digital platforms. </p>
<p>Anything less would create fundamentally unequal conditions for artists using different services. </p>
<p>Even TikTok isn’t putting all their eggs in the blockchain basket. In <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/tiktok-inks-global-multi-year-deal-with-music-publishers/">June 2020</a> TikTok established partnerships with major labels and Indie consortia for music distribution, and <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-gb/tiktok-spotify-launch-premium-offer-in-uk">in July 2021</a> TikTok announced a new partnership with Spotify to offer premium services exclusive to European artists.</p>
<p>But, after years of sensational claims and unfulfilled promises that blockchain will transform the future of the music industry, TikTok has taken a tangible step towards uncovering what that future might actually look like for everyday artists.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>TikTok is partnering with blockchain company Audius over Spotify or Apple for music distribution. Here’s why this could be important for independent artists.D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, Assistant researcher, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1660902021-08-17T05:49:55Z2021-08-17T05:49:55ZThe more video streaming services we get, the more we’ll turn to piracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416433/original/file-20210817-22-evwrgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C81%2C6016%2C3044&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the launch of the <a href="https://www.paramountplus.com/">Paramount+</a>, Australian consumers of video streaming are arguably drowning in choice. </p>
<p>We now have more than a dozen “<a href="https://www.canstarblue.com.au/streaming/australia-streaming-services/">subscription video on demand</a>” services to choose from, with many dozens more options available <a href="https://flixed.io/complete-list-streaming-services-2021/">worldwide</a> to anyone with a VPN to get around geoblocks. </p>
<p>But all this competition isn’t actually making things easier. It’s likely all this “choice” will see more of us turning to piracy to watch our favourite films and televisions shows.</p>
<p>The problem is that services are competing (at least in part) through offering exclusive content and original programming. </p>
<p>Paramount+, for example, is offering content from Paramount Pictures and other entertainment companies owned by entertainment conglomerate ViaComCBS. These include Showtime, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Its catalogue ranges from the Indiana Jones and Harry Potter movies to popular TV shows Dexter, NCIS and The Big Bang Theory. </p>
<p>This content may have been available on your preferred services. But <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-11/guide-to-paramount-plus-shows-price/100367094">the end goal</a> — as with Disney+ and others — is for all ViaComCBS-owned content to be exclusive to Paramount+.</p>
<p>Here the problem for the consumer becomes evident. How many subscription services do you want to join? Subscribing to the six most popular video streaming services — Netflix, Stan, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Binge, and Apple TV+ — will cost you about $60 a month. How much more are you willing to pay for a new service to watch a favourites film or TV show now only that service?</p>
<p>The temptation to turn to piracy is clear.</p>
<h2>Losing aggregation</h2>
<p>The emergence of video streaming services such as Netflix <a href="https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2020.1256">was heralded</a> as an effective way to curb illegal downloads. But how Netflix did this at first was in aggregating content. It provided a convenient, cost-effective and legal way to access a large catalogue of TV shows and movies; and consumers <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24911187">embraced</a> it.</p>
<p>But as the streaming market has developed, the loss of content aggregation appears to be leading back to piracy. </p>
<p>As an example, according to analytics company Sandvine, the file-sharing tool BitTorrent accounted for 31% of all uploads in 2018; in 2019 it was <a href="https://www.sandvine.com/hubfs/Sandvine_Redesign_2019/Downloads/Internet%20Phenomena/Internet%20Phenomena%20Report%20Q32019%2020190910.pdf">45%</a>. As Sandvine explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When Netflix aggregated video, we saw a decline in file sharing worldwide, especially in the US, where Netflix’s library was large and comprehensive. As
new original content has become more exclusive to other streaming services, consumers are turning to file sharing to get access to those exclusives since
they can’t or won’t pay money just for a few shows. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This trend has been amplified by COVID-19 lockdowns, with traffic to illegal TV and movie sites reportedly <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-lockdowns-lead-to-surge-in-digital-piracy-11587634202">surging in 2020</a>. A survey for the Australian Government found <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/documents/2020-consumer-copyright-infringement-survey">34% of respondents</a> consumed some form of illegal content in 2020. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-amazons-purchase-of-mgm-mark-the-end-of-netflixs-reign-162158">Will Amazon's purchase of MGM mark the end of Netflix's reign?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Lessons from music</h2>
<p>Why should this be happening more for TV shows and movies and not for music?</p>
<p>There’s an important difference. Services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal offer you just about all the music there is. You don’t need to sign up to one to listen to The Beatles and another to hear Taylor Swift. You need only sign up to one.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Music streaming services have the benefit of being a one-stop shop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416459/original/file-20210817-23-1p4vqhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416459/original/file-20210817-23-1p4vqhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416459/original/file-20210817-23-1p4vqhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416459/original/file-20210817-23-1p4vqhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416459/original/file-20210817-23-1p4vqhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416459/original/file-20210817-23-1p4vqhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416459/original/file-20210817-23-1p4vqhj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Music streaming services have the benefit of being a one-stop shop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ymgerman/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/425103">Research</a> has shown that a consumer’s willingness to pay is often anchored around the initial information they are exposed to. Viewers accustomed to paying for one streaming service might be reluctant to pay for as many as six.</p>
<p>In a survey of about 3,000 US TV watchers in February, <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90637380/56-of-connected-device-users-are-overwhelmed-by-the-number-of-streaming-services-to-choose-from">56% said they felt overwhelmed </a> by the number of streaming services on offer. </p>
<p>Deloitte’s <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/au-deloitte-tel-media-consumer-survey-2019-report.pdf">Australian Media Consumer Survey 2019</a> found that almost half of streaming video on demand subscribers said it was hard to know what content is available on what service. Three-quarters said they wanted the content in one place, rather than having to hunt through multiple services.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stream-weavers-the-musicians-dilemma-in-spotifys-pay-to-play-plan-151479">Stream weavers: the musicians' dilemma in Spotify's pay-to-play plan</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Seeking a one-stop shop</h2>
<p>Although it is not yet clear how many video streaming services the Australian market can support, high-profile failures both <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/goodbye-presto-foxtel-seven-west-media-streaming-service-to-shut-down/">at home</a> and <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/11/18/reasons-why-quibi-failed-other-streaming-services/">overseas</a> should serve as a warning. </p>
<p>But in the absence of a legal one-stop-shop for TV and movies, people will take matters into their own hands. </p>
<p>Illegal streaming platforms that aggregate content from multiple video streaming services into a single interface are becoming more widespread. Such services typically use an open-source media player, coupled with cheap <a href="https://www.firesticktricks.com/jailbreak-fire-stick.html">jailbroken hardware</a> and a VPN to access a plethora of illegal entertainment. </p>
<p>Until the industry offers a legal alternative to such platforms, the popularity of such services is only likely to grow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166090/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All this ‘choice’ in streaming video on demand is undermining the market benefits of aggregation.Paul Crosby, Lecturer, Department of Economics, Macquarie UniversityJordi McKenzie, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1645322021-07-19T12:06:38Z2021-07-19T12:06:38ZWhat MPs’ plans for music streaming mean for artists and listeners<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411696/original/file-20210716-27-1h2rjv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C94%2C5708%2C3733&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-on-couch-watches-movie-mobile-326420261">LDprod/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Musicians, including session players and instrumentalists, would receive a fairer share of revenues from streaming platforms under reforms being considered in the UK.</p>
<p>If implemented, <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/6739/documents/71977/default/">new recommendations from a select committee</a> of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport would involve a “complete reset” of the industry with wide-ranging implications not just for artists, but for record labels, streaming platforms and listeners.</p>
<p>One of the committee’s main recommendations is a more equitable division of royalties and rights payments from the streaming economy, which has earned <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/6739/documents/71977/default/">£3.5 billion since 2009</a>. Presently only 8% of UK musicians derive 5% or more of their income from streaming. </p>
<p>Under the current system, musicians and songwriters receive revenue every time their music is played by broadcasters – namely on radio stations and in TV programmes and films. This type of play is regarded as “communication to the public”, fixing the distribution of revenue from the relevant copyright collecting society at 50/50 per song for record labels and performers. </p>
<p>Conversely, a stream through services such as Spotify or Apple Music is considered a means of “making available” a song, a status which does not provide a fixed rate of revenue. This makes most musicians’ payments dependent on negotiations between the streaming platforms and the major record labels. </p>
<p>In the case of the major streaming platforms, this generally results in a <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18910/pdf/">percentage breakdown</a> of around 55/30/15 for record labels, streaming platforms, and performers and publishers, respectively. Under this arrangement, session musicians (who are not part of the band but contribute to a song) usually do not receive royalties. Their loss of revenue has been exacerbated due to lack of live performances during the pandemic.</p>
<p>To remedy these inequities, the select committee propose adding something akin to a “communication to the public” right alongside the existing “making available” one. The World Intellectual Property Organization <a href="https://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/copyright/en/sccr_41/sccr_41_3.pdf">proposed something similar</a> earlier this year.</p>
<p>This could be similar to the current model in Spain. In 2006, the Spanish government introduced a scheme where, each time a song is performed in public (which includes streaming), all the musicians and songwriters involved in its performance and composition will receive a small payment. These payments are collected and distributed to artists, including those outside Spain.</p>
<h2>Copyright, licensing, and the Big Three</h2>
<p>Another committee proposal – to tighten regulations on copyright protection – has the potential to generate additional money for all sectors. </p>
<p>Focusing on platforms such as YouTube, which host user-uploaded content, the committee agrees that streaming services should be compelled to obtain licenses for the music they allow on their platform. </p>
<p>One <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/15315/pdf/">proposed way to encourage this</a> would be for the UK to adopt a version of an EU directive on copyright that would weaken the <a href="https://completemusicupdate.com/article/dissecting-the-streaming-inquiry-09-safe-harbour/">“safe harbour” justification</a> used by online platforms. This is the notion that online services should not be held responsible for copyright infringement in content uploaded by third parties.</p>
<p>The committee suggested that this makes it harder for artists and record labels to strike favourable deals with platforms. If unlicensed music continues to appear on platforms such as YouTube, those platforms will have less incentive to make a deal with the artist or label to host official content. </p>
<p>In turn, the popularity of various “freemium” options – where users can access some content for free, with additional content accessible by subscription – means there is no incentive for the main streaming platforms to raise their subscriptions above the £9.99 per month ceiling that has existed for more than a decade.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1415451045338177540"}"></div></p>
<p>The committee also wants the Intellectual Property Office to take on the task of improving industry metadata – information attached to music files that identifies all people who have rights to a song. </p>
<p>Currently, streaming services and record labels can claim that they cannot identify rights-holders, resulting in a “black box” of unclaimed revenues (<a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmcumeds/50/5006.htm">amounting to US$2.5 billion in 2019 alone</a>. These are often misallocated or ploughed back into the industry, disproportionately benefiting the wealthiest record companies and performers. </p>
<p>The committee is also calling on the government to use its authority to investigate the impact of the oligopoly formed by the three biggest record labels – <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/universal-sony-warner-music-profits-covid-1085112/">Warner, Universal and Sony</a>. There is also evidence of not insignificant cross-ownership, with Sony and Universal having financial stakes in Spotify, and the <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/16721/pdf/">Big Three owning the three biggest music publishers</a>.</p>
<h2>Listen closely</h2>
<p>This raises tough questions for everyone who listens to music. Paying a low monthly subscription to major streaming platforms for access to virtually all songs that have ever been recorded is an attractive option, but only the most popular musicians benefit from the existing model. </p>
<p>There are smaller, specialist platforms, including <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/15420/pdf/">Sonstream</a> and Bandcamp, which provide a more intimate connection between artists and listeners. These services pay the artists more, but have higher fees for listeners.</p>
<p>East Asian schemes to <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/15109/pdf/">monetise the relationship between fans and their favourite bands</a> could be adopted in the UK. The nascent market in <a href="https://twitter.com/fhvln/status/1322180518780260353">livestreaming</a> also has great potential to pay money directly to artists.</p>
<p>Consumer behaviour is the missing link in all these discussions. After all, piracy and low-fee subscriptions exist, ultimately, because consumers expect not to pay so much for music. Any reform of the streaming industry must take this into account, even if current discussions leave this out.</p>
<p>As the chair of the DCMS committee, and many of its members, are Conservative MPs, it is likely the government will respond positively to the report. Future legislation will hopefully raise the pay of the average musician in the UK, even if that means that we will all pay a little more for music.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Musicians, record labels and listeners could all be affected by sweeping changes to the music streaming industry.Andrew White, Visiting professor, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1569262021-03-26T15:02:44Z2021-03-26T15:02:44ZMusic streaming: listening to playlists drives down the revenue of smaller artists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391682/original/file-20210325-19-1vp2h0n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C6960%2C4209&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Playlists curated by major music streaming platforms tend to reduce the revenue of smaller artists.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portland-usa-mar-13-2021-assorted-1935354940">Tada Images/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When music fans listen to their favourite album, there’s a certain satisfaction derived from knowing that they paid for the music they love – they’re giving back to the artists who made it.</p>
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<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>That’s not the case on <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/music-streaming-ucps-spotify">music streaming platforms</a>, where artists aren’t paid a fixed fee when you stream their songs or albums. Instead, your subscription fee enters a big pot which is then split between every artist on the platform based on their share of overall streams. You can think of the payment pot as a pie chart: the size of an artist’s slice of revenue is determined by how many streams they get compared with their fellow artists.</p>
<p>This might seem a fair way to distribute music streaming revenue. If Rihanna gets 1% of all streams on Spotify, it’s fair that she is paid 1% of the subscription revenue. But this system, called the pro rata payment model, begins to look unfair when the effects of curated playlists are taken into account.</p>
<p>Popular playlists are streamed repeatedly by millions of people, constituting <a href="https://www.goodwatercap.com/thesis/understanding-spotify">around a third</a> of all streams on platforms like Spotify – a third of the pro rata pie. Because the third of the streaming pie represented by playlists mostly features the world’s most prominent musicians, the effect of playlists is to enlarge the slices enjoyed by the biggest artists at the expense of smaller artists, who see their tiny slices shrink further. </p>
<p>This uneven playing field was the subject of our <a href="https://www.competitionpolicyinternational.com/music-streaming-is-it-a-level-playing-field/">recent investigation into playlists</a> on Spotify, conducted with royalty-pricing expert Daniel Antal. We found that playlists don’t just benefit top artists, but the curators of these playlists may unfairly favour such artists, influenced by the negotiating power of the major music labels that manage them.</p>
<h2>On demand</h2>
<p>Over the last few years, music streaming has become the dominant form of music distribution around the world. Today, streaming makes up <a href="https://www.ifpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Global_Music_Report-the_Industry_%20in_2019-en.pdf">over half</a> of global revenue from the selling of recorded music.</p>
<p>Globally, almost <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/653926/music-streaming-service-subscriber-share/">four in five</a> listeners use Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Tencent or YouTube. Some of the music that listeners on these platforms come across is the result of a targeted search for a specific artist or an album, but many people choose to simply defer to a playlist of some sort to throw together their musical diet.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A phone showing Spotify playlists against a green blackground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391680/original/file-20210325-19-11scyi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391680/original/file-20210325-19-11scyi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391680/original/file-20210325-19-11scyi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391680/original/file-20210325-19-11scyi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391680/original/file-20210325-19-11scyi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391680/original/file-20210325-19-11scyi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391680/original/file-20210325-19-11scyi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Independent label artists do not get their fair share of access to the most popular Spotify playlists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-march-2021-spotify-music-1932694550">Ink Drop/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The biggest playlists on Spotify are curated by the platform’s editors, attracting <a href="https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2020/11/20-most-popular-playlists-on-spotify.html">several million</a> regular listeners. As an artist, featuring in a top playlist is like hitting the jackpot: your streams will rocket, and your slice of the pie will increase. </p>
<p>There are over 4 billion playlists on Spotify, but those that make up the top 100 attract a quarter of all playlist followers. Our study found that 81% of the songs in these top 100 Spotify playlists are recordings by major music labels. <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24713/w24713.pdf">A 2018 study</a> found inclusion in a top playlist with 18.5 million followers raises an artist’s streams by almost 20 million, and results in a payout of at least US$116,000 (£84,500).</p>
<h2>Getting listed</h2>
<p>Naturally, artists, record labels and their distribution partners are all interested in maximising the streams their songs receive and consequently the revenue they can pocket. Getting into the top playlists is a smart way of achieving this, but with around <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/over-60000-tracks-are-now-uploaded-to-spotify-daily-thats-nearly-one-per-second/">60,000 new songs</a> uploaded each day on Spotify alone, this is not a trivial task.</p>
<p>Major record labels, with their enormous catalogue of current and past music as a bargaining chip, are in a strong position to negotiate preferential playlist access. Their bargaining power is further enhanced by the <a href="https://musically.com/2021/01/19/major-labels-gave-evidence-to-the-uks-music-streaming-economics-inquiry-so-what-did-we-learn/">minimum payment guarantees</a> they include in their contracts with streaming platforms, and the <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/who-really-owns-spotify-955388/">equity stakes</a> they hold in some of them. The major labels also have their own large playlists, such as <a href="https://filtr.com/ro/spotify">Filtr</a> and <a href="https://topsify.com/GB">Topsify</a>, which further enhances playlist access for their artists.</p>
<p>As a result, our analysis of Spotify data suggests that independent label artists are getting less than their fair share of access to the most popular playlists. And under the pro rata system, that means smaller artists are seeing their streaming revenues further depleted – especially by heavy users, such as pubs and cafes, who are constantly playing popular playlists throughout the day.</p>
<h2>User centrism</h2>
<p>Earlier this month, musicians held a series of <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/musicians-protest-outside-spotify-offices-worldwide-for-justice-at-spotify-campaign-2901582">worldwide protests</a> outside Spotify’s offices. One of their demands was for Spotify to move towards a “user-centric” payment model.</p>
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<p>It’s a system we’d urgently recommend, as it would see the royalties generated by your subscription split simply between the artists you choose to listen to. The available evidence suggests that a move to user-centric payments would benefit local and national artists that cater for more niche tastes, redistributing this cash from the more international and mainstream stars.</p>
<p>In the UK, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has formed a committee to investigate whether the <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/work/646/economics-of-music-streaming/">economics of music streaming</a> is fair to all artists. Our study is one of the <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/work/646/economics-of-music-streaming/publications/">submissions</a> to help the committee plan the way forward for music streaming in the UK.</p>
<p>In a pandemic hit world, where live music is almost completely (although hopefully only temporarily) eradicated, music streaming is an important source of income for musicians. But if independent labels and artists are left without a sufficient slice of the pie, it threatens the wonderful diversity of music we currently have on-demand access to, wherever we are in the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156926/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amelia Fletcher is a small-scale performing artist, with music available on the streaming platforms. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ormosi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most of your Spotify subscription fee goes to pop stars in curated playlists – even if you never listen to them.Peter Ormosi, Associate Professor of Competition Economics, University of East AngliaAmelia Fletcher, Professor of Competition Policy, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1570972021-03-19T14:08:22Z2021-03-19T14:08:22ZAudio cassettes: despite being ‘a bit rubbish’, sales have doubled during the pandemic – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390418/original/file-20210318-23-s3jvbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4223%2C2786&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's not just old cassettes that are selling: the current crop of pop musicians are shifting their music on tapes, too.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/vilnius-lithuania-september-19-2020-large-1818353072">BOOCYS/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Described by some as “<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/2/9248209/ifa-2015-the-best-of-europes-biggest-tech-show">Europe’s biggest tech show</a>”, the Berlin Radio Show has long been famous for exhibiting the next big thing in consumer electronics. In 1963, that was the compact audio cassette, introduced at the time by its creator, the late Dutch engineer Lou Ottens, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/lou-ottens-cassette-tape-inventor-b1815501.html">who died</a> in early March. </p>
<p>Over the course of Ottens’ lifetime, cassette tapes came to redefine listening habits, which until then had been limited to the much more unwieldy vinyl record. Car stereos and the iconic Sony Walkman suddenly made <a href="https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/cassette-revolution/">individual listening experiences</a> possible outside of the home. The re-recordable nature of the format, meanwhile, helped music fans collate and circulate their own mixtapes. At its peak in 1989, the cassette tape was shifting <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4099904.stm">83 million units per year</a> in the UK alone.</p>
<p>Despite having been superseded in functionality first by the compact disc (CD) and then the digital file (mp3 and mp4), the audio cassette retains a special place in the history of audio technology, with mixtapes a precursor to playlists, and the Walkman the precursor to the iPod.</p>
<p>And, despite being considered aesthetically and materially inferior to the vinyl record that came before it, the audio cassette is actually experiencing something of a resurgence – partly for sentimental reasons, but also because, with gigs cancelled, it’s a smart way for smaller artists to monetise their work.</p>
<h2>Hit rewind</h2>
<p>Against a backdrop of a pandemic that has done huge <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/this-is-how-covid-19-is-affecting-the-music-industry/">damage to the music industry</a>, 2020 could justifiably be called the year of the cassette. According to British Phonographic Industry figures, <a href="https://www.bpi.co.uk/news-analysis/fans-turn-to-music-to-get-through-2020-as-a-new-wave-of-artists-fuels-streaming-growth/">156,542 cassettes</a> were sold in the UK last year, the highest figure since 2003 and an increase of 94.7% on 2019 sales. Seemingly out of the blue, global pop icons such as Lady Gaga, the 1975, and <a href="https://musicstore.dualipa.com/uk/future-nostalgia-gold-cassette.html">Dua Lipa</a> have started rushing out their new releases on cassette – and they’re selling out.</p>
<p>For those of us who are old enough to remember the cassette tape as a common format of music consumption, their resurgence is somewhat puzzling. After all, even in their heyday, cassettes were <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/cassette-tapes-dire-way-listen-music-earth-still-buying/">always a bit rubbish</a>. </p>
<p>They lacked the aesthetic appeal and the romance of the vinyl LP and its gatefold sleeve. Subsequently, they lacked the usability, flashiness and sonic fidelity of the CD. And there is not a music fan alive over the age of 35 who doesn’t have a horror story to tell about a favourite album or mixtape being chewed up by a malicious car stereo or portable boombox.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A silver boombox with a cassette tape holder in the middle" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390352/original/file-20210318-15-1ftti2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390352/original/file-20210318-15-1ftti2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390352/original/file-20210318-15-1ftti2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390352/original/file-20210318-15-1ftti2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390352/original/file-20210318-15-1ftti2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390352/original/file-20210318-15-1ftti2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390352/original/file-20210318-15-1ftti2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The boombox may now appear fashionably retro – but that won’t stop it chewing up the occasional tape.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/retro-ghetto-blaster-isolated-on-white-248920240">Valentin Valkov/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Ottens himself was dismissive of the “nonsense” of a cassette revival, telling Dutch newspaper <a href="https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/02/15/het-cassettebandje-is-helemaal-terug-a1592250">NRC Handelsblad</a> that “nothing can match the sound” of the CD, the development of which he also played a key part in. For Ottens, the ultimate goal of any music format was clarity and precision of sound, though, in a nod to nostalgic listeners, he also conceded: “I think people mainly hear what they want to hear.”</p>
<h2>Feeling it</h2>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://journals.equinoxpub.com/PMH/article/view/39614">popular music and material culture</a>, I can’t help but wonder if Ottens’ strict utilitarian perspective misses a deeper point about the cassette tape and its recent resurgence as a medium in popular culture. </p>
<p>After all, the cultural enjoyment of music goes far beyond narrow debates about sound quality. Our enjoyment of music, and the cultural rituals surrounding that enjoyment, is a complex and <a href="https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/PMH/article/view/41832">deeply social thing</a> that engages more than just our ears.</p>
<p>The ongoing revival of the record, for instance, is sometimes explained as a turn back to vinyl’s superior sound. But it’s just as often regarded as a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10253866.2016.1212709">cultural turn</a> back to an iconic medium, steeped in musical history, that people can feel, handle, and experience together – unlike a digital file. Though they may be less iconic, cassettes also represent cultural moments of cherished significance to music fans.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A hand feels a cassette tape into a stereo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390416/original/file-20210318-19-19yeqj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390416/original/file-20210318-19-19yeqj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390416/original/file-20210318-19-19yeqj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390416/original/file-20210318-19-19yeqj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390416/original/file-20210318-19-19yeqj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390416/original/file-20210318-19-19yeqj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/390416/original/file-20210318-19-19yeqj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many music fans appreciate the tactile nature of old analogue formats like the audio cassette.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-hand-pick-tape-cassette-playervintage-633010601">arrowsmith2/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the mid 2010s, I investigated the first signs of this resurgence of cassettes within Glasgow’s indie and punk scenes as part of my <a href="https://www.academia.edu/26807403/From_Analogue_to_Digital_From_Pragmatism_to_Symbolism_The_Cassette_Tape_as_a_Hybrid_Artefact_in_Contemporary_Popular_Music">PhD</a>, talking to musicians, labels and fans about the resurgence of cassette tapes. In these conversations, the materiality of these objects – their physical, tangible presence – was often highlighted as a motivating factor. </p>
<p>As one fan remarked to me: “I just like having things. They’re all kind of becoming a bit defunct now, but I just like having something. That’s my hobby, music is my hobby, and that’s how I spend my money.”</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/music-collectors-seek-out-rare-albums-not-available-on-streaming-126488">Music collectors seek out rare albums not available on streaming</a>
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<p>There’s also an economic component to the cassette resurgence. With <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17510694.2015.1096618?scroll=top&needAccess=true">debates raging</a> about how music streaming services should reimburse artists, independent musicians have, for some time, been looking to the sale of <a href="https://www.prescient.digital/blog/2020/3/24/streaming-vs-merchandising-the-real-money-maker-for-musicians">physical products and merchandise</a> as a means of generating income.</p>
<p>For Glasgow’s indie and punk bands, as with today’s independent artists, cassettes actually represented a <a href="https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/cassettes-resurgence-103-percent-increase-2711548">cost-effective</a> means of providing a physical product, far cheaper than pressing a vinyl record and printing sleeves and packaging. As one label owner put it, “we tend to release on tape because it’s cheap to manufacture, it’s easy to recoup, and it leaves money left over for the bands to get something”.</p>
<p>While the practices of these small, independent artists may feel quite far removed from the recent embrace of cassette tapes by mainstream pop stars, each arguably has their roots in a desire for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2015.1061339">analogue products we can touch</a> in an increasingly digital world mediated via screens.</p>
<p>Many people have reported feelings of <a href="https://theconversation.com/lockdown-quarantine-and-self-isolation-how-different-covid-restrictions-affect-our-mental-health-153595">digital detachment and alienation</a> during the pandemic. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that a desire for something we can actually feel, embellished with a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56252465">nostalgic glow</a> from a COVID-free past, may also explain the resurgence of the audio cassette, nearly 60 years since its Berlin debut.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iain Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cassette tapes are in again – and this time, it’s smaller artists who look likely to gain.Iain Taylor, Lecturer in Music Industries, Birmingham City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1514792021-01-04T19:11:08Z2021-01-04T19:11:08ZStream weavers: the musicians’ dilemma in Spotify’s pay-to-play plan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374970/original/file-20201214-19-1yyaqfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C82%2C5000%2C2971&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Spotify offered the promise that, in the age of digital downloads, all artists would get paid for their music, and some would get paid a lot. </p>
<p>Lorde and Billie Eilish showed what was possible. </p>
<p>Lorde was just 16 when, in 2012, she uploaded her debut EP to SoundCloud. A few months later, Sean Parker (of Napster and Facebook fame) put her first single — “Royals” — on his popular Spotify Hipster International <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenbertoni/2013/11/26/how-spotify-made-lorde-a-pop-superstar/?sh=33c6b50d76b4">playlist</a>. The song has sold more than 10 million copies.</p>
<p>Eilish’s rags-to-riches story is a little murkier. But <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alessadominguez/is-billie-eilish-really-that-weird">the approved narrative</a> begins in 2015, when the 13-year-old uploaded “Ocean Eyes” (a song written by her older brother) to SoundCloud. She was “discovered”. Spotify enthusiastically promoted “Ocean Eyes” on its Today’s Top Hits playlist. She is now the youngest artist with a billion streams to her name, and Spotify’s most-streamed female artist for <a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-12-01/the-trends-that-shaped-streaming-in-2020/">the past two years</a> </p>
<h2>The new hit squad</h2>
<p>Streaming now accounts for more than half of <a href="https://www.ifpi.org/ifpi-issues-annual-global-music-report">recorded music revenue</a>. Spotify has about a <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/653926/music-streaming-service-subscriber-share/">third of the subscribers paying for music streaming</a>. Playlists overtook albums as the preferred way of listening to sequences of songs <a href="https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9686-up-next-how-playlists-are-curating-the-future-of-music/">about five years ago</a>.</p>
<p>Appearing on a prominent Spotify playlist is therefore a big deal. </p>
<p>Economists <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w24713">Luis Aguiar and Joel Waldfogel</a> calculated (in 2018) that a song appearing on Today’s Top Hits was worth about 20 million extra streams and US$116,000 to US$163,000 in royalty payments. That was when Today’s Top Hits had about 18.5 million subscribers. It now has <a href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/spotify-statistics/">more than 26 million</a>. </p>
<p>With so much power, what will Spotify do next?</p>
<p>The answer, apparently, is to run a pay-to-play “<a href="https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-11-02/amplifying-artist-input-in-your-personalized-recommendations/">experiment</a>”, dropping Spotify’s “<a href="https://artists.spotify.com/blog/share-new-music-for-playlist-consideration">crystal clear</a>” commitment in 2018 that “no one can pay to be added to one of Spotify’s editorial playlists”. But now there’s this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In this new experiment, artists and labels can identify music that’s a priority for them, and our system will add that signal to the algorithm that determines personalised listening sessions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The catch is musicians must accept a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/03/spotify-artists-promote-music-exchange-cut-royalty-rates-payola-algorithm">lower payment</a> — a “promotional recording royalty rate” — on any song streamed as a result.</p>
<h2>The prisoner’s dilemma</h2>
<p>Spotify presents music uploaders with a conundrum known to economists as the “prisoner’s dilemma” — a classic paradox of game theory. </p>
<p>This is where an article typically references the 2001 biopic “A Beautiful Mind”, about mathematical genius John Nash, who won a <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1994/nash/facts/">Nobel economics prize</a> for his contributions to game theory. In the movie Nash (played by Russell Crowe) talks about the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-20181-5_23">prisoner’s dilemma</a> in the context of chatting up women.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Obligatory image of John Nash (played by Russell Crowe) discussing game theory in the 2001 biographical picture 'A Beautiful Mind'." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375093/original/file-20201215-17-czuhk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375093/original/file-20201215-17-czuhk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375093/original/file-20201215-17-czuhk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375093/original/file-20201215-17-czuhk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375093/original/file-20201215-17-czuhk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375093/original/file-20201215-17-czuhk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375093/original/file-20201215-17-czuhk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">John Nash (played by Russell Crowe) discusses game theory at the pub in the 2001 biographical picture ‘A Beautiful Mind’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imagine Entertainment</span></span>
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<p>One formulation of the prisoner’s dilemma involves two individuals arrested together for possessing stolen items. A conviction for possession carries a six-month jail term. The police suspect the pair might have stolen the items. Burglary carries a five-year sentence. Without evidence, however, to secure a burglary conviction needs one or both prisoners confessing and implicating the other.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sure-interest-rates-are-negative-but-so-are-some-prices-and-when-you-look-around-theyre-everywhere-152081">Sure, interest rates are negative, but so are some prices, and when you look around, they're everywhere</a>
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<p>The prisoners are separated. Each is offered a deal: immunity from prosecution on any charge if they confess and that confession leads to the other’s conviction on both charges. </p>
<p>Each prisoner understands they are better off collectively to both stay silent. But neither can be sure the other will.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>if both stay silent, both get six months for possession</p></li>
<li><p>if only one confesses, they go free while the other gets five years</p></li>
<li><p>if both confess, both get five years.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The most predictable outcome is that both decide to confess. This is the celebrated “Nash equilibrium”, in which both players, neither wanting to be the sucker, make uncooperative decisions leading to the worse outcome for both. </p>
<h2>The musician’s dilemma</h2>
<p>The musician’s dilemma is that the best cooperative outcome is all artists refusing Spotify’s offer. No one gains, but no one loses either. </p>
<p>But who’s going to organise that, given the understandable fear of repercussions <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/01/mps-warn-music-streaming-platforms-against-interference-in-inquiry?CMP=twt_a-culture_b-gdnculture">for going against Spotify</a>? </p>
<p>Best placed to resist are Spotify’s superstars — the likes of Eilish, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, Drake and Bad Bunny, with billions of streams between them. They have diversified marketing and revenue sources, and are cash cows Spotify doesn’t want to lose. </p>
<p>The most likely outcome is many or most musicians accepting lower song payments from Spotify, putting the squeeze on struggling musicians who refuse while making little difference to the prominence super streamers get from Spotify’s algorithms. </p>
<h2>Looking beyond Spotify</h2>
<p>Spotify’s deal has no attraction for Melbourne guitarist Sheldon King. He has decided to quit Spotify. </p>
<p>Originally from the UK and an accomplished live performer, the classically trained guitarist split his time in 2020 between session work, teaching and writing and recording. He released his album <a href="https://sheldonking.bandcamp.com/album/navigating-by-the-stars">Navigating by the Stars</a> in November on BandCamp.</p>
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<p>“I am removing most of my music from Spotify,” King says. He cites all the small costs of getting songs onto streaming sites — paying a distribution service such as Tunecore, for example. “They don’t seem like much, but they can add up. With Spotify’s already laughably small royalty per stream, it’s easy to spend more money than you make.”</p>
<h2>Power imbalance</h2>
<p>After the most difficult year for many working musicians in memory, Spotify’s new strategy has been compared, imperfectly, to the days of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/28b08913-b746-4a47-b817-2f2aeef32b89">radio stations and presenters</a> seeking bribes from record companies to play their songs.</p>
<p>There’s a key difference. Now Spotify is the most influential radio programmer on Earth, deciding the new songs millions of listeners hear in any minute. </p>
<p>And instead of a handful of record companies, every aspiring musician is now able to record and upload a song. Spotify gets about <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/nearly-40000-tracks-are-now-being-added-to-spotify-every-single-day/">40,000 new uploads</a> a day.</p>
<p>Spotify says it paid more than <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9474976/daniel-ek-spotify-price-increase-rights-holder-quarterly-payouts#:%7E:text=Watch%20Now-,Daniel%20Ek%20Floats%20Price%20Hike%2C%20Says%20Spotify%20Has%20Paid%20Out,to%20Rights%20Holders%20Each%20Quarter&text=Daniel%20Ek%20speaks%20onstage%20during,2018%20in%20New%20York%20City">US$3.5 billion</a> to rights holders in the first nine months of 2019. But surveys of musicians suggest very few can make a living from streaming. A <a href="https://ivorsacademy.com/news/8-out-of-10-music-creators-earn-less-than-200-a-year-from-streaming-finds-survey-ahead-of-songwriters-and-artists-giving-evidence-to-a-select-committee-of-mps/">British survey</a> has found eight in 10 musicians earned less than £200 (A$355) a year from streaming, with 90% saying streaming accounted for less than 5% of their earnings. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/even-famous-musicians-struggle-to-make-a-living-from-streaming-heres-how-to-change-that-151969">Even famous musicians struggle to make a living from streaming – here’s how to change that</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Music streaming has created a market power imbalance between corporate leviathans such as Spotify, Apple, Amazon and Tencent and the millions of individual performing artists. It is a challenge to shift the balance of power a bit towards the artists, without losing the benefits to the listening public of access to a wider range of music with far greater convenience than ever imaginable before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Spotify is offering to boost artists’ position on its playlists in return for paying them lower royalties. Can struggling musicians afford to say no?John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of CanberraBen Freyens, Associate Professor, University of CanberraMichael James Walsh, Associate Professor, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1519692020-12-16T16:00:18Z2020-12-16T16:00:18ZEven famous musicians struggle to make a living from streaming – here’s how to change that<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375111/original/file-20201215-15-10laej2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C62%2C5946%2C3916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rostovondon-russia-july-8-2019-screen-1445277104">nikkimeel/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re a music lover, chances are you’ll have used streaming services of some kind. Music streaming accounts for more than half of the global music industry’s revenue in the UK, bringing in more than £1 billion in the last year. </p>
<p>But while the three major labels – Sony, Universal and Warner – are reporting <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/musics-big-three-labels-19-million-a-day-from-streaming-798749/">record high profits</a>, a poll by <a href="https://ivorsacademy.com/news/8-out-of-10-music-creators-earn-less-than-200-a-year-from-streaming-finds-survey-ahead-of-songwriters-and-artists-giving-evidence-to-a-select-committee-of-mps/">The Ivors Academy and Musicians’ Union</a> found that eight out of ten music creators earn less than £200 a year from streaming. According to <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/new-figures-show-how-many-streams-artists-need-to-earn-minimum-wage-2649715#:%7E:text=With%20an%20average%20payout%20of,average%20rate%20of%20%C2%A30.0012.">one report</a>, artists earn on average only £0.009 per stream.</p>
<p>The UK government is now carrying out an <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/work/646/economics-of-music-streaming/">inquiry</a> into music streaming, looking at how to make it fairer and if there’s a way musicians and songwriters can get a greater cut. Artists who have given evidence include Ed O'Brien from Radiohead, Elbow’s Guy Garvey and disco legend Nile Rodgers, while Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin also <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CIllodOjqvU/">published a letter of support</a>.</p>
<p>Singer-songwriter <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/24/nadine-shah-i-cant-pay-the-rent-on-unfair-music-streaming-revenues">Nadine Shah</a> also gave evidence at the inquiry, saying artists and songwriters are struggling to pay their rent. And the inquiry heard how Fiona Bevan, who has written songs for One Direction and Lewis Capaldi, only received £100 in royalties for co-writing a track on Kylie Minogue’s number one album, Disco. </p>
<p>But there could be a way to make streaming work for musicians - if it was more like how they already earn money from their songs being played on the radio. </p>
<h2>So how did we get here?</h2>
<p>The music industry has always made more money for record labels than it has artists. And now that streaming is the main way that many of us consume music, there’s even less money left for musicians. </p>
<p>Streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify make money from subscription fees and advertising. They make deals with record labels to get access to songs. Platforms keep about 30% of the revenue from streaming, 15% goes to what’s known as a music publisher - who represent songwriters – while the record label gets 55%. And the label then pays a percentage of this to the artists – after they’ve paid back the label’s investment in them. </p>
<p>But while artists get money whenever their songs are played on radio, streaming does not work in the same way. This is because radio is considered a “passive” broadcast, meaning you don’t select the music. Whereas streaming is seen to be an online “transmission”, with people choosing songs and listening at their leisure. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman holding phone looking at spotify" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375112/original/file-20201215-21-48n3ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375112/original/file-20201215-21-48n3ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375112/original/file-20201215-21-48n3ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375112/original/file-20201215-21-48n3ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375112/original/file-20201215-21-48n3ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375112/original/file-20201215-21-48n3ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375112/original/file-20201215-21-48n3ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thank you for the music, but who gets the money?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/penang-malaysia-29-aug-2018-close-1773091049">TYLIM/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But a big part of streaming platforms are the playlists, which people listen to in the same way as they do radio. This issue is complicated by the fact that some people actually <a href="https://medium.com/@jessicafrech/this-is-how-you-get-added-to-spotifys-curated-playlists-7f01f2f6b891">earn money</a> for creating playlists. But, neither the users or the artists are told about the deals made to get music onto these playlists. </p>
<p>As part of the evidence I’ve given to the goverment’s inquiry, I recommend playlisters should be considered influencers. And so they should be regulated by the UK Advertising Standards Agency – much in the same way as <a href="https://theconversation.com/instagram-influencers-no-having-30-000-followers-does-not-make-you-a-celebrity-120686">promotional social media posts</a> are. </p>
<h2>A possible solution</h2>
<p>As I explain in my book, <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/copyright-in-the-music-industry-9781839101281.html">Copyright in the Music Industry</a>, copyright law is supposed to ensure that creators get paid for their work, which enables them to continue to create and disseminate that creativity – benefiting society as a whole. </p>
<p>While the music industry and streaming services are being very well rewarded for their dissemination of music, copyright is failing artists and songwriters. But luckily, copyright is not set in stone and where it’s not working, the law can be changed – it’s always updated to adapt to new technologies and now it needs to adjust to music streaming. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Musician Nadine Shah singing into microphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375108/original/file-20201215-17-bu0t2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375108/original/file-20201215-17-bu0t2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375108/original/file-20201215-17-bu0t2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375108/original/file-20201215-17-bu0t2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375108/original/file-20201215-17-bu0t2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375108/original/file-20201215-17-bu0t2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375108/original/file-20201215-17-bu0t2w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nadine Shah makes so little money from streaming that she’s struggling to pay her rent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bbc-6-music-festival-march-8th-1668422911">CJS Media/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>One solution that could help struggling musicians would be “equitable remuneration” for streaming. This is where a third party collecting society takes a royalty from the label and gives it to the artist for the streaming of their music – just like what already happens when a song is played on the radio.
This puts money straight into the artist’s pocket. Something similar to this already exists in other countries such as Spain and the Netherlands.</p>
<p>This would allow artists to be fairly paid which is vitally important, because without a fair income, many artists will be unable to sustain themselves in music. Change is needed not only for artists, but for music to survive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hayleigh Bosher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Musicians and songwriters are struggling to survive while record labels are reporting record profits – here’s why this is happening.Hayleigh Bosher, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1465002020-09-25T12:18:28Z2020-09-25T12:18:28ZLive venues are the lifeblood of music culture and must survive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/360007/original/file-20200925-24-12hjsvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=272%2C191%2C4500%2C2706&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cheering-crowd-concert-91770806">Shutterstock/dwphotos</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People use live music as a resource to help feed and nourish their emotions, for heightening or changing their energy levels and as a platform to escape the constraints of everyday life. Live music venues are quite often tied up with <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2019/oct/09/the-glue-that-ties-communities-why-regional-venues-are-vital?CMP=twt_a-culture_b-gdnculture&">local scenes and communities</a> and the ambience of these spaces allows people to delve deeper into the music they love and experience it in a totally different way.</p>
<p>But in light of COVID-19 and the growing popularity of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/354f05c7-8418-4d2b-bd56-3d8dd65d2bde">streaming services</a>, virtual concerts and other digital music offerings, there is now a question mark over the survival of live music as a viable business.</p>
<p>In the last few years, a number of changes have occurred which have had a significant impact upon how fans engage with music. The music market has undergone <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1469540510390499">a period of transformation</a>, mainly due to the explosion of digital forms of listening and the development of digital music providers, such as Spotify and Pandora. The music industry has shifted from material artefacts such cassettes and CDs to more fluid and intangible digital formats. </p>
<p>This shift has been momentous for the industry as it has totally changed the way people consume music. But <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038038519860399">my research</a> shows that live venues are, in fact, the <a href="https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/30/music-venues-british-culture-taskforce?">lifeblood of British music culture</a>. </p>
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<p>Music lovers establish lasting, significant and memorable connections with the artists they love when they go to see them perform live. These experiences form part of the meaning which informs their engagement with that music. So places like clubs, venues and festivals become an intrinsic part of the story of that particular band or artist in the mind of the gig-goer.</p>
<p>Experiences like these then help to form a “live culture” or scene.
One of my <a href="https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/manchester-produces-indie-music-fans-just-by-being-manchester">studies</a> illustrates how indie music fans in Manchester draw upon upon the live music culture of the city. Manchester has long been inspired by its music heritage, having produced globally popular bands such as Joy Division and The Smiths. Venues, including the Hacienda and the Free Trade Hall (where The Sex Pistols and Bob Dylan famously played) and music scenes like “Madchester” all add to this “live culture”. </p>
<h2>Crisis and uncertainity</h2>
<p>But the UK live music industry is facing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/13/uk-live-music-festivals-sector-at-risk-coronavirus">a crisis</a>. Uncertainty is looming with no end to social distancing in the near future or any significant financial support from the government. According to <a href="https://www.ukmusic.org/policy/let-the-music-play">recent estimates</a>, the live music industry is set to lose more than £900 million while 30-50% of its workforce are facing unemployment if things remain unchanged until the end of the year. </p>
<p>This situation is particularly exemplified in <a href="https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2020/09/04/survey-reveals-catastrophic-impact-of-covid-19-on-local-music-scene/">local music scenes and communities</a> which have been heavily affected by COVID-19. Many independent music venues worldwide <a href="https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-independent-live-music-venues-are-fighting-for-their-existence-coronavirus/?utm_social-">are fighting</a> to keep afloat.</p>
<p>For instance, popular music venues The Deaf Institute and Gorilla in Manchester, recently <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-53493070">had to be saved from closure</a> due to financial constraints. Tim Burgess, of The Charlatans, <a href="https://twitter.com/Tim_Burgess/status/1283785610835169281?s=20">summed it up when he said</a>: “I’ve played and watched gigs in both and they were the lifeblood of Manchester’s vital network of venues. It’s awful news but seems inevitable that so many more independent venues will be lost.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1283785610835169281"}"></div></p>
<p>In an attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and the fans, artists have been switching to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/17/816504058/a-list-of-live-virtual-concerts-to-watch-during-the-coronavirus-shutdown?t=1600701307753">“live” digital concerts and events</a> such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/23/nick-cave-idiot-prayer-review-livestreamed-gig-alexandra-palace">Nick Cave’s Idiot Prayer gig</a> in an empty Alexandra Palace with just a piano and his voice. This was live-streamed and will be also released in cinemas. </p>
<p>The live music industry has also been experimenting with other digital formats such as Glastonbury’s attempt to launch a <a href="https://amp.independent.ie/entertainment/music/glastonburys-shangri-la-team-launches-virtual-reality-festival-39268865.html#click=https://t.co/KuFfBEgI">virtual reality festival</a>. <a href="https://www.nme.com/features/lost-horizon-virtual-reality-glastonbury-2020-shangri-la-2693862">Lost Horizon</a> is being streamed on Twitch and YouTube and the organisers invite attendees to fully immerse themselves by either using a desktop PC or a VR headset. </p>
<p>Other digital “live” events involve music fans consuming “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-12-2014-0775">real and fantastic</a>” time and space through virtual imaginary settings and the use of digital avatars. Examples include VR-driven concerts by <a href="https://www.roadtovr.com/john-legend-wave-concert-june/">John Legend</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52410647">Travis Scott</a> and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/virtual-reality-livestreams-covid-1021683/">Jean-Michel Jarre</a>. </p>
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<p>But are these experiences an authentic way of experiencing live music? Or do they indicate a transition towards a <a href="https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-has-been-boosted-by-coronavirus-heres-how-to-avoid-it-leading-us-to-dystopia-141073">dystopian cultural milieu</a>? In this scenario, we might end up losing sight of the multi-sensory and collective aspects of live music and experience it instead alone at home through a VR headset or a similar technological device.</p>
<p>We need to safeguard the cultural heritage of the live music industry and support local spaces, events and communities in the delivery of innovative cultural offerings in a post-COVID era. More <a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/watch-flaming-lips-perform-race-for-the-prize-in-bubbles-on-colbert/">creative initiatives</a> are needed if we were to blend the physical and digital aspects without downplaying the significance of real live music. </p>
<p>The Flaming Lips have experimented with one such innovative approach. They did a live gig where both the band and the audience were “enclosed” in individual bubbles. It might not be the perfect solution – but I bet everyone who attended that gig will remember it for the rest of their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146500/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandros Skandalis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Live music venues must be helped to survive the COVID-19 era.Alexandros Skandalis, Lecturer in Marketing and Consumer Culture, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1336242020-03-30T17:28:45Z2020-03-30T17:28:45ZNo musical talent, no problem — there are now apps for that<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323400/original/file-20200326-133040-13lkr7q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5607%2C3724&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Using apps like Boomy and Voisey, aspiring pop artists can now use their phones to record and distribute their music — no talent required.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A new social music app is pushing the boundaries of music creation by making recording artists out of novices with little to no musical training or traditional talent.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.voisey.app/">Voisey</a> allows users to choose from a library of beats from around the world, submitted to the Voisey website by producers, and sing their own lyrics and melodies over them. Their vocals are run through in-app vocal effects including auto-tune. The app is designed to make anyone sound like a star.</p>
<p>In 2019 alone, 350,000 original songs were created on Voisey, says co-founder Olly Barnes. Today, the app is live on Apple’s operating system in 22 countries. Producers, singer-songwriters and even average music fans can create professional-sounding, 60-second songs with collaborators from all over the world.</p>
<h2>Production and distribution</h2>
<p>While Spotify and other streaming platforms allow anyone to share their existing music with the world, Voisey takes it a step further by giving anyone with the app the ability to record and distribute a song on the platform in just minutes.</p>
<p>“I just write the song, I’m like, OK, I put that out … now I’m back to homework,” says Voisey user and Spanish artist, Ana Mancebo, who is currently working towards her bachelor’s degree in business in the United States. “You can pretty much make anyone sound like an artist.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Fd6xJpYMh","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Making music is innately human and it’s certainly nice for anyone to be able to create it. But these companies aren’t totally altruistic; they are money-making ventures, just like Spotify. </p>
<p>Voisey doesn’t disclose their user base, but as of January 2020, downloads of the app were growing 60 per cent week on week — all organic growth, without ads, according to Barnes. The music industry has its eyes and ears on Voisey too — the producing duo <a href="https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/a-year-after-selling-catalog-stargate-invests-in-voisey-app-calling-it-the-future-of-songwriting/">Stargate invested in the app</a> in 2019.</p>
<h2>Democratizing pop</h2>
<p>Voisey is an app that allows anyone to be a star. The app takes cues from TikTok — users can easily swipe through videos, like, comment and share — but the focus is on writing and producing original music. According to Barnes, 91 per cent of the songs on Voisey are originals. </p>
<p>Currently, the Voisey app is not monetized — creators are not paid for their content and the company isn’t paid for their service. But a vast catalogue of original music — and people looking for fame — can certainly be lucrative.</p>
<p>And Barnes has big plans for monetization. </p>
<p>“If we’re where music talent will crystalize for the first time, should we not see if we can help people bypass the traditional machine?” says Barnes. </p>
<p>He believes that much of the new music created on Voisey will be from first-timers who don’t yet have a music publisher and aren’t yet registered with performing rights organizations (the agencies that collect royalties on broadcast and performed music on behalf of the artists). The company is working on a program to non-exclusively administer music rights for some users on the platform. This means they could potentially take a fee.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/01/30/2018-streaming-music-price-bible/">Of course, it has been argued that streaming royalties aren’t enough</a>. In the 2010s, streaming services were lauded for <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4535479/spotify-just-turned-10-heres-how-its-impacted-music-alan-cross/">democratizing music and bringing back revenue to record labels</a>. Now, as we enter a new decade, it’s becoming clear that this democratization has also created a revenue stream for music streaming services. </p>
<p>In 2018, <a href="https://musically.com/2018/10/17/spotify-invests-in-distrokid-as-part-of-new-distribution-partnership/">Spotify partnered with Distrokid</a>, which charges $19.99 per year per artist to upload unlimited albums and songs to streaming services. And now, <a href="https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/03/04/spotify-expanding-pay-for-promotion/">Spotify is rolling out paid promotion</a>. There is money to be made from people who want to be artists.</p>
<h2>Pay-to-play features</h2>
<p>Rights administration is only a small part of Voisey’s monetization strategy. The company is not currently disclosing the model, but Barnes says that it’s inspired by “top-tier mobile games,” and while the core experience will be free, they will charge for an “enhanced” experience. </p>
<p>Could this include charging creators for certain vocal effects? Or for more than a certain number of songs each month? Or for distribution on streaming platforms? </p>
<p><a href="https://boomy.com/">Another new music creation technology, Boomy</a>, is already doing some of the things that Voisey might aspire to. </p>
<p>Boomy helps users make music with artificial intelligence. Users choose from various musical themes and genres, click a button, wait for the artificial intelligence to work its magic and decide if they like what they hear. If they don’t, they can just click “try again” and have something new created for them with the same theme or genre. </p>
<p>They can also choose to edit, which allows them to make simple changes like drag and drop sections of the song or change the tempo. More than 400,000 tracks have been created using Boomy, according to the counter on its website. </p>
<p>According to Boomy’s website, with a free account, a user has access to limited downloads, saves and features, and can create and release one single to streaming services. But to unlock more features and increase downloads and saves, a user can sign up for plans from US$2.99 to $9.99 per month.</p>
<p>And 70 per cent of Boomy users have never created a song before using the service, says Alex Mitchell, CEO of Boomy. But for a fee, Boomy will distribute the music they create and help them earn royalties from streams. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323403/original/file-20200326-133040-1m7kjrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323403/original/file-20200326-133040-1m7kjrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323403/original/file-20200326-133040-1m7kjrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323403/original/file-20200326-133040-1m7kjrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323403/original/file-20200326-133040-1m7kjrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323403/original/file-20200326-133040-1m7kjrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323403/original/file-20200326-133040-1m7kjrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323403/original/file-20200326-133040-1m7kjrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hundreds of thousands of songs have been recorded and uploaded to music production apps and websites; the ability to monetize this could disrupt the pop music industry.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“There’s an explosion in the streaming music environment, there’s a ton of royalties that are going to be flowing into the music business …. We want to make sure that you can take advantage of that growth, even if you are somebody who traditionally has not had access to music education, music resources,” says Mitchell. </p>
<p>Mitchell says that on average, royalties are around US$50 to $100 for the last couple of months.</p>
<p>Not too shabby for the creator, for as little as $2.99 per month and a few clicks-worth of their time. And not too shabby for Boomy, which in addition to upgrades, also takes a percentage of royalties from free users. </p>
<p>There is certainly still money to be made in the music business, but it remains to be seen if it is for the users of new music technologies, the companies behind those music technologies, traditional music business stakeholders or a combination of these.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133624/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Eckersley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Aspiring singers can now use apps to record professional-sounding songs from their phones. This has the potential to disrupt the recording and publishing industry.Marina Eckersley, Dalla Lana Fellow in Global Journalism, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1264882019-12-09T20:54:37Z2019-12-09T20:54:37ZMusic collectors seek out rare albums not available on streaming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304143/original/file-20191127-112526-190gwpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C370%2C3593%2C1982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">De La Soul performs at Down the Rabbit Hole music festival, Beuningen, the Netherlands in June 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As of the third quarter <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/244995/number-of-paying-spotify-subscribers/">of 2019, music streaming giant Spotify had 113 million paid subscribers worldwide</a> — but it’s still missing some famous albums that many listeners feel they can’t live without. And in today’s digital world, it can be expensive and difficult to get a physical copy of those missing albums.</p>
<p>Music streaming dominates paid music consumption in the <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/10185/music-consumption-in-the-us/">United States</a> and <a href="https://musiccanada.com/resources/statistics/">Canada</a>.</p>
<p>But services like Spotify and Apple Music can’t just upload whatever music they’d like. Legal disputes, sample clearance issues — when permission can’t be obtained for the use of part of a song in a new song — and rights-holders withholding music can all get in the way of music being available on your streaming platform of choice. And that can make the music even more difficult and more expensive to get your hands on physically.</p>
<p>Legal disputes between <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/musicians-v-record-labels-famous-feuds/">artists and their record labels have been happening for decades</a>. Disputes can keep music from ever coming out at all, in which case consumers don’t know what they’re missing — but they can also take music that consumers already love out of circulation.</p>
<h2>Rare $130 cassette</h2>
<p>If you’re a fan of the hip-hop group De La Soul, you might have noticed that its 1989 album <em>3 Feet High and Rising</em> is missing from paid subscription streaming services. This is due to <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/03/de-la-soul-3-feet-high-and-rising-streaming-spotify-tidal.html">disputes between the group and its label, Tommy Boy Records.</a></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304142/original/file-20191127-112526-uxlosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304142/original/file-20191127-112526-uxlosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304142/original/file-20191127-112526-uxlosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304142/original/file-20191127-112526-uxlosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304142/original/file-20191127-112526-uxlosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304142/original/file-20191127-112526-uxlosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304142/original/file-20191127-112526-uxlosu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">If your ‘90s dubbed De La Soul tape has broken down, a new cassette today may cost $130.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike B in Colorado/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>De La Soul said in an <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wearedelasoul/photos/a.631626713540839/2309714252398735/?type=3&theater">August Facebook post</a> that it that was unable to reach a streaming agreement “and earn Tommy Boy’s respect for our music/legacy.” The dispute has led to Tommy Boy delaying the release of that album on streaming services. </p>
<p>The album is not being widely reissued, so few copies are available in any physical format for fans who can’t stream one of their favourite albums on their favourite streaming service. There is a copy of <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/3-Feet-High-Rising-Vinyl/dp/B00CJF9SZC/ref=tmm_vnl_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">the vinyl LP of <em>3 Feet High and Rising</em> selling online for nearly $300</a>. A cassette is available for more than $130. Even the CD is selling for more than $100.</p>
<h2>Taylor Swift delays release of album</h2>
<p>Rights-holders, whether they are the artist or not, can also choose to withhold music from streaming services. Taylor Swift has famously done this, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/9/15767986/taylor-swift-apple-music-spotify-statements-timeline">first to fight for music’s value, then to fight for better streaming royalty rates</a> and then delaying the release of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-to-withhold-reputation-from-streaming-services-197389/#:%7E:targetText=Taylor%20Swift's%20new%20album,the%20specifics%20with%20various%20platforms.">her 2017 album <em>Reputation</em> on streaming services</a>. She made <em>Reputation</em> available only for digital download and on CD at first.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304144/original/file-20191127-112484-1evovao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304144/original/file-20191127-112484-1evovao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304144/original/file-20191127-112484-1evovao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304144/original/file-20191127-112484-1evovao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304144/original/file-20191127-112484-1evovao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304144/original/file-20191127-112484-1evovao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304144/original/file-20191127-112484-1evovao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Taylor Swift delayed the release of ‘Reputation’ on streaming services.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But rights-holders withholding music can sometimes get more complicated. Blackground Records — owned by Aaliyah’s uncle Barry Hankerson — controls the masters of most of the late singer’s music and has <a href="https://www.complex.com/music/2016/12/aaliyahs-music-isnt-online-and-her-uncle-barry-hankerson-is-the-reason-why">not made it available on streaming services</a>. Aaliyah <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/aaliyah-1979-2001-192667/">died in a plane crash in 2001 at the age of 22</a>, not long after the release of her platinum-certified self-titled album.</p>
<p>Michael Greaves, who manages royalties for a music company based in Toronto, said in a September interview that he thinks Hankerson is “trying to look for the best deal … building up the value,” as Taylor Swift did. But others, including Greaves, who is also a former DJ, have argued that there is an emotional component to Hankerson withholding the Blackground music.</p>
<p>Rock band Tool also famously <a href="https://www.techradar.com/news/after-years-of-resisting-rock-band-tool-is-finally-entering-the-streaming-age">didn’t put all of its music up on streaming services until Aug. 2, 2019,</a> just before the Aug. 30 release of its newest album, <em>Fear Inoculum</em>.</p>
<p>Whether these rights-holders are using profiteering tactics, the music is increasing in value because it’s not available on paid streaming services and there are limited physical copies. On Amazon.ca, the CD of <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/One-Million-Aaliyah/dp/B000002JWP">Aaliyah’s <em>One In A Million</em> is selling for as much as $189</a>. “I have those albums, I got them when they came out. I’m lucky that way,” says Greaves.</p>
<p>Blackground also controls the rights to the master recordings of singer Jojo’s first two albums, which it has not released on streaming services.</p>
<p>Jojo wound up <a href="https://www.wmagazine.com/story/jojo-re-release-albums-new-music-interview">suing Blackground, re-recording those albums and releasing them on streaming services herself</a>. Unfortunately, Aaliyah is not alive to do the same.</p>
<h2>Download delays are ongoing</h2>
<p>Despite advances in music technology and administration, sample clearances can still be an issue, keeping music from being released or forcing it to be removed from streaming services.</p>
<p>It’s common for rappers and hip-hop artists to release “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/rmx446/the-real-difference-between-a-mixtape-and-an-album">mixtapes</a>” — free releases which were once distributed on cassettes but are now commonly distributed on Soundcloud. Mixtapes often contain samples whose permissions haven’t been legally granted, which keep them from being available on streaming services such as Spotify, where rules around sample clearances are more stringent than on Soundcloud.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304138/original/file-20191127-112493-1h45drv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304138/original/file-20191127-112493-1h45drv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304138/original/file-20191127-112493-1h45drv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304138/original/file-20191127-112493-1h45drv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304138/original/file-20191127-112493-1h45drv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304138/original/file-20191127-112493-1h45drv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304138/original/file-20191127-112493-1h45drv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chance the Rapper could not clear the sample on his track ‘Juice’ when <em>Acid Rap</em> went to streaming services last summer. The artist is seen here at EIF Presents: XQ Super School Live at the Barker Hanger in September 2017 in Santa Monica, CA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The artist known as Chance the Rapper, for instance, went through the process of clearing all of the samples on his 2013 mixtape <em>Acid Rap</em>, which went live on streaming services last summer — <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8518032/chance-the-rapper-juice-acid-rap-streaming-services">but he couldn’t get the sample on his track <em>Juice</em> cleared</a>. </p>
<p>According to the artist’s website, <a href="https://www.chanceraps.com/shop/acid-rap-vinyl-pre-order">the vinyl pre-order of the mixtape is sold out and the website says it is shipping this fall</a> — however, it’s unclear if it has already shipped. It’s also unclear if the sample on <em>Juice</em> will be cleared for the vinyl release — but if it’s not, there’s no doubt that the not-so-legal cassette with the original track listing will be worth much more.</p>
<p>Music administration has come a long way, but it’s also become more complicated. As <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8297506/drake-nice-for-what-lauryn-hill-ex-factor-samples-kehlani-cardi-b">artists sample samples of samples</a>, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/watch-dj-khaled-explain-how-infant-son-executive-produced-new-lp-116467/">babies are given producer credits</a> and <a href="https://www.thefader.com/2019/10/07/lil-nas-x-cardi-b-sued-copyright-infringement-rodeo-2019">copyright infringement lawsuits over popular songs</a> seem to be frequently in the news, it’s unlikely that every album under the sun will be available to us at the press of a button any time soon.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=thanksforreading">Thanks for reading! We can send you The Conversation’s stories every day in an informative email. Sign up today.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Eckersley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Desperate fans may have to settle on paying exorbitant amounts for a cassette tape.Marina Eckersley, Dalla Lana Fellow in Global Journalism, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1255412019-11-03T13:07:23Z2019-11-03T13:07:23ZGen Xers, millennials and even some Gen Zs choose vinyl & drive record sales up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298391/original/file-20191023-119405-1i8siwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vinyl sales have been surging in the last few years, driven by a wide-age range of consumers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Florencia Viadana / Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Vinyl sales have been surging in the last few years, as <a href="https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/09/08/vinyl-overtake-cd-sales/">CD sales stay flat</a> and <a href="https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/07/10/music-downloads-extinct/">digital downloads decrease</a>. In the United Kingdom, data from 2016 <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/vinyl-sales-digital-downloads-albums-record-store-day-a7458841.html">reveals that vinyl LP sales revenue surpassed that of digital downloads.</a> And in the United States, <a href="https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/09/08/vinyl-overtake-cd-sales/">LP sales are on par with the sales of CDs</a>. </p>
<p>In an era when so much music is at our fingertips through streaming services for under $10 a month, who is spending their hard-earned cash on vinyl? Streaming is currently the primary and cheapest way to buy music. According to <a href="https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/">the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) database</a>, paid subscription streaming services such as Spotify dominated music sales revenue in the U.S. in 2018, accounting for almost 50 per cent of revenue. But cassettes, CDs and digital downloads have all held that position in the past. </p>
<p>Teens of the 1980s (now aged approximately 45 to 54) and the ‘90s (now aged approximately 35 to 44) were the two largest age demographics buying vinyl in 2018, accounting for 24 and 21 per cent respectively of new vinyl sales in the U.S., according to <a href="http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/MusicWatch-Consumer-Profile-RIAA-2018.pdf">2018 data from the RIAA.</a> </p>
<h2>Vinyl’s lasting influence</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/">Sales data</a> shows that cassettes first surpassed vinyl LP sales in the U.S. in 1983. Then CDs surpassed cassette sales in 1991. </p>
<p>At that point, vinyl LPs disappeared from most music stores, remaining only a DJ specialty. They accounted for only 0.8 per cent of total music sales.</p>
<p>Tim Ford, vice-president of purchasing at Sunrise Records, says he recalls feeling forced to buy CDs in the '90s because they were cheaper than vinyl and more widely available for him as a broke teenager. Now, Ford and many other '80s and '90s kids are working adults with disposable incomes. Ford says 35-to-40-year-olds want music from their generation like their parents had. </p>
<p>These consumers are used to the concept of owning music, but now they want vinyl, because they think it’s better quality, and they have the money for it.</p>
<p>Michael Greaves is another example of this type of vinyl consumer; he was a DJ in the '90s and has a collection of 1,200 CDs — many of which he bought <a href="https://business.financialpost.com/technology/goodbye-eight-cds-for-a-penny-owner-of-columbia-house-files-for-bankruptcy-after-years-of-dwindling-sales">eight for a penny</a>. Now he works full-time as a music administrator and is an avid vinyl collector. </p>
<p>Greaves says he buys vinyl because “with vinyl you get a warmth you don’t get with CDs.” There’s just something about the crackle of a vinyl record that makes people feel at home. </p>
<h2>Owning a physical copy</h2>
<p>No artist is forced to put his or her music on streaming services and not every artist even has the legal right to do so. The popular albums of the ‘80s and ‘90s that aren’t being widely reissued are going for hundreds of dollars on resale sites. </p>
<p>A mint-condition vinyl LP of De La Soul’s 1989 album <em>3 Feet High and Rising</em>, for instance, is <a href="https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/760028596">selling for more than $360 on Discogs</a>. That album isn’t being widely reissued and is <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/03/de-la-soul-3-feet-high-and-rising-streaming-spotify-tidal.html">now unavailable on paid subscription streaming services such as Tidal, which is said to be because of artist and label disputes.</a></p>
<p>The initial excitement about streaming services seems to have worn off since Spotify launched in Sweden in 2008. Consumers are now seeing flaws in streaming, one of them being that we can never be fully assured of access to their favourite songs without owning a physical copy of them.</p>
<p>Andrew Winistorfer, editorial director at <em>Vinyl Me, Please</em>, a record-of-the-month club, says that young people today accept that you don’t own music. CD sales were at their height at the same time that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2018/03/21/what-happened-to-the-piracy-sites-that-nearly-destroyed-the-music-industry-part-1-napster/#1088c3e72293">music piracy became popular</a> and almost destroyed the music industry. </p>
<p>However, the young today still account for part of the new surge in vinyl sales. Winistorfer explains that vinyl is “the cooler way to have … a physical manifestation of this music that you like.”</p>
<h2>Willing to pay</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/MusicWatch-Consumer-Profile-RIAA-2018.pdf">RIAA data</a> shows that 25-to-34-year-olds and 18-to-24-year-olds accounted for 19 and 16 per cent respectively of U.S. new vinyl sales in 2018. This is valuable to artists who are not being paid what they’d like to be on streaming services. For artists, selling other merchandise has become increasingly important.</p>
<p>Luckily for them, some fans are willing to pay for exclusive merchandise and experiences on crowdfunding platforms. A <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protest-the-hero-new-album--3#/">2013 Indiegogo campaign</a> for the Canadian band Protest The Hero raised nearly $450,000 to fund an album and 1,299 copies of the signed, limited-edition vinyl LP were claimed as rewards.</p>
<p><a href="https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/11827">Katy Perry has a vinyl record coming out soon.</a> It’s a record-first release but her truest “Katy Cats” will surely snatch up those 4,000 copies quickly to be able to hold a piece of their favourite artist in their hands. </p>
<p>Consumers have less control than they might think over what music they can access. What will happen if one day your favourite artist doesn’t have the resources, desire or legal right to keep your favourite songs up on a streaming service? What if you simply want to hold the music you love in your hands? Teens of the 80s and 90s would probably tell you to buy the album — on vinyl.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Eckersley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In an era when all sorts of music seems to be at our fingertips through streaming services for under $10 a month, who is spending their hard-earned cash on vinyl?Marina Eckersley, Dalla Lana Fellow in Global Journalism, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1238282019-10-14T12:32:00Z2019-10-14T12:32:00ZNetflix is losing shows to rivals – will the music streaming market also splinter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296874/original/file-20191014-135505-1ncgzeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aachen-germany-september-10-2019-video-1501425782?src=cFOKA76ZlRv3NfHO1wXAvA-1-2">Alexander Kirch/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Netflix is <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/friends-officially-leaving-netflix-warnermedias-streaming-service-1223151">losing Friends</a>. From 2020, viewers in the US will have to subscribe to the new WarnerMedia streaming service HBO Max to watch the 90s sitcom that until now has been one of the most popular shows on Netflix (the UK and other regions won’t be affected).</p>
<p>It is part of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/27/streaming-tv-is-about-to-get-very-expensive-heres-why">a splintering</a> of the streaming market that will see studios such as Disney as well as technology firms such as Apple launch their own Netflix rivals, dividing up popular content between them. Instead of being able to watch most of your favourite TV shows and films on one or two services, you may have to subscribe to several, or else miss out on content. </p>
<p>Is something similar now likely to happen in other media categories such as music? Our research suggests that proponents and early adopters of streaming services need not panic. In <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0008125618818841">a paper</a> we coauthored with Morgane Evenou (now a manager at Netflix), we found that the streaming business has a “winner-takes-all” dynamic that should eventually produce a small number of players dominating each media category. This means that in the long term, and for most consumers, a few dominant services should provide convenient and reliable access to most content.</p>
<p>However, the long-term situation we envisage has not yet arrived, as we are starkly reminded by the current upheaval in the video streaming market. Netflix is not only losing Friends <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/17/20694711/netflix-friends-the-office-earnings-q2-2019-subscribers-disney-hbo-apple-amazon-stock-drop">but subscribers</a> – 130,000 of them in the last quarter in the US, where market fragmentation is at its strongest.</p>
<h2>The music model</h2>
<p>Convenient and reliable streaming isn’t yet the standard way to access most media content, except for music, as most popular artists are available on most commercial services. This exception reflects the fact that different media industries are in different stages of their digital lifecycle. The music industry was among the first to experience <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music_industry/">substantial upheaval</a> in the 2000s due to online piracy. This challenge spurred innovative commercial responses that evolved to become the currently dominant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/apr/24/weve-got-more-money-swirling-around-how-streaming-saved-the-music-industry">streaming model</a>, through services such as Spotify and YouTube. Listeners have benefited, enjoying access to large catalogues, few geographical restrictions and the ability to listen to music offline.</p>
<p>But it took many years for digital music services to offer this combination of features, and to identify <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Cayari/publication/234579002_The_YouTube_Effect_How_YouTube_Has_Provided_New_Ways_to_Consume_Create_and_Share_Music/links/5a33e2c345851532e82c933b/The-YouTube-Effect-How-YouTube-Has-Provided-New-Ways-to-Consume-Create-and-Share-Music.pdf">ways to create value</a> for subscribers such as personalised music recommendations and community features such as playlists. </p>
<p>Film and TV, meanwhile is in an earlier phase of this digital lifecycle. Books are increasingly distributed digitally but subscription services such as Kindle Unlimited or Scribd still represent a small share of the market. And video game streaming is still <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/jul/26/video-game-streaming-is-it-worth-it">in its infancy</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296870/original/file-20191014-135501-1u7w8sr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296870/original/file-20191014-135501-1u7w8sr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296870/original/file-20191014-135501-1u7w8sr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296870/original/file-20191014-135501-1u7w8sr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296870/original/file-20191014-135501-1u7w8sr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296870/original/file-20191014-135501-1u7w8sr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296870/original/file-20191014-135501-1u7w8sr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Video streaming firms are making their own content.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/madrid-spain-august-13-2018-samsung-1154935315?src=RV1Q0nOGXiZVnemT7mHDcg-1-83">Manuel Esteban/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are also important differences between these media industries. In the case of film, distributors such as Netflix, Amazon and HBO are <a href="https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/netflix-content-spending-2019-15-billion-1203112090/">investing heavily</a> in producing their own content, such as House of Cards, The Vikings and Game of Thrones, in order to grow and retain their subscribers. This makes it harder for consumers to access everything without multiple subscriptions.</p>
<p>In contrast, production and distribution are mostly separated in the music industry. Record labels continue to focus on production while other players such as Spotify and Apple focus on distribution. This separation allows each distributor to offer a deep catalogue of content, which has enabled music streaming services to become a practical alternative to piracy for the average music lover. If record companies were to break this model by requiring consumers to pay for several music service subscriptions to access their favourite artists, it would risk pushing them back to illegal sites.</p>
<p>Instead, music distributors compete mainly on how this catalogue is presented, navigated and consumed. And this is where a large user base is beneficial to the distributor, generating information that improves content navigation and recommendations, as well as valuable social interactions on the service and through integration with social networks such as Facebook. It also increases the distributors’ bargaining power when it comes to securing the content from the record companies.</p>
<p>This gives an advantage to companies with more users, encouraging a <a href="https://www.london.edu/lbsr/nine-reasons-why-tech-markets-are-winner-take-all">winner-takes-all</a> dynamic in which a small number of firms become dominant. In fact, the advantages of a large user base together with a large content catalogue are so strong that we don’t expect the launch of new streaming services by film and TV studios to keep the market fragmented forever. So while Netflix faces significant short-term challenges, it (or one of its rivals) may still eventually emerge as the dominant player.</p>
<h2>Other media</h2>
<p>How this separation between production and distribution will play out for books and video games in the long term is yet uncertain. But if consumers require several services to access their desired content, physical copies will remain attractive. And in these media categories, the physical still retains the upper hand.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/18/tech/e3-video-games-cloud-gaming/index.html">some are enthusiastic</a> about video game streaming services, these have yet to prove they can match the gameplay experiences traditional consoles are capable of. If the stream is slow to register a player’s commands or the video quality suffers or cuts out even for a split second, it could make many fast-paced games <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/jul/26/video-game-streaming-is-it-worth-it">less enjoyable or even unplayable</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, physical books still provide an experience many readers appreciate, which may explain why <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/03/leading-the-entertainment-pack-uk-print-book-sales-rise-again">sales have rebounded</a> over the last few years. Physical collections also help consumers build more of a <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/07378830911007673/full/html">personal relationship</a> with their media, in contrast to the impersonal abundance of choice promoted by digital services. They also have resale value that, in some cases, can be substantial.</p>
<p>So in the long term, we expect the distribution and consumption of media to migrate to a small handful of streaming services, as they already have for music. But in the meantime, catalogues could remain fragmented over several providers. We will have to wait and see if new streaming services are worth it. But if you can’t be bothered with multiple subscriptions or adapting to their current limitations, a shelf of carefully selected Blu-Rays, books and video games remains a safe bet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123828/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Movie studios are launching their own streaming apps but record labels aren’t about to do the same.Andres Hervas-Drane, Senior Lecturer in Management, Cass Business School, City, University of LondonPaolo Aversa, Senior Lecturer in Strategy, Cass Business School, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1242952019-09-30T13:37:38Z2019-09-30T13:37:38ZStreamed music and digital images have driven the comeback of vinyl and printed photos<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294781/original/file-20190930-194832-7g42rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C4%2C997%2C661&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Larina Marina via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The resurgence of vinyl records in a time of digital music and streaming is a story of how innovation can make technological comebacks possible. In the summer of 2019, the sales of vinyl albums are on the verge of becoming <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/vinyl-cds-revenue-growth-riaa-880959/">the largest source of revenue</a> from physical sales in the music industry. This follows 15 years of upward trend – today, while remaining a niche product, the vinyl record may well eventually survive to be the only analogue medium for music, as the sales of CD continue their downward spiral. </p>
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<p><em>You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/audio-narrated-99682">here</a>.</em></p>
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<p>Researchers in sociology and consumer culture <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1469540513488403">have shown</a> how this trend goes well beyond nostalgia – buyers of vinyl are attracted by its status as an object, its physical presence. This attraction matters even more today, as most of the time listening to a song does not involve buying a physical support anymore.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/back-on-record-the-reasons-behind-vinyls-unlikely-comeback-39964">Back on record – the reasons behind vinyl's unlikely comeback</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167811617300800">Our study</a> starts from this vinyl comeback. We try to show how it is precisely the process of innovation, in which a new product or technology replaces an outdated one, that opens the possibility for an even older and obsolete product or technology to become relevant again. </p>
<p>To do so, we need to go <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/620129/digital-flashback-cds-bury-vinyl/">back to the late 1980s</a>, when sales of compact discs outsold vinyl records for the first time (in 1988), and then the sales of cassettes (in 1993). <a href="http://www.icce.rug.nl/%7Esoundscapes/VOLUME02/Trends_and_shifts_in_music_sales.shtml">In 1998</a>, vinyl represented only 0.7% of the total music industry revenues.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294789/original/file-20190930-194819-hg8yof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294789/original/file-20190930-194819-hg8yof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294789/original/file-20190930-194819-hg8yof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294789/original/file-20190930-194819-hg8yof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294789/original/file-20190930-194819-hg8yof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294789/original/file-20190930-194819-hg8yof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294789/original/file-20190930-194819-hg8yof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Three generations of recorded sound.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HK-PHOTOGRAPHY via Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Why did consumers start to abandon vinyl and cassettes? Because compact discs are more resistant to scratches. Because they are simply more practical, easier to store, and easier to switch to the song you want to listen to. Because compact discs were sold to them as of superior sound quality: they can in theory emulate the sound of vinyl to a sampling rate <a href="http://sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/MusicAndComputers/chapter2/02_03.php">indistinguishable from the original to the human ear</a> while being able to reproduce <a href="https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/%7Ewww_pa/Scots_Guide/iandm/part12/page2.html">more extreme frequencies</a> (<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/381297/pdf?casa_token=pXjsTFjsF7oAAAAA:x8mNiMYBQr3FDLrPHYCG12Zpp2RrdHcvUErKpEI4Iq9ptvspRZFPxdExe6Jwy0DySJt5OK5Fl3I">purists disagree</a>). </p>
<p>Three decades later, digital music has replaced compact discs. <a href="https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Mid-Year-2019-RIAA-Music-Revenues-Report.pdf">In the US</a>, the streaming industry accounts for 80% of music industry revenues. Looking back at the criteria that made the vinyl obsolete, the current streaming technology outperforms compact discs in every dimension: high sound quality and no scratches or storage problems. </p>
<p>The only characteristic on which the compact disc can compete is its physical presence – some people want to possess an object they can touch and display in their home. But on this dimension, it seems vinyl is doing much better than compact discs. Hence, people attracted by the object are more likely to buy a vinyl to complement their digital consumption. </p>
<p>The music industry and vinyl retailers have well understood the importance of that dimension. Recent new and re-releases of vinyl incorporate special features which <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1469540513488403">play up the attractions</a> of buying vinyl. <a href="http://www.pressingvinyl.co.uk/index.php/2014/06/heavyweight-180g-vinyl/">Heavyweight vinyl pressing</a> suggests the importance of the musical content. The same holds for coloured vinyl or other special features such as cover art posters.</p>
<h2>Predators and prey</h2>
<p>This is a story of predators and prey – and is not unique to the music industry. Once the appearance of a new technology leads to the extinction of the previous one, it can be interesting to look at what existed before. Some of the characteristics of a long-extinct technology may have become relevant again now that the predator has disappeared. The key is then to identify how to emphasise these characteristics to the old format work alongside the new format.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294784/original/file-20190930-194866-1k7vpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294784/original/file-20190930-194866-1k7vpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294784/original/file-20190930-194866-1k7vpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294784/original/file-20190930-194866-1k7vpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294784/original/file-20190930-194866-1k7vpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294784/original/file-20190930-194866-1k7vpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294784/original/file-20190930-194866-1k7vpab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Making a comeback? Polaroid cameras.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Savanevich Viktar via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the photography industry, the first generation of analogue films has been almost entirely replaced by a second generation of digital cameras. A third generation, based on smartphones and social networks, was not originally designed for physical printing.</p>
<p>As more and more consumers now use the third-generation, abandoning digital cameras – according to <a href="http://www.cipa.jp/stats/dc_e.html">data by the Camera and Imaging Product Association</a>, shipments of digital cameras have decreased by more than 60% between 2010 and 2019 – the physical dimension of analogue photography seems to have become a useful complement. As a result, photography on film has started to return as a niche product – and discontinued products such as Kodak’s <a href="https://time.com/4649188/film-photography-industry-comeback/">Ektachrome</a> or <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/fujifilm-black-and-white-film-neopan-100-across-ii/">Fujifilm’s black and white films</a> are being reintroduced. </p>
<p>Some consumers, who had abandoned products of the first generation start using them again as a complement to the third one. As in the case of vinyl recordings, the industry has well understood the demand for tangible photography, beyond simply reverting to old cameras. Polaroid <a href="https://newatlas.com/digital-cameras/polaroid-lab-smartphone-instant-printer/">is soon to release</a> a “Lab” to print analogue pictures of images taken on smartphones. Fujifilm’s Instax, meanwhile, offers the possibility to print a format similar to Polaroid based on digital pictures. </p>
<p>Not every comeback is possible. Many products and technologies disappear because they have nothing useful to bring anymore. But when a new product or technology starts dominating a market, it may be a good idea to look at what existed two or three generations before. This may well prove to be part of the future – even if it’s just a small one.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Renaud Foucart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Vinyl records are set to become the largest source of revenue from physical music sales.Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1149442019-04-07T23:02:53Z2019-04-07T23:02:53ZMusic streaming has a far worse carbon footprint than the heyday of records and CDs – new findings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267786/original/file-20190405-180036-n4a4cc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Emission accomplished. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/funny-fitness-woman-listening-music-on-780075349?src=a-c7oEnRRyENyjdltLZD_g-1-5">Nicoleta Ionescu</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is easy to get nostalgic for the era when most music lovers bought LPs. They would save their pennies for a Saturday trip to the local record store, before heading home clutching their glorious new vinyl in a plastic bag to drop the needle on the turntable and listen on repeat. This anachronistic ritual will be resurrected on <a href="https://recordstoreday.co.uk/home/">International Record Store Day</a> on Saturday April 13, as consumers queue to buy exclusive limited edition vinyl releases from their favourite artists. Launched a decade ago, this annual event is an industry drive to boost ailing independent record stores in an age when most people stream music online. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267613/original/file-20190404-123395-hj3dux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267613/original/file-20190404-123395-hj3dux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267613/original/file-20190404-123395-hj3dux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267613/original/file-20190404-123395-hj3dux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267613/original/file-20190404-123395-hj3dux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267613/original/file-20190404-123395-hj3dux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267613/original/file-20190404-123395-hj3dux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267613/original/file-20190404-123395-hj3dux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ah, the good old days.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/860391">pxhere</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But is it actually true that earlier generations placed a greater value on recorded music than music fans in the present day? We are loath to succumb to the mythology of a “golden age” for music and lend credence to baby boomers moaning of bygone days when music somehow mattered more than it does now. We decided to investigate the numbers to see if they told a different story. As it turns out, they do – and it’s far worse than we expected.</p>
<p>We conducted archival research on recorded music consumption and production in the US, comparing the economic and environmental costs of different formats at different times. We <a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/183249/">found that</a> the price consumers have been willing to pay for the luxury of owning recorded music has changed dramatically. </p>
<p>The price of a phonograph cylinder in its peak year of production in 1907 would be an estimated US$13.88 (£10.58) in today’s money, compared to US$10.89 for a shellac disc in its peak year of 1947. A vinyl album in its peak year of 1977, when The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks came out, cost US$28.55 in today’s money, against US$16.66 for a cassette tape in 1988, US$21.59 for a CD in 2000, and US$11.11 for a digital album download in 2013. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267610/original/file-20190404-123410-4fgc0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267610/original/file-20190404-123410-4fgc0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267610/original/file-20190404-123410-4fgc0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267610/original/file-20190404-123410-4fgc0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267610/original/file-20190404-123410-4fgc0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267610/original/file-20190404-123410-4fgc0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267610/original/file-20190404-123410-4fgc0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267610/original/file-20190404-123410-4fgc0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peak rock and roll swindle: 1977.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/losgofres/332247453/in/photolist-4s4s38-Wo1ZJ7-5Dxt7o-vmRAn-5Dtatk-JLanW-oXf9a1-9ULrxc-8fQ5M1-o51i8-66fwoX-5Jdbcy-5UYHZp-4vbKeJ-es5Zuq-cQcBnj-cQSvAh-FWL64-5UuyBh-gkrjho-g3mCFg-6PcHPs-5yZDNg-Zs9isH-d6zsi3-F6gQWs-4T7a4z-CUF9nM-2BCVY-JAArE-HRMy3A-EFa1r4-xhQthW-MBacof-5D1Utz">losgofres</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This fall in the relative value of recorded music becomes more pronounced when you look at the same prices as a proportion of weekly salaries. Consumers were willing to pay roughly 4.83% of their average weekly salary for a vinyl album in 1977. This slips down to roughly 1.22% of the equivalent salary for a digital album during its 2013 peak. </p>
<p>With the advent of streaming, of course, the business model of consuming recorded music changed: what used to be a commodity industry, where people bought copies to own, is now a service industry in which they buy temporary access to a music experience stored in the cloud. For just US$9.99 – barely 1% of the current average weekly salary in the US – consumers now have unlimited ad-free access to almost all recorded music ever released via platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Pandora and Amazon. </p>
<h2>The environmental angle</h2>
<p>Yet if consumers are paying an ever lower price for their music, <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/decomposed">the picture</a> looks very different when you start to look at environmental costs. Intuitively you might think that less physical product means far lower carbon emissions. In 1977, for instance, the industry used 58m kilograms of plastic in the US. By 1988, the peak year for cassettes, this had dipped slightly to 56m kg. When CDs peaked in 2000, it was up to 61m kg of plastic. Then came the big digital dividend: as downloading and streaming took over, the amount of plastics used by the US recording industry dropped dramatically, down to just 8m kg by 2016. </p>
<p>But if these figures seem to confirm the notion that music digitalised is music dematerialised – and therefore more environmentally friendly – there’s still the question of the energy used to power online music listening. Storing and processing music in the cloud depends on vast data centres that use a tremendous amount of resources and energy. </p>
<p>It is possible to demonstrate this by translating plastic production and the electricity used to store and transmit digital audio files into greenhouse gas equivalents (GHGs). This shows that GHGs from recorded music were 140m kg in 1977 in the US, 136m kg in 1988, and 157m kg in 2000. By 2016 it is estimated to have been between 200m kg and over 350m kg – and remember that this is only in the US.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267783/original/file-20190405-180023-1av6so3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267783/original/file-20190405-180023-1av6so3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267783/original/file-20190405-180023-1av6so3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267783/original/file-20190405-180023-1av6so3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267783/original/file-20190405-180023-1av6so3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267783/original/file-20190405-180023-1av6so3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267783/original/file-20190405-180023-1av6so3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267783/original/file-20190405-180023-1av6so3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Brennan/Kyle Devine</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Obviously this is not the last word on the matter. To truly compare past and present, if it were even possible, you would have to factor in the emissions involved in making the devices on which we have listened to music in different eras. You would need to look at the fuel burned in distributing LPs or CDs to music stores, plus the costs of distributing music players then and now. There are the emissions from the recording studios and the emissions involved in making the musical instruments used in the recording process. You might even want to compare the emissions in live performances in the past and the present – it starts to look like an almost endless enquiry. </p>
<p>Even if the comparison between different eras ultimately came out looking different, our overriding point would be the same: the price that consumers are willing to pay for listening to recorded music has never been lower than today, yet the hidden environmental impact of that experience is enormous. </p>
<p>The point of this research is not to ruin one of life’s greatest pleasures, but to encourage consumers to become more curious about the choices they make as they consume culture. Are we remunerating the artists who make our favourite music in a way that accurately reflects our appreciation? Are streaming platforms the right business model to facilitate that exchange? Is streaming music remotely from the cloud the most appropriate way to listen to music from the perspective of environmental sustainability? There are no easy solutions, but taking a moment to reflect on the costs of music – and how they have changed over history – is a step in the right direction.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1114944">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Brennan receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He is a member of the Scottish Green Party.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Devine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production in the vinyl era is not a patch on the equivalent from running giant servers today.Matt Brennan, Reader in Popular Music, University of GlasgowKyle Devine, Associate Professor in Musicology, University of OsloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1011622018-08-09T15:15:54Z2018-08-09T15:15:54ZThe rise of cyberlockers: how online piracy is fighting back<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230871/original/file-20180807-191044-1x10haf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/computer-transfer-download-failed-data-stop-474598984">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Illegal downloading is on its way out. A <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45042838">new report</a> released by polling firm YouGov has found that only 10% of people in the UK now use illegal downloads to access music, down from 18% in 2013. And the recently released <a href="https://www.ivir.nl/projects/global-online-piracy-study/">Global online piracy study</a> from the University of Amsterdam argued that entertainment streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix mean that far fewer people are accessing copyright-infringing content.</p>
<p>Despite this, pirated songs, films and TV shows are still widely available online. For example, the Amsterdam study also found that 36% of the UK population has accessed illegal content online in the last year. The shift from downloads to streaming is real but it hasn’t solved all the entertainment industry’s problems because piracy has also shifted in a similar way. A growing fraction of illegal content is now accessed through streaming “cyberlockers”, YouTube-like websites often used to upload and share video content without permission. There has recently been significant growth in their use, <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/628704/OCI_-tracker-7th-wave.pdf">with 10% of infringers using cyberlockers in 2017, up from 4% in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Together with my PhD student Damilola Ibosiola and other colleagues, I <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02679.pdf">recently published research</a> showing that most illegal streaming cyberlocker content is distributed by just a handful of providers, as opposed to the millions of people who used to share files illegally through peer-to-peer downloading software. This might make it easier for law enforcement to contact the host of an illegal file, but it also means that they are up against people with extensive experience in evading detection. As a result, the pirates are constantly fighting back.</p>
<p>Because of this, we wanted to understand how the cyberlockers used by pirates operate, and shed light on this murky domain. We built software to monitor the videos uploaded onto popular cyberlockers, as well as “indexing websites”, which maintain a directory of links to reliable sources of videos on cyberlockers. In total, we identified over 795,000 links.</p>
<h2>How it works</h2>
<p>What we found was truly fascinating, a dynamic ecosystem of competing players, constantly striving to evade detection and being forced to takedown content. This is perhaps not surprising given our observation that these operations were apparently very fragile.</p>
<p>For example, one website we studied was taken offline three months into our measurements. But these kinds of departures were also complimented by various new cyberlocker arrivals. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Accessing illegal online content is still common.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/online-movie-stream-mobile-device-man-728322208?src=8fc66K2izADySXQ6W0pmPA-1-0">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>All seemed in a constant flux, with links being added and deleted regularly. A total of 55% of cyberlockers saw growth during our measurement period, while 45% saw a decline. But the apparent diversity of cyberlockers may be rather superficial. By examining certain features of the sites to infer potential relationships, we discovered that, in many cases, individual operators were running multiple different websites.</p>
<p>A total of 58% of all videos that we monitored were held by just two major hosting providers, although from the outside they appeared to be dispersed across 15 apparently independent cyberlockers. This meant action against one company could take down a huge chunk of illegal material. </p>
<p>Our guess was that this was largely a product of the cat-and-mouse game played between cyberlockers and copyright enforcers. These enforcers monitor popular websites to identify infringing content, and then use legal notices to request its removal. </p>
<p>We observed cyberlockers use many techniques to fly under the radar of these enforcers. A total of 64% of the sites we studied did not have search features, making it difficult to find content from their front page, and 42% obscured their true content by hiding it among various obscure copyright-free videos.</p>
<p>To get an idea of how successful the copyright enforcers were, we also used data from <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/">Lumen</a>, which records cease and desist letters concerning online content. We were surprised to find that 84% of the notices we monitored were apparently acted upon, with cyberlockers taking down the content. What was less surprising to find was that it usually wasn’t long before the very same content emerged elsewhere (often on the same cyberlocker under a different page).</p>
<p>It seems that online piracy is less of a technical game, and more of a socioeconomic one, with pirates and law enforcers constantly innovating around each other. In most cases, both sides of the debate are driven by financial incentives. It therefore seems likely that the long-term solution will be for the media industry to create new business models that deplete those incentives. Until then, the game will continue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gareth Tyson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Cyberlocker’ illegal streaming sites are in a constant cat-and-mouse struggle with law enforcement.Gareth Tyson, Lecturer in Computer science, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/966552018-05-16T00:08:22Z2018-05-16T00:08:22ZThe charts may be getting sadder but popular music has never been more varied<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219019/original/file-20180515-195311-13omk5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/diversity-students-friends-entertainment-music-concept-520655110?src=dUwlJ4AZEj7d_1fbCFsw-g-1-3">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1985, the best selling song in the UK was Jennifer Rush’s The Power of Love. Thirty years later, it was Uptown Funk, by Mark Ronson, featuring Bruno Mars. From soft-rock power ballad to dance track, these were two very different chart toppers.</p>
<p>It’s obviously difficult to take a sample of two songs and draw sensible conclusions about changes in popular music. But what about a sample of 500,000 songs? That’s exactly what scientists at the University of California Irvine <a href="http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rsos.171274">have done</a>, to track trends in the success of different kinds of song between 1985 and 2015.</p>
<p>The researchers made use of the burgeoning availability of large datasets, in this case the crowd-sourced online music encyclopedias <a href="https://musicbrainz.org/">Musicbrainz</a> and <a href="https://acousticbrainz.org/">Acousticbrainz</a>. They analysed half a million songs released in the UK during that 30-year period and correlated chart success with the acoustic features of the songs.</p>
<p>These are broken down into variables like timbre, tonality, danceability, mood and clusters of genres. The findings suggest there is a broad trend for fewer happy songs and more sad songs, while at the same time there has been an increase in the number of danceable songs. Yet while this kind of “big data” study can reveal new insights about what music people are listening to, it’s also important to look at the wider picture of how they listen.</p>
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<p>The idea that pop songs are getting sadder makes for interesting reading and eye-catching headlines. But categorising songs as “happy” or “sad” also depends greatly on social context and interaction. Take the example of a song that topped the charts twice, 16 years apart, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s a complex multi-layered production, not straightforwardly danceable and sung from the perspective of a nihilistic murderer to whom “nothing really matters”. Yet it’s the source of much joyful <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2017/07/65000-fans-break-into-a-singalong-of-queens-bohemian-rhapsody.html">group participation</a>.</p>
<p>It’s also worth considering that the way we consume music, and how that consumption is measured, has changed a lot in 30 years. The charts are a lot less important now that the sheer amount of music available to the average listener is orders of magnitude greater than it was in 1985. Then, audiences relied on a comparatively small number of radio stations to hear new music. The charts were selected from a limited number of available singles and were much more prominent in people’s everyday listening.</p>
<p>Today, listeners have the history of recorded music in their pockets and increased control over how it’s playlisted and ordered to taste. The technology we use to listen to music has even <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eXO0q2ECkfkJ:https://www.routledge.com/Sound-Moves-iPod-Culture-and-Urban-Experience/Bull/p/book/9780415257527+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk">altered our relationship</a> with it, simultaneously expanding the parameters of musical choice and making the listening experience more intensely private. </p>
<p>Even though the charts themselves have adapted over the decades, incorporating downloads in 2004 and streaming in 2014, they no longer represent the same measure of cultural dominance they once did. As psychologists <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/handbook-of-musical-identities-9780199679485?cc=gb&lang=en&">Raymond MacDonald, David Hargreaves and Dorothy Miell note</a>, there has been a “democratisation of musical styles in that the previous association of certain styles with ‘seriousness’ and others with ‘popularity’ no longer exists to anything like the same extent”.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219022/original/file-20180515-195318-1a4uvud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219022/original/file-20180515-195318-1a4uvud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219022/original/file-20180515-195318-1a4uvud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219022/original/file-20180515-195318-1a4uvud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219022/original/file-20180515-195318-1a4uvud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219022/original/file-20180515-195318-1a4uvud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219022/original/file-20180515-195318-1a4uvud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Rave went from sub-culture to mainstream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fun-concert-party-disco-light-background-362893757?src=qm9BgEHzBW-2l5RggVRRFg-1-1">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>While the charts record mainstream success, they also interact with and are fed by musical subcultures that are often defined in opposition to that mainstream. They initially grow because they’re different to what’s in the charts but can eventually achieve success by building on that status, creating tensions with the original fans.</p>
<p>For example, once tabloid newspapers began regularly using terms like “acid house” and featuring smiley face t-shirts in their fashion selections, many original <a href="http://www.upne.com/9561500.html">rave fans moved on</a> to maintain their sense of distance and opposition from the mainstream. It’s a familiar pattern with musical subcultures – from mods, to hippies to punks – as their markers of difference become incorporated into the wider cultural milieu.</p>
<p>Popular music, then, is contested territory. Patterns of taste are in constant flux, with chart success being only one axis of music’s impact.</p>
<h2>The limits of big data</h2>
<p>The recommendation algorithms of large tech companies are increasingly a <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-it-matters-when-big-tech-firms-extend-their-power-into-media-content-86876">part of the process of musical and cultural choice</a>, and the massive datasets associated with this are a huge resource for researchers. But the “popular” in popular music is more than just a quantitative measure of consumption, and we can’t just reduce it to aesthetic and stylistic components. We also need to take account of its social functions. And that means researchers from different disciplines – both arts and science – engaging in dialogue to analyse and interpret the data.</p>
<p>Music encoded as digital data is now feeding into the broader matrix of economic and political decision making, such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/your-spotify-history-could-help-predict-whats-going-on-with-the-economy-96305">Bank of England using it to take the economic temperature</a>. So it’s more important than ever that the social aspect of music’s use does not get buried beneath the numbers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Researchers analysed 30 years of British pop charts and found a trend towards sadness – but the days of judging music purely on stylistic measures is long gone.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.