(Indie Central LXXXVI) Arcade Indie

I'm sure each generation of musicians feels they've lived through a time of tremendous change, but the shifts I've witnessed in my relatively short music career-- from morphing formats to dissolving business models-- do seem extraordinary. The first album I made was originally released on LP only, in 1988-- and my next will likely only be pressed on LP again. But in between, the music industry seems to have done everything it could to screw up that simple model of exchange; today it is no longer possible for most of us to earn even a modest wage through our recordings.

Not that I am naively nostalgic for the old days-- we weren't paid for that first album, either. (The record label we were signed to at the time, Rough Trade, declared bankruptcy before cutting us even one royalty check.) But the ways in which musicians are screwed have changed qualitatively, from individualized swindles to systemic ones. And with those changes, a potential end-run around the industry's problems seems less and less possible, even for bands who have managed to hold on to 100% of their rights and royalties, as we have.

Consider Pandora and Spotify, the streaming music services that are becoming ever more integrated into our daily listening habits. My BMI royalty check arrived recently, reporting songwriting earnings from the first quarter of 2012, and I was glad to see that our music is being listened to via these services. Galaxie 500's "Tugboat", for example, was played 7,800 times on Pandora that quarter, for which its three songwriters were paid a collective total of 21 cents, or seven cents each. Spotify pays better: For the 5,960 times "Tugboat" was played there, Galaxie 500's songwriters went collectively into triple digits: $1.05 (35 cents each).

To put this into perspective: Since we own our own recordings, by my calculation it would take songwriting royalties for roughly 312,000 plays on Pandora to earn us the profit of one-- one-- LP sale. (On Spotify, one LP is equivalent to 47,680 plays.)

Or to put it in historical perspective: The "Tugboat" 7" single, Galaxie 500's very first release, cost us $980.22 for 1,000 copies-- including shipping! (Naomi kept the receipts)-- or 98 cents each. I no longer remember what we sold them for, but obviously it was easy to turn at least a couple bucks' profit on each. Which means we earned more from every one of those 7"s we sold than from the song's recent 13,760 plays on Pandora and Spotify. Here's yet another way to look at it: Pressing 1,000 singles in 1988 gave us the earning potential of more than 13 million streams in 2012. (And people say the internet is a bonanza for young bands...)

To be fair, because we are singer-songwriters, and because we own all of our rights, these streaming services end up paying us a second royalty, each for a different reason and each through a different channel. Pandora is considered "non-terrestrial radio," and consequently must pay the musicians who play on the recordings it streams, as well as the songwriters. These musicians' royalties are collected by SoundExchange, a non-profit created by the government when satellite radio came into existence. SoundExchange doesn't break our earnings down by service per song, but it does tell us that last quarter, Pandora paid a total of $64.17 for use of the entire Galaxie 500 catalogue. We have 64 Galaxie 500 recordings registered with them, so that averages neatly to one dollar per track, or another 33 cents for each member of the trio.

Pandora in fact considers this additional musicians' royalty an extraordinary financial burden, and they are aggressively lobbying for a new law-- it's now a bill before the U.S. Congress-- designed to relieve them of it. You can read all about it in a series of helpful blog posts by Ben Sisario of The New York Times, or if you prefer your propaganda unmediated, you can listen to Pandora founder Tim Westergren's own explanation of the Orwellian Internet Radio Fairness Act.
As for Spotify, since it is not considered radio, either of this world or any other, they have a different additional royalty to pay. Like any non-broadcast use of recordings, they require a license from the rights-holder They negotiate this individually with each record label, at terms not made public. I'm happy to make ours public, however: It is the going "indie" rate of $0.005 per play. (Actually, when I do the math, that rate seems to truly pay out at $0.004611-- I hope someone got a bonus for saving the company four-hundredths of a cent on each stream!) We didn't negotiate this, exactly; for a band-owned label like ours, it's take it or leave it. We took it, which means for 5,960 plays of "Tugboat", Spotify theoretically owes our record label $29.80.
I say theoretically, because in practice Spotify's $0.004611 rate turns out to have a lot of small, invisible print attached to it. It seems this rate is adjusted for each stream, according to an algorithm (not shared by Spotify, at least not with us) that factors in variables such as frequency of play, the outlet that channeled the play to Spotify, the type of subscription held by the user, and so on. What's more, try as I might through the documents available to us, I cannot get the number of plays Spotify reports to our record label to equal the number of plays reported by the BMI. Bottom line: The payments actually received by our label from Spotify for streams of "Tugboat" in that same quarter, as best I can figure: $9.18.
"Well, that's still not bad," you might say. (I'm not sure who would really say that, but let's presume someone might.) After all, these are immaterial goods-- it costs us nothing to have our music on these services: no pressing, no printing, no shipping, no file space to save a paper receipt for 25 years. All true. But immaterial goods turn out to generate equally immaterial income.
Which gets to the heart of the problem. When I started making records, the model of economic exchange was exceedingly simple: make something, price it for more than it costs to manufacture, and sell it if you can. It was industrial capitalism, on a 7" scale. The model now seems closer to financial speculation. Pandora and Spotify are not selling goods; they are selling access, a piece of the action. Sign on, and we'll all benefit. (I'm struck by the way that even crowd-sourcing mimics this "investment" model of contemporary capitalism: You buy in to what doesn't yet exist.)
But here's the rub: Pandora and Spotify are not earning any income from their services, either. In the first quarter of 2012, Pandora-- the same company that paid Galaxie 500 a total of $1.21 for their use of "Tugboat"-- reported a net loss of more than $20 million dollars. As for Spotify, their latest annual report revealed a loss in 2011 of $56 million.
Leaving aside why these companies are bothering to chisel hundredths of a cent from already ridiculously low "royalties," or paying lobbyists to work a bill through Congress that would lower those rates even further-- let's instead ask a question they themselves might consider relevant: Why are they in business at all?

The answer is capital, which is what Pandora and Spotify have and what they generate. These aren't record companies-- they don't make records, or anything else; apparently not even income. They exist to attract speculative capital. And for those who have a claim to ownership of that capital, they are earning millions-- in 2012, Pandora's executives sold $63 million of personal stock in the company. Or as Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek has put it, "The question of when we'll be profitable actually feels irrelevant. Our focus is all on growth. That is priority one, two, three, four and five."
Growth of the music business? I think not. Daniel Ek means growth of his company, i.e., its capitalization. Which is the closest I can come to understanding the fundamental change I've witnessed in the music industry, from my first LP in 1988 to the one I am working on now. In between, the sale of recorded music has become irrelevant to the dominant business models I have to contend with as a working musician. Indeed, music itself seems to be irrelevant to these businesses-- it is just another form of information, the same as any other that might entice us to click a link or a buy button on a stock exchange.

As businesses, Pandora and Spotify are divorced from music. To me, it's a short logical step to observe that they are doing nothing for the business of music-- except undermining the simple cottage industry of pressing ideas onto vinyl, and selling them for more than they cost to manufacture. I am no Luddite-- I am not smashing iPhones or sabotaging software. In fact, I subscribe to Spotify for $9.99 a month (the equivalent of 680,462 annual plays of "Tugboat") because I love music, and the access it gives me to music of all kinds is incredible.

But I have simply stopped looking to these business models to do anything for me financially as a musician. As for sharing our music without a business model of any kind, that's exactly how I got into this-- we called it punk rock. Which is why we are streaming all of our recordings, completely free, on the Bandcamp sites we set up for Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi. Enjoy.
___
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the per-play rate was .004611 cents instead of $0.004611; the aggregate figures paid to the band were and are correct as written.

Damon Krukowski is currently one half of Damon & Naomi; you can find him on Tumblr and Twitter; the opinions expressed are his own.

debeterebob	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:13
	Of 'The Slacker Take-Over Plot' deel LXXXIV Omdat veel topics over indie bandjes nauwelijks lopen, en dus na 7 posts stilvallen, leek het ons een goed idee om een topic te maken waarin "Indie" centraal staat. Het begrip indie is natuurlijk wat wazig, maar dat mag geen excuus zijn voor enorme zeurpartijen over wat nou wel indie en wat nou niet indie is. Dat is dan ook helemaal NIET de bedoeling. Als je toch per sé een definitie wil, All Music Guide heeft een redelijk uitgebreide op hun site staan. Dus praat hier wel over obscure bandjes, nieuwe platen, geziene optredens, geef tips en commentaar, als het maar met "indie" te maken heeft! Lijst met indie-gerelateerde links: Pitchfork All Music Guide Think Small Tiny Mix Tapes Delusions of Adequacy Liability Popmatters Metacritic Brooklyn Vegan Stereogum Gorilla vs Bear Shoot The Player Blogotheque Voor specifieke vragen over indie-uitgaansgelegenheden, of voor slowchat over populaire Britse indiebands kun je terecht in ons zustertopic: MUZ / I Bet Indie Sounds Good On The Dancefloor #49 Jaarlijstjes: MUZ / Beste cd 2001 MUZ / Beste Fok-CD 2002 Verkiezing! MUZ / 2003 - eindlijstjes MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2004 MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2005! MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2006! MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2007! MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2008! MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2009! MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2010! MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2011! MUZ / Jaarlijstjes 2012! En het pre-lijstjes topic voor 2013 MUZ / Beste albums van 2013 (pré-jaarlijstjes topic) Andere interessante topics: MUZ / De Hypes van 2006 MUZ / CD Releases 2009 En deze topics wisten we al vol te neuzelen: MUZ / The Slacker Take-Over Plot (Centraal Indie Topic) MUZ / The Slacker Take-Over Plot (Indie Central II) MUZ / Indie Rockers Talk Acid! (Indie Central III) MUZ / The State Of Indiependence (Indie Central IV) MUZ / Lift Your Indie Fists (Indie Central V) MUZ / In the kingdom of indie (Indie Central VI) MUZ / Indie has the Right to Children (Indie Central VII) MUZ / Clap Your Hands Say Indie (Indie Central VIII) MUZ / No Indie No Beep Beep (Indie Central IX) MUZ / This Forum's Saving Grace (Indie Central X) MUZ / Ik wil in die rok (Indie Central XI) MUZ / Indie Ah Um (Indie Central XII) MUZ / It's Indie, Dad. (Indie Central XIII) MUZ / Come On! Feel the Indie Noise! (Indie Central XIV) MUZ / Indie Aeroplane Over The Sea (Indie Central XV) MUZ / Le Slackre du Printemps (Indie Central XVI) MUZ / Kill Pop Stars (Indie Central XVII) MUZ / We have the facts and we're voting Indie! (Indie XVIII) MUZ / I Love You But I've Chosen Indie (Indie Central XIX) MUZ / Indie For The Painfully Alone (Indie Central XX) MUZ / At War With The Critics (Indie Central XXI) MUZ / How I Learned To Write Indie (Indie Central XXII) MUZ / Indiefans please try harder (Indie Central XXIII) MUZ / Return to Indie Mountain (Indie Central XXIV) MUZ / Indie Rarities (Indie Central XXV) MUZ / Songs for Indie singalong (Indie Central XXVI) MUZ / We Were Indie Before the Ship Even Sank (IndieCentral XXVII) MUZ / Au Revoir Indie (Indie Central XXVIII) MUZ / You! Me! Indie! (Indie Central XXIX) MUZ / From Here We Go Indie! (Indie Central XXX) MUZ / Strawberry Indie (Indie Central XXXI) MUZ / Le Diable Avec Son Indie! (Indie Central XXXII) MUZ / Hercules and Indie Affair (Indie Central XXXIII) MUZ / Oracular Indie-tacular (Indie Central XXXIV) MUZ / Indie is a Grotesque Animal (Indie Central XXXV) MUZ / A Heart Full of Indie (Indie Central XXXVI) MUZ / Merriweather Indie Pavilion (Indie Central XXXVII) MUZ / The Hazards of Indie (Indie Central XXXVIII) MUZ / The Pains of Being Indie at the Heart (Indie Central XXXIX) MUZ / Broken Side of Indie (Indie Central XL) MUZ / Indie (The Topic) (Indie Central XLI) MUZ / Infinite Indie (Indie Central XLII) MUZ / Indiespeaker (Indie Central XLIII) MUZ / Indienator (Indie Central XLIV) MUZ / I Am Very Indie (Indie Central XLV) MUZ / Omdat Norrage Indie Wil (Indie Central XLVI) MUZ / Put Your Back N 2 Indie (Indie Central XLVII) MUZ / Kill For Indie (Indie Central XLVIII) MUZ / An Awesome Indie (Indie Central XLIX) MUZ / Indielittle (Indie Central L) MUZ / Indie Great Wide Open (Indie Central LI) MUZ / Until the Indie Comes (Indie Central LII) MUZ / Allelujah! Don't Bend! Indie! (Indie Central LIII) MUZ / Unknown Indie Orchestra (Indie Central LIV) MUZ / We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Indie (Indie Central LV) MUZ / It's in the Rhye of the Beholder (Indie Central LVI) MUZ / Songs: Indie (Indie Central LVII) MUZ / Love, Peace & Peter: Indie (Indie Central LVIII) MUZ / (Indie Central LIX) Turn on the Bright Indie MUZ / (Indie Central LXI) There is an indie that never goes out MUZ / (Indie Central LXIII) Indie has the Right to Children MUZ / (Indie Central LXIV) Indie Only Knows Good Vibrations MUZ / (Indie Central LXV) Modern Indie of the Fok!-forum MUZ / (Indie Central LXVI) We Were Indie Before The Genre Even Existed MUZ / (Indie Central LXVII) Indie !!! MUZ / ( Indie Central LXVIII) Random Access Memorindies MUZ / (Indie Central LXIX) You've Got An Indie Scene There Man! MUZ / (Indie Central LXX) I Think of Indie MUZ / (Indie Central LXXIII) The Indie Cloak MUZ / (Indie Central LXXV) Indie Kids MUZ / (Indie Central LXXVI) More Indie MUZ / (Indie Central LXXVII) Primal Indie MUZ / (Indie Central LXXVIII) Indie is Kinky MUZ / (Indie Central LXXIX) Tomorrow's Indie MUZ / (Indie Central LXXX) Kveikur-Indie MUZ / (Indie Central LXXXI) Jagwar Indie MUZ / (Indie Central LXXXII) The New Indiegraphers MUZ / (Indie Central LXXXIII) Indie Silence MUZ / (Indie Central LXXXIV) Indie's High Flying Turds
Tchock	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:13
	quote: Op zondag 14 juli 2013 18:08 schreef debeterebob het volgende: [..] BA< Wat
debeterebob	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:14
	quote: Op zondag 14 juli 2013 18:13 schreef Tchock het volgende: [..] Wat Even dichtgooien. Alleen toen wist ik geen TT __
Tchock	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:14
	quote: Op zondag 14 juli 2013 18:14 schreef debeterebob het volgende: [..] Even dichtgooien. Alleen toen wist ik geen TT __ Het is nog steeds geen album zoals je vorige keer gevraagd is maar het is een stap in de goede richting quote: Op donderdag 11 juli 2013 23:46 schreef Bol_Wan het volgende: [..] Haha, ja oké, al staat het tot in de eeuwigheid in de lijst. Het zou alleen wel leuk zijn als iedereen zich een beetje aan de ongeschreven regel houdt dat het een woordspeling moet zijn op indie en een recent/bekend indie-album. Ik ga er niet van PMS-en ofzo, maar zo kunnen we ons steeds minder verheven voelen boven de rest van het Fok!-grut
Agger	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:14
	Deze titel is al stukken beter dan de vorige ja.
debeterebob	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:16
	quote: Op zondag 14 juli 2013 18:14 schreef Tchock het volgende: Het is nog steeds geen album zoals je vorige keer gevraagd is maar het is een stap in de goede richting Hoeft ook niet per se een album te zijn
Norrage	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:17
	quote: Op zondag 14 juli 2013 18:16 schreef debeterebob het volgende: [..] Hoeft ook niet per se een album te zijn Ooit was dat wel de bedoeling maar dat is ondertussen ook al goed verneukt in dit topic Maar jij spant de kroon
debeterebob	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:18
	quote: Op zondag 14 juli 2013 18:17 schreef Norrage het volgende: [..] Ooit was dat wel de bedoeling maar dat is ondertussen ook al goed verneukt in dit topic Maar jij spant de kroon Ik dacht laat ik me een keer inhouden, is het weer niet goed
Bol_Wan	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:41
	Zwaar leven, bob. Zwaar leven
debeterebob	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:44
	quote: Op zondag 14 juli 2013 18:41 schreef Bol_Wan het volgende: Zwaar leven, bob. Zwaar leven Zooooooo'n zwaar leven. Ik trek het echt niet meer
Kerftminister	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 18:50
	Leuke woordspeling is wat mij betreft al leuk genoeg hoor. Nu aan Polysics trouwens, die hebben nog een nummer in Fifa gehad.
Reemi	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 20:36
	https://soundcloud.com/smallpools/mason-jar Nieuwe van smallpools, wederom een leuk nummer voor de zomer imo.
Bol_Wan	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 20:47
	De nieuwe Pet Shop Boys is fijn. Nadert de grens van camp, maar gaat er zelden overheen
debeterebob	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 21:13
	quote: Op zondag 14 juli 2013 16:54 schreef MaJo het volgende: Zie dat ik een Arcade Fire discussie heb gemist. Opvallend dat jullie the Suburbs zo goed vinden Voor mij blijft Funeral ultiem, snel gevolgd door Neon Bible en the Suburbs een stuk verder daar achter. Er staan goede nummers op maar in het geheel vind ik het geen fantastische plaat. Hier trouwens nog mijn Edward Sharpe recensie zoals beloofd: http://www.podiuminfo.nl/review/2801/Edward_Sharpe_-_97_-_Tivoli/ De nieuwe White Lies is veelbelovend trouwens Om hier nog even op terug te komen. Als ik een kritiekpuntje mag aandragen. Voor mij voelt de recensie niet als af. Je omschrijft alleen wat je ziet, maar niet wat je er van vindt.
LuciferRising	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 22:01
	Volgende week maandag in de uitverkochte bitterzoet: Thee Oh Sees - "Toe Cutter - Thumb Buster"(Official Music Video) heb dr zin an
Kerftminister	zondag 14 juli 2013 @ 22:43
	Dat album van ze schijnt erg goed te zijn, de nieuwste. Eens luisteren deze week.
Tchock	maandag 15 juli 2013 @ 00:47
	Nigel Godrich heeft een epische rant gedaan tegen Spotify op twitter vanmiddag. En om zijn mening kracht bij te zetten is alle muziek van Thom Yorke (solo) en Atoms for Peace er vanaf gehaald. Stelletje helden Pitchfork vat het samen voor de mensen die geen tientallen tweets door willen buffelen: http://pitchfork.com/news(...)heir-business-model/ quote: The music industry is being taken over by the back door.. and if we don’t try and make it fair for new music producers and artists… then the art will suffer. Make no mistake. These are all the same old industry bods trying to get a stranglehold on the delivery system.. The numbers don’t even add up for spotify yet.. But it’s not about that.. It’s about establishing the model which will be extremely valuable. Meanwhile small labels and new artists can't even keep their lights on. It's just not right. Plus people are scared to speak up or not take part as they are told they will lose invaluable exposure if they don't play ball. "If people had been listening to spotify instead of buying records in 1973... I doubt very much if [Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon] would have been made.. It would just be too expensive. Goed dat iemand zich zo uitspreekt. En Nigel is misschien geen enorme naam, maar met Yorke aan zijn zijde wel groot genoeg om gehoord te worden. Ben benieuwd of er nog iets met de Radiohead-catalogus gaat gebeuren, volgens mij zijn alleen van In Rainbows en The King of Limbs de rechten in de handen van York en co. edit: Ik dacht trouwens dat ik al lang vanmiddag hier over gepost had toen Godrich bezig was met praten maar dat was in een ander topic
debeterebob	maandag 15 juli 2013 @ 00:51
	Eikels Ik wilde gisteren net AMOK gaan luisteren
Tchock	maandag 15 juli 2013 @ 00:59
	quote: Op maandag 15 juli 2013 00:51 schreef debeterebob het volgende: Eikels Ik wilde gisteren net AMOK gaan luisteren Dat kan ook via talloze andere manieren. Waarvan de beste natuurlijk is de cd kopen.
Tchock	maandag 15 juli 2013 @ 01:03
	Spotify chanteert artiesten. Je krijgt de keuze tussen een groot publiek missen of als artiest je muziek afstaan, terwijl de enigen die er rijk van worden de shareholders zijn. An sich is het idee niet verkeerd, maar het verdienmodel klopt niet. En voor nieuwe artiesten zijn verkoopopbrengsten de grootste inkomsten, niet optredens.