Record Label Says That Pulling Music From Spotify 'Protects Artists'
from the no,-it-doesn't... dept
We’ve definitely seen plenty of confusion from record labels over the value of Spotify and similar services. But, a heavy metal/hardcore label, Century Media (which runs a variety of smaller labels: InsideOutMusic, Superballmusic, Ain’t no Grave Records, Hollywood Waste and People Like You) has claimed that it’s pulling all its music from Spotify to “protect artists.” It’s a funny way to “protect” artists by punishing fans who want to hear them. They complain that “physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active.” Their assumption appears to be that correlation is causation, and merely removing their works from Spotify will now shoot sales back up. But that’s not how things work. If anything, it seems likely that this move will accelerate their problems with physical sales. Not only will people not want to buy CDs, they won’t even know about the musicians on this label. They’ll just listen to someone else instead. The way you protect artists is by helping them to better connect with fans, not making it even more difficult. If I were a band on a Century Label, I’d be pretty pissed off that the label has unilaterally decided to piss off a bunch of my fans and stop many potential fans from discovering my music.
Filed Under: music, record label
Companies: century media, spotify
Comments on “Record Label Says That Pulling Music From Spotify 'Protects Artists'”
Hey a music store how quaint, I think ill poke my head in. Hey look a bunch of bands I have never heard of, hmmm my smart phones tells me there are no samples of their music on the internet. Guess I’ll just have to buy all these cds to find out who these bands are on this label ive never heard of.
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In their world it’s still 1987, Hoth, there are no smart phones or internets. Everyone just buys the CDs based on wild guesses and maybe some cool cover art.
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“Everyone just buys the CDs based on wild guesses and maybe some cool cover art.”
Derek Riggs must be making millions these days then.
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No way. Derek Riggs will have a work-for-hire agreement. There’s no way a record company would pay him unit royalties. They need new yachts, you know.
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“Derek Riggs must be making millions these days then.”
Never heard of him. Guess I better run down to the corner record store and pick up some of his stuff. Hopefully they’ll have it on 8-Track so I can rock it in my Chevy Vega on the way over to the roller disco. 😉
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I dont believe he has anything to hear. He is however, citation needed, the reason > half of Iron Maiden’s fans found them in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Riggs
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Fact: many people have bought Iron Maiden merchandise because they like his artwork, not because they like the band. But, copyright maximalists will tell us that selling plastic discs is the only way to make money so I guess they’re all lying 😉
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To be fair, I don’t know the labels or the bands on there, but they might have a dedicated following who would buy albums if they didn’t already get them as part of their spotify subscription. Exposure is great, but it doesn’t work the same for every band, especially in niche genres where they might already reach many of the people who will ever be interested in it.
let’s talk to them in a few months and see if this worked for them rather than outright dismissing their strategy based on nothing but assumptions.
In the long term you’re right that labels need to adapt to survive, but it doesn’t always work that way in the short term.
Nothing protects an artist better than removing exposure to fans. It is much the same thing as protecting children by locking them in the cellar. They can’t get hurt if they aren’t exposed to dangers.
Well if they think they can survive without a good service like spotify then they are the silly ones. new business modle for labels appears to be
1 don’t allow anyone to hear your product
2 don’t allow anyone to talk about your product
3 profit
when do they file for bankruptcy.
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when do they file for bankruptcy.
It occurred to me a couple months back that the failure of the record labels could come from two different directions. The failure of a single one of the majors would wipe out the industry, or the failure of several of the smaller labels.
Rush
I love Spotify so far, but I have to say this is one of the more annoying traits I’m seeing.
For example I have saved every single Rush album they have available. However out of the hundreds of songs, there is *one* song that is always left out because “The artist or record label doesn’t want this yada yada yada…”
It’s just baffling to have 462 tracks, but one song from Moving Pictures is verboten!
Re: Rush
That makes me sad. Rush is one of my top favorite bands. I would cry if I used Spotify.
For another example, but on YouTube, Vevo has made a large number of Weird Al videos available, yet there are a number that are not available in the US because of “Copyright Issues” I can buy the song on iTunes or buy the album at surviving music stores, yet I can’t watch one out of 50 videos online.
And yes I understand the irony of not being able to watch something in the US online because of Copyright reasons.
Re: Re: Rush
Thankfully, TPB doesn’t have this issue.
Re: Rush
+10 for being a Rush fan.
Neil Peart rules!
Re: Rush
Which song was it exactly? Just curious.
Re: Re: Rush
If you tell me it’s Tom Sawyer, I’m going to be pissed. I actually bought the vinyl just for that song.
Re: Re: Re: Rush
Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure it’s on the vinyl you bought.
Re: Re: Rush
The missing song I was talking about earlier today is The Camera Eye, and there are a few others. The exact error message is:
The artist/label has chosen to make this track unavailable. If you have the file on your computer, you can import it.
Xanadu (the studio version), 2112 and Cygnus X-1 are also in the same boat. It’s really strange to me that out of all that music, these songs were specifically singled out. I’m just curious as to why.
Other then this, I’m enjoying Spotify.
Re: Rush
The Longest Yard Movie Sound track, Here Comes The Boom!! Nelly…. Yet that was the biggest song of the Movie!! Makes No Sense!!
Well there's the problem...
They’re obviously protecting artists from things like fame, public exposure, and digital profit; which, if memories of the last mandatory MAFIAA seminar they ran; are all bad things.
What artists need are tiny royalty checks from the selling of shiny plastic discs.
So, yep, protecting their interests.
You know what they say
Money corrupts. So I feel I should protect the artists from the evils of money as well. In fact, to help the labels help the artist, I should protect the labels from large amounts of money as well. Now who do I need to talk to about saving them…
Maybe the record company is right. Their artists may suck, and upon hearing them on Spotify, nobody will ever buy their records.
Of course, nobody will ever buy their records if they’ve never heard of them either…
Not what the artists want
Just to show you that the labels truly are disconnected with their artists, this is an email I recieved from the Offspring on July 28th, 2011. (yes, I’m on their mailing list)
It would seem that the bands really like the idea of Spotify, so we have a case of the left hand not telling the right hand what it’s doing.
Could someone please tell me why the labels still exist!
Re: Not what the artists want
they are dead just they don’t know it yet.
yes the labels are ZOMBIES.
how do you destroy zombies?
Re: Re: Not what the artists want
let them rot, the story dogs get them, or die because it takes way to much to get one meal a month
Re: Re: Re: Not what the artists want
stray*
Re: Re: Not what the artists want
how do you destroy zombies?
Don’t feed them brains. Funny that….
Re: Re: Not what the artists want
Just tell all the bands that they don’t have to sign with them.
Good luck with that.
Re: Re: Not what the artists want
Don’t forget to double tap.
Re: Re: Re: Not what the artists want
First things first.
Rule #1 Cardio
Re: Not what the artists want
Could someone please tell me why the labels still exist!
inertia in?er?tia (ĭ-n?r’shə)
n.
The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force.
Resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change.
Re: Re: Not what the artists want
More like Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Re: Not what the artists want
It would seem that the bands really like the idea of Spotify, so we have a case of the left hand not telling the right hand what it’s doing.
Yeah, this surprised me too, because I know about (and in some cases, have met) many of the bands on Century. I doubt that the bands are happy at all about this.
Century is probably the biggest “indie” label out there – they’re distributed by EMI – so maybe they’ve been hanging out with the RIAA folks for too long. Who knows.
So wait, when the record companies go with numbers and spot “cause and effect”, they are stupid, and yet much of what is promoted on Techdirt as “the way” is often based on nothing more than a feeling. Nice!
So Mike, how as the CwF sales been the last 3 months?
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“So wait, when the record companies go with numbers and spot “cause and effect”, they are stupid…”
When they mistake correlation for causation, then yes.
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It’s funny that you assume users of digital content will revert back to CD acquisition. In reality all it will lead to is illegal downloading. I have not purchased a CD in over 7 years and the idea of going back to that because they choose to hide content I’m trying to obtain is hilarious.
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Assuming that whatever was happening at the time your sales went down caused the sales to go down IS stupid.
So AC, how is that red herring you’ve been nursing for the last 3 days?
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Days? He’s been chasing false assumptions for years, assuming it’s the same AC of course…
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You mean the RtB sales?
I’ve seen Mike CwF a few times on Google+ in the past few weeks, and he lets paying members write up their favorite stories of the week(another part of CwF).
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…and he lets paying members write up their favorite stories of the week(another part of CwF).
Mike has also asked non-paying community members (like myself) to do the Favorites posts. My choice not to contribute comes from my desire to give as little information about myself as possible on the internet.
“physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active.”
Holy Christmas, have they been living under a rock? In case they haven’t noticed, physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries PERIOD. Welcome to the new millennium gentlemen. You’re about a decade late, and in for one helluva bumpy ride. Please turn off the lights on your way out.
In other news, Sony Entertainment pulls all their music from iTunes due to plummeting Walkman sales.
the record labels are the stupidest people on the face of the earth.
R.I.A.A. = Real Ignorant Assholes of America
This could be a blessing in disguise. If I never hear a new band from a large label again, that means the bands I DO hear (and coincidentally buy music of) are from independent or small intelligent labels.
Excluding yourself from a party and after being an asshole so everyone there is glad you didn?t show up, is a very nice gesture but certainly will no get you any sympathy.
Don't doubt this a bit
Actually, I don’t doubt the record label in this a bit. It very well could be hurting their album sales.
Why?
Because Spotify is awesome, that’s why. It’s almost like having an infinitely big iPod with ever record ever recorded on it.
I’ve been using one of their competitors lately (Rdio) and I’ve been wondering myself why I would want to buy more recordings when everything I’ve every wanted to hear is only seconds away.
Ironically, this is one of the things that record companies have been asking for; i.e. getting recurring money from everybody. However, as in all things, the revenues from these services is limited. The pie has to be divided up and the companies that get most of the slices are the big guys because the number of their plays/downloads vastly outnumber the numbers of the little guys. So the small labels slice of the pie could be rounding down to (near/actual) zero.
There’s no one good solution that will resolve everyone’s problems.
Re: Don't doubt this a bit
Why would anyone be interested in solving the labels problems? ‘cept them of course – and they’re causing their own
Earth To Century Media!
Newsflash.. nobody is buying CD’s anymore. Although spotify isn’t perfect it does allow for massive exposure and royalties. Tune in next week when Century Media re-releases their greatest hits on 8 track.
Re: Earth To Century Media!
Don’t paint with too broad a brush.
I personally still buy CDs, since they are the best form of storage for songs that I want to keep – hence why I bought them in the first place. I can rip them to any required format, they are easy (and legal) to lend to friends.
In the last decade, I’ve lost too much hardware that, had I only owned digital copies, I would have lost my music as well. I realise there are services that allow me to redownload purchased content with no extra price, but the cost is usually tie-in to their services.
I just went to one of the labals web site no way to even hear a preview of their stuff. If i cant hear it I am not risking my money.
Saving the world
Apparently the record companies are living in the past so I was wondering if there was any way we could possibly send messages to them to warn them about Katrina and 9/11 we could save millions.
Protect more!
They should “protect” the artists even further by pulling their music from every service that charges less than 1 million dollars to ear them. See how well that works for them…
And then when Century Media sees 1000 illegal downloads on the Pirate Bay, it can claim 1 billion dollars in losses! Wow! That will really make the politicians move on anti-piracy legislation!
PS: This is what the labels have been doing for a LONG time. Price their product above what the market will bear, or place it on a market (physical CDs) that their costumers are abandoning, and then complain of unrealistic losses as people turn to more convenient sources.
A few years a go I discovered the band Turisas on Last.fm. They had all of there songs on there and you could listen to the whole tracks not just 30 second clips. I listened through both of their albums and really liked what I heard. So I went to Amazon and bought the digital versions. Every now and then I check in on their website to see what they’re up to. I just looked a few weeks ago and found out I had totally missed a new album earlier this year. Obviously I wanted to listen to the new album to see if it was as good as their first two. There was only one song on the band’s website, so I went back to Last.fm. When I got there all of there songs were only 30 second clips. That was completely worthless. You can’t get a good feel for a song and tell if you like it or not with only a 30 second clip. Anyways someone had posted a YouTube link for a song so I tried to listen to it there. When I got to YouTube I was greeted with a lovely message that the video was no longer available due to a copyright claim made by none other than… Century Media. By this point I was too frustrated with the whole thing and gave up. Maybe some day I’ll listen to their new album and possibly buy it if I like it. But until I can actually preview it there’s no way in hell they’ll be getting any more money from me. So congratulations Century Media, you helped a great band turn away a paying customer.
I haven’t had a chance to check out Spotify yet, but I wonder: does it function well as a discovery engine? If it’s more of a “I can just ask for whatever song I want” type of thing, I can see why a smaller label might want to opt out. I assume the fear is that people will discover the bands on their own, and then solely use Spotify as their source for that particular music. Spotify is somewhat notorious for it’s fractions of fractions of a cent pay-outs to small artists.
Why Bono doesn’t have a label like that?
I would love to see him being protected LoL
Shiny plastic discs
Unfortunately, my wife is one of those consumers whom the record labels love. She doesn’t want digital downloads at all — she wants shiny plastic discs. She wants that piece of paper that has a picture of the album cover, she wants the liner notes (if any), she really wants the lyrics, etc. She wants to be able to slide that plastic into the CD player in the car, the kitchen or the bedroom stereo. She still wants me to rip it so that I can add the songs to her Blackberry, too, but she wants that label-supplied plastic disc with all of its trappings and has actually asked me NOT to download albums for her from iTunes or Walmart.com anymore.
*Sigh*
Re: Shiny plastic discs
[joke]
File for divorce now before is to late.
[/joke]
Re: Shiny plastic discs
Well, you won’t have to worry about Walmart.com anymore. It’s shuttering its digital service that was so popular millions of people weren’t aware it was open until it announced it was closing.
http://ca.ibtimes.com/articles/195839/20110810/james-lee-phillips.htm
Re: Re: Shiny plastic discs
Yeah, when I read that Walmart was closing down the MP3 store on August 28th I was surprised. I wasn’t even aware it was still in business. I thought it had closed like two or three years ago. So I asked about about 15-20 people if they were aware the Walmart MP3 store was closing. Half of them didn’t know Walmart ever had an MP3 store, or like me thought it had closed several years ago. There marketing department must be beaming with pride.
The labels should cancel concert tours as well; surely those likewise cut into album sales.
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And “protect” artists from the radio as well! People don’t pay anything to listen to them on the radio!
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Tours quite directly cut into album sales. I dont feel obliged to an album if i paid to see the show. Also, if I pirated the album, I feel obliged to go to the show.
Theyve said that theyre going to consider putting an increased number of multi-artist compilations in place of the yanked records.
I really hope someone with time and resources checks back in a year. See where all their bands went. How the sales “improved”. How many legitimate buyers will go to torrents? Oh wait.. that’s their next step isn’t it? But but but piracy!!
Yeah so I hope someone checks back in a while. Mike, make a note? You should really revise some old articles sometime and see how their new and improved let’s not allow anyone to listen to our music model has made them improve.
Spotify is late to internet radio. Why promote it so much?
Try shoutcast.com for all the new (or old) music that you can stand, or have time for.
My question is what’s different about Spotify from those thousands of completely free internet streams except that it has more advertising?
Late to the thread, and probably rhetorical anyway.
Re: Spotify is late to internet radio. Why promote it so much?
It’s different then Internet radio IMO. Certainly different hen Pandora which is really the only other service I’ve used.
Never heard of the label, but apparently I have bought a couple of their albums (Lacuna Coil, a band I discovered when a friend gave me a – gasp! – pirated copy of one of their albums when he heard I was an Evanescence fan and he thought they were similar). I might like some of their other artists, but how do I know without listening to them? I’m certainly not going to buy Lacuna Coils’ next album without listening first as I find their stuff hit and miss, let alone other artists I’m not familiar with.
As for losing revenue? I doubt it. I’m currently listening to Leftfield’s Leftism on Spotify, an album I love and have already bought twice (once on tape, then on CD). Despite loving the album, I’ll never buy it again (what’s the point?), but Leftfield still stand to get a small amount of revenue whenever I choose to listen to it on Spotify. A shame Century’s bands don’t stand to get revenue from their fans in the same way.
100 years ago...
Sales of horse can carts are dropping off everywhere automobiles are available, therefore we at Blogs and Co Horse Buggies inc. will refuse to make automobiles to “protect” our business and workers. Of course physical media sales are dropping off, what the hell would i do with a CD anyway, i can’t remember the last time a blew the dust off my CD player and even if my phone had some sort of way to play CDs, why would i want to carry some massive bag of CDs about when i can just pay ?10 a month for Spotify and have access to 8 million plus tracks. What planet do these morons live on.
I don’t have the infinite knowledge on this matter like Mike Masnick and some other people here, but maybe, just MAYBE, Spotify plays do not make enough money for artists.
Ever thought about that?
And I’ve heard plenty of people say that they don’t feel the need to buy the music anymore if they can stream it from Spotify.
Re: Re:
“Ever thought about that?”
If you ever read his words, I think he has.
“And I’ve heard plenty of people say that they don’t feel the need to buy the music anymore if they can stream it from Spotify.”
I’ve heard plenty of people say they would never buy a song from a contestant on The X Factor. That means nobody buys their songs, right?
Infinite knowledge
Ever wondered why there is almost no musicians commenting on this blog? Weird isn’t it? On a blog mainly about music-biz. But lots of people with “infinite knowledge”
Re: Infinite knowledge
Strange how you ignore the artists who do comment, especially those who comment on a regular basis. Almost as though you’re wilfully ignoring them to make a “point”. Hmmm…
As for me, I never claim to have “infinite knowledge”, but as a paying customer I do point out the many mistakes that stop me from buying what I wish to pay for. For my troubles, I usually get accused of “piracy” or told I’m wrong by the likes of you.
Re: Re: Infinite knowledge
OK, the comments below prove me completely wrong… I am an on and off visitor, and somehow that was the impression I got. I apologize.
GAH!
I’m extremely disappointed to see this coming from a record label like Century Media.
I was a “working” musician in metal bands for a number of years and we knew from the get-go (this is back in 2004 mind you), that we would NEVER make a huge amount of money from record sales. So what did we do? We concentrated on making cool merchandise than fans wanted to buy, played as many live shows as we could and delivered a performance we knew people would want to come back for.
We certainly didn’t make the big bucks, but we made enough to go live, play, and go on tour relatively often. But the thing is: none of that would have been possible if we didn’t actively encourage others to share our music for free. Without sharing no one would have heard us beyond the East Coast and we probably would not have been able to tour the West so early into our career.
Weird.
Sort of weird for a metal label to be doing this. Most metal these days is expected to be downloaded for free off the various blogs. In turn, fans are expected to buy what they like. A lot of metal bands know they wont be super rich because the genre is pretty niche. If they wanted to be rich they wouldn’t be making the music. It’s a love of the music. Anyone who is into the genre knows a lot about this, most serious metal fans will buy the albums on vinyl when ever possible. My town has several metal shops that are just packed to the gills with vinyl. Finding stuff on CD is next to impossible.
An independent record label chimes in...
As General Manager of Alternative Tentacles Records, indie label since 1979 and currently distributed physically & digitally by Revolver, I think it’s silly to pull one’s catalog from ANY digital service that’s actually (gasp!) paying labels.
Yes, streamed songs (Spotify, Rhapsody, Jango, Pandora) are paid at a much lower rate than digital sales (iTunes, eMusic), but it’s still income that the label & the artist can split.
Seriously, that’s completely backwards and a big disservice to their sub-labels & their bands.
P.S.- The comments about CDs being dead are not accurate. We sell less CDs than before, and more vinyl & more digital than before, but CDs are still strong, depending on the band.
Re: An independent record label chimes in...
Yes, streamed songs (Spotify, Rhapsody, Jango, Pandora) are paid at a much lower rate than digital sales (iTunes, eMusic), but it’s still income that the label & the artist can split.
Indeed, but that’s comparing apples and oranges. Streaming is a performance, whereas digital sales is a reproduction. They have different royalty rates.
Transposing this to the 1970’s, it’s exactly like Century is saying, “We’re pulling our music off the radio, because we don’t make as much as we do selling vinyl.”
…I’m sure you know all this, it’s for the benefit of other faithful readers.
Been an A.T. fan for twenty years, by the way. Sad that Phantom Limbs broke up.
Iron Maiden mp3
Hello you guys done a great job by publishing this article, so keep it up.
Rush
Only Xanadu suffers from this now. Cygnus X-1 (both tracks), 2112, and all other Rush prog songs I can find work. It’s literally just Xanadu. Which sucks, because that’s not only my favorite Rush song, but also my favorite song of all time. WTF.