Comparing Spotify to a one-off fee on itunes / album sales is not a fair gauge. For example; if I like a song I might listen to it 1000 times over my lifetime (...does that sound right...). If I used Spotify this would be a life value of $0.29 to the artist. This is very low but is a fairer comparison amount to revenue the artist receives from an itunes sale.
Also it is worth understanding the label will be paid $1.60 for these 1000 spotify song plays and the artist gets from this $0.29. So it's not the steaming services doing all the screwing here. If you compare this to a itunes sale where the label gets $0.64 per song sale you would need 400 plays over someones lifetime to get this revenue on Spotify or 160 plays on Last.fm. This to me is is a fairer simple comparison without bringing in factors like future value of money or if spotify reduces piracy....etc
Comments
Comparing Spotify to a one-off fee on itunes / album sales is not a fair gauge. For example; if I like a song I might listen to it 1000 times over my lifetime (...does that sound right...). If I used Spotify this would be a life value of $0.29 to the artist. This is very low but is a fairer comparison amount to revenue the artist receives from an itunes sale.
Also it is worth understanding the label will be paid $1.60 for these 1000 spotify song plays and the artist gets from this $0.29. So it's not the steaming services doing all the screwing here. If you compare this to a itunes sale where the label gets $0.64 per song sale you would need 400 plays over someones lifetime to get this revenue on Spotify or 160 plays on Last.fm. This to me is is a fairer simple comparison without bringing in factors like future value of money or if spotify reduces piracy....etc