Personally, I think it is great that she stood up and made a statement. They are way underpaid. I saw something where Pandora played the song Happy by Pharrell Williams about 43 million times to it's users, and only paid him a whole $2,700. Yes, two thousand and seven hundred dollars. That just doesn't make sense to me... anyway I think it's great that artists will get paid much better (hopefully) for their work because they deserve it.
Jun 23 2015 6:16PM
Jun 23 2015 6:52PM
personally i think her and every other musical artist that think they're underpaid for streaming and online music sales can go fuck themselves. the music industry as a whole has shifted drastically in the last 10ish years; no longer is the majority of the of an artists revenue going to come from album sales. music sharing is here to stay and no matter how many stupid-ass legislations they pass people are going to continue to steal music regardless. so the artist that are currently/will continue to make money do one or a combination of these three things:
1. make yourself a "brand". this means whoring yourself out on social media, making cheesy merchandise and essentially selling yourself for name recognition. (Ex: 1 Direction, Dillion Francis, ect.)
2. announcing a huge tour that generates a bunch of hype. (Ex.: Kanye, Lady Gaga, ect.)
3. jumping on the festival bandwagon.
Jun 23 2015 6:59PM
Big_Spencepersonally i think her and every other musical artist that think they're underpaid for streaming and online music sales can go fuck themselves. the music industry as a whole has shifted drastically in the last 10ish years; no longer is the majority of the of an artists revenue going to come from album sales. music sharing is here to stay and no matter how many stupid-ass legislations they pass people are going to continue to steal music regardless. so the artist that are currently/will continue to make money do one or a combination of these three things:1. make yourself a "brand". this means whoring yourself out on social media, making cheesy merchandise and essentially selling yourself for name recognition. (Ex: 1 Direction, Dillion Francis, ect.)
2. announcing a huge tour that generates a bunch of hype. (Ex.: Kanye, Lady Gaga, ect.)
3. jumping on the festival bandwagon.
The point is more apple were profiting off all the artists for free. They were basically using all the artists music to build a huge customer base without paying anything for it. That is what they were complaining about and personally I think it's fair enough. Why should Apple get a shit load of free music to build their new streaming service.
Jun 23 2015 7:03PM
tomPietrowskiThe point is more apple were profiting off all the artists for free. They were basically using all the artists music to build a huge customer base without paying anything for it. That is what they were complaining about and personally I think it's fair enough. Why should Apple get a shit load of free music to build their new streaming service.
exactly
Jun 23 2015 7:22PM
We're in an era where no one wants to pay for music, spotify/apple music are trying to save that but its so easy to download illegally and its nearly impossible to stop.
They might not make much off of music sales but concerts/tours is ridiculous. I think tswift is doing just fine in the money department.
Jun 23 2015 7:28PM
Big_Spencepersonally i think her and every other musical artist that think they're underpaid for streaming and online music sales can go fuck themselves. the music industry as a whole has shifted drastically in the last 10ish years; no longer is the majority of the of an artists revenue going to come from album sales. music sharing is here to stay and no matter how many stupid-ass legislations they pass people are going to continue to steal music regardless. so the artist that are currently/will continue to make money do one or a combination of these three things:1. make yourself a "brand". this means whoring yourself out on social media, making cheesy merchandise and essentially selling yourself for name recognition. (Ex: 1 Direction, Dillion Francis, ect.)
2. announcing a huge tour that generates a bunch of hype. (Ex.: Kanye, Lady Gaga, ect.)
3. jumping on the festival bandwagon.
Just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean it's right. Musicians work damn hard to write and record their music and illegally downloading it is pretty bad. It doesn't matter if they're already making a lot of money from other things, i think they are entitled to all the money that they earn.
I'm not a fan of taylor swift's music. I like a couple songs but some others annoy me. It's just not the kind of music I like but I have a lot of respect for her. Not that I've ever paid a ton of attention, but she's one of the few celebrities that started young and are still sane. For a while I had this whole hate thing towards her but it was bullshit. She's just a musician living her dream and she's damn good at what she does.
Jun 23 2015 7:56PM
MinggJust because a lot of people do it doesn't mean it's right. Musicians work damn hard to write and record their music and illegally downloading it is pretty bad. It doesn't matter if they're already making a lot of money from other things, i think they are entitled to all the money that they earn.I'm not a fan of taylor swift's music. I like a couple songs but some others annoy me. It's just not the kind of music I like but I have a lot of respect for her. Not that I've ever paid a ton of attention, but she's one of the few celebrities that started young and are still sane. For a while I had this whole hate thing towards her but it was bullshit. She's just a musician living her dream and she's damn good at what she does.
I have never been a fan of her music but I have nothing but respect for her ever since she told country radio (the genera in general) to go f*&k itself.
Jun 23 2015 8:10PM
Jun 23 2015 10:14PM
Jun 23 2015 11:37PM
I just think this is good for the music industry for those who are trying to build a name for themselves. This will give up and coming artists a chance to make a little more money based on what they sell/how many times their songs are played. A lot of work goes into a song, and they need to be rewarded for it.
Jun 24 2015 4:06PM
One of the bitchiest and shittiest blogs on the internet is photography site petapixel. This is a place that likes an opportunity to get pissed off at anything, particularly things that threaten their intellectual property rights or rights to keep using 70000mm lenses to take shitty photos of homeless people and call it 'street photography'. Of course all of this happens when they're not continuously reposting the work of gimmicky and talentless photographers and whatever's on the front page of reddit.
Anyway, big T-Swift has fallen foul of the mob in a big way. Why? Contracts. According to someone on petapixel, which actually means some other corner of the internet copy and pasted onto petapixel, anyone who is hired to work as a photographer at a Taylor Swift concert forfeits all ownership of the photos they take and Taylor Swift + labels etc can use their photos as much as they like without paying the photographer.
Something seems a little hypocritical...
But it gets worse. A few days ago another, new, clause in Taylor Swift contracts emerged. It reads, to paraphrase: "If you fail to fully comply the artist may confiscate and destroy the technology containing the master files."
So Taylor Swift cries how upset about how she is treated as an artist by major companies, but is really no better than any of them when it comes to treating the artists* they hire.
*ok, pro event photographers all too often have egos the size of small stars and measure their 'art' in value of equipment, but let's not get too pretentious here.
Jun 24 2015 4:34PM
eheathWe're in an era where no one wants to pay for music, spotify/apple music are trying to save that but its so easy to download illegally and its nearly impossible to stop.They might not make much off of music sales but concerts/tours is ridiculous. I think tswift is doing just fine in the money department.
I'm sorry but spotify is not doing anything to try to bring more money to the artists. Do you know where spotify gets the vast majority of their revenue? Most people would guess spotify premium subscriptions or ads. Nope. While these do bring in a good amount of profit to the company, they get the vast majority of their revenue from data sales. They sell data about the kind of people who pass through their site (and the kinds of sites they're visiting while they're on spotify) to all sorts of agencies. The thing about data, is that it grows in value as the number of people going through the website increases. And how does spotify ensure that they have the absolute maximum number of people coming through their website to keep the data highly valuable? They provide an immense amount of music to the public, totally free of charge. And the more music they have for free, the more people go to spotify to listen to their favorite artists. So you see, spotify is in the business of DEVALUING THE MUSIC of the artists who bring in all of their customers. Literally, each time you play a song on spotify, that artist gets a microcent. I believe it's somewhere in the range of 1/10,000 of a cent per play, although that number shifts slightly as an artist increases in popularity. It's pretty hard to make a living on your music when you get $100 every time one of your songs gets a million plays.
Jun 24 2015 4:41PM
Also double post, but yeah sure concerts and touring brings in a lot of money for people like Taylor Swift, but then again people like Taylor Swift aren't really what this is about. People like Taylor Swift will always be fine in the money department. It's musicians that are struggling to be able to support themselves that are really getting fucked in the ass by spotify and pandora and other streaming sites.
Jun 24 2015 5:40PM
KreechAlso double post, but yeah sure concerts and touring brings in a lot of money for people like Taylor Swift, but then again people like Taylor Swift aren't really what this is about. People like Taylor Swift will always be fine in the money department. It's musicians that are struggling to be able to support themselves that are really getting fucked in the ass by spotify and pandora and other streaming sites.
When I studied econ we did a case study on this. Basically the rise of internet music (in particularly piracy, this was at a time where something like 97% of music downloaded was done so illegally, streaming hadn't caught on) had meant that artists no longer needed to tour to promote themselves, but rather it became their main source of income. This is a big reason why concert and festival tickets are now so much more expensive (even in real terms) than they used to be.
It's also in stark contrast to the past. When Pink Floyd toured the Wall, their second most commercially successful album, all the well known members except Richard Wright turned a loss. The shows they ran were ruinously expensive, but they couldn't increase the ticket price because their shows were the main way of reaching new audiences. This was a time when radio did very little to promote popular music, particularly in the UK where it was very heavily restricted. The strategy seemed to work for them, The Wall would go on to sell 17.6 million copies, ranking it as the 30th highest selling album of all time.
(Side note because it's interesting: Wright turned a profit on The Wall tour because he fell out with Waters while recording Animals. During The Wall Waters had almost complete creative control over the band, contributing everything except some solos, which were the work of Gilmour. Wright refused to cooperate with Waters, arriving late to many recording sessions and contributing very little of his own, amongst other things. He left the band after recording the Wall, but was hired as a session musician for the tour. That way he had a fixed salary, and the losses were absorbed by the permanent members. Wright would not return until after Waters left, not making any serious contributions until The Division Bell.)