My opinion is that giving out my material for free is actually the only way I can compete w/ the majors. That is if I want to stay relevant so its a must for me to have a shot of being successful. I wouldn’t have the budget to get on major radio or distribution to the Wal Marts & the Best Buys nor would I have the budget to perform at arenas and shoot million dollar videos or get on the BETS or MTVS or VH1s. Another fact is that even though it pays little, it still pays, and if your an artist or a producer who is really trying to maximize his/her revenue you must take advantage of all avenues and not really on just one promotional or income source. If spotify is playing such small returns how about making up for the revenue by monetizing your youtube videos and your website or your blog w/ google ads? Thats what I do. Sell merch on your website. OR learn more trades and offer more services such as promo services and graphic designs, etc. As a matter of fact when somebody visits my website I make an average of $0.05 per visit due to PPC ads and Google adsense, so even though I’m not getting paid for the free download or stream that a fan/potential fan took advantage of, I’m still generating some form of revenue(even though it is little) just for the visit(on average).

Now the issue is with the payment model it self, & the payment model is 100% NOT FAIR to the artist and all of the contributors of any music project. It has nothing to do w/ the fact that a fan gets the music for free, that is irrelevant.

A cable tv customer gets to watch Jurassic Park for free whenever TNT plays the movie because they have paid the cable tv provider for the access. The difference is that THE CABLE PROVIDER PAYS THE NETWORK for their content so they can have a customer base in the 1st place. The difference is that THE NETWORK PAYS THE MOVIE COMPANY for the rights to show the movie. And the difference is that THE ADVERTISERS PAY THE NETWORK to display their commercial. So in this modern day of the internet and of free music, it really boils down to the royalties that are being payed by these sites/services and those royalties that are being received by the labels and the artist and contributors. The problem lies when sites like Spotify and Rdio pay such little to the artist. This is and is not radio. It is radio because it is free for the listener (not including satellite) and they generate their income by commercials/ads, at the same time it is not radio because fans control the playlist and not payola & that is the main reason why a fan is interested in a Spotify thus whya pay for play or web traffic makes sense, I just want a fair compensation!

I understand that if a million people are all streaming a million different artist at the same time then you have to pay a million artist that fee, as oppose to a million people listening to 1 song at the same time since radio controls the playlist BUT that is the service you offer and your advertisers and premium members will still cover the expenses for you, even if you automatically play ads or display pop up ads every 3 or 5 songs such as Pandora. If Youtube or Spotify or w/e website is generating money whether it is by ads or premium memberships or premium subscriptions, or one time fees, etc. then I should be given a certain percentage on top of that stream(similar to reverbnation even though it is minuscule) or simply just a better rate.

Artist are the reason why fans and customers are streaming or downloading music on the website in the 1st place. If it wasn’t for your favorite band on these websites then there would be no listeners or fans which means there would be no advertisers which then mean there would be no website. Also most people here are not calculating the cost of distribution(which is fee based or % of sales/revenue based therefore eating away at the revenue), yet alone other cost such as recording, mixing, promotion/marketing, etc, but this is the cost of the music business, has been and always will be.

At the end of the day its a double edge sword. It means us as INDEPENDENT artist and producers and song writers have to work harder AND smarter just to make decent money. We no longer have to depend on a major to get our music out to the world and in addition we get to control the type of music we release. However we no longer have a power house machine behind us if we were signed and promoted BUT on top of that and at the same time we get to keep the majority of whatever income we do make if we do make money since we own our own music and publishing.

well then go watch someone drive a bus the next time you want to be entertained. hypocrite.

uhhh, yes. yes it is that simple. and yes, you are defending the “grossly corrupt” royalty system. albeit unknowingly and indirectly.

I personally advised video monetization for some of my friends, a rock band (DropMotion). They are not super famous (yet) but I told them about the fact that they could broadcast their concerts/gigs live and vod AND make money (usually the venues like it too, and advertise for it). It definitely works for them! They said that they actually bought new music instruments with that money, last time I saw them, made me happy ;-)

Anyway, if you were wondering who does that, I now there is TikiLive.com, MonetizeMedia.com and http://www.DaCast.com which is the one they use because it seems like they are the cheapest but reliable.