Recent news revealed that Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek has been investing heavily in military tech companies, which adds another ethical layer to a platform already criticized for how little it pays musicians !
Spotify only pays artists about $3–5 per 1,000 streams, using a pro-rata model that directs most money toward major stars… By contrast, Qobuz (≈$18–20 per 1,000 streams) and Tidal (≈$12–13) pay far more fairly!
However Tidal is far from ethical. Most of its revenue is controlled by private investors and founders and small artists still earn very little…
More fair-minded platforms like Bandcamp, Resonate, Ampled, or SoundCloud’s fan-powered royalties prioritize musicians over investors.
With these more ethical alternatives available, why do we keep using Spotify?
Contact them, ask for ways to donate. Until they publicly provide that info.
You realize that bands have by their choice a contract with a label which in turn provides services to them (bands without a label don’t count since they would sell their music themselves)? If the band sells their music directly is one thing, but what you’re suggesting is simply wrong. Also donations are not meant as a mean of purchasing stuff. 🤷♂️
Yes, it is well known that Band merely contract out the business of distribution and they are not being exploited by this arrangement. Lars Ulrich told me that.
However, I still think all intellectual property should be abolished and all art should be paid in full before production starts and I will pirate everything until then. I may send donations with my own terms to certain artists as I see fit, I do agree this is not “purchasing” I do not “purchase” art, I take it and do not recognize any need or right for compensation.
But I do like giving them money regardless, I sent 1500$USD last year to various small artists I like to motivate them, make of that what you will. This is the only arrangement that I find acceptable.
“I think that something has to be cheaper or have a different business model” doesn’t give me rights to steal it.
It’s not theft obviously, information can be duplicated infinitely at no cost.
Also I don’t think you understand, I want it to actively stop existing.
I pirate stuff, that I’m not even going to watch or listen to out of principle.
I want intellectual property abolished AND made illegal, not merely “change the business model” what kind of weak sauce is that, I want it flattened by bulldozers and erased from history books, it’s perpetrators treated as criminals.
Stealing means change of ownership.
You are not stealing music.
Call it whatever you want, you don’t have rights to get it unless its through a legal way.
Focusing on one part of your response that really rubs me the wrong way, you believe artists don’t need to be compensated for their work?
I think their point is that in an economy that isn’t profit-driven, artists (just like everyone else) would not rely on their art/labor for survival.
Artists generally prefer this model as well, since they don’t have to tailor their art to anyone else’s tastes. We already see models moving towards this, like Patreon, where you pay the artist to produce whatever art they want, rather than buying a completed work. The next step is this being UBI (which is essentially a public patronage system), not private patrons.
No, it is an artefact of a heinous economic system that they are made to “art for money” which is gross. I rather there be no art until the economic system perishes.