The source of all music...

A few days ago I posted a question on my facebook page about whether Spotify was a good thing for musicians or not. This was following (a) my frustration with the spotify adverts leading me to contemplate paying for a £5 a month subscription and (b) finding this link about how much artists earn from different sources.

A whole realm of responses came back, with vastly differing opinions, and it's spilled over into a number of face to face discussions since. And I'm still confused.

The quandary is this. I like music, but I find it difficult to discover new music. Recommendations sometimes come from friends, but I am yet to find a radio station that suits my taste and doesn't annoy me with their DJs or adverts. So I need some other source of listening to new music.

A friend summarised the options as (a) illegally downloading the music (b) using a streaming tool such as Spotify or (c) buying a lot of music I've not really heard in the hope I might like it.

Sadly option (c) isn't financially viable at the moment. Which leaves (a) and (b). Initial research suggests that artists get very little money from Spotify streams. Assuming the average figure from the Information is Beautiful link above, an artist gets £0.00019 from a track play. If I listen to one album (containing 12 tracks) a day, in a 30 day month, 6.8p will be paid to artists. Which seems like a pitifully small amount of money from a subscription that I'm paying £5 for. Even if I listened to 10 albums a day (unlikely...), that's still less than £1 a month that reaches the artist.

One of the main criticisms I hear about the illegal downloading of music is that it rips off artists and damages the music industry. Looking at these figures, I'm not sure that Spotify is any better for the artist in terms of revenue.

I guess the advantage of tools like Spotify is that it's a good way for artists to get their music heard and increase their exposure, and that's why artists have their music on there. Out of the bands I've discovered over the last year, I wouldn't have listened to a lot of them without a tool like Spotify. Whilst most bands have a myspace or samples on their website, it's undeniable that it's a lot easier when all the music is in one place.

And once I've discovered a new band, I'm far more likely to go and see them live (presuming they tour near where I live), which is a very good way to financially support a band, so I guess that's an indirect revenue that they receive. And for me, seeing a live performance is how music supposed to be heard.

The summary of my findings is that I'm not convinced by either side of the argument. I've decided for the time being that I'm not going to pay for a Spotify subscription. I'll grit my teeth and put up with the adverts. Instead, I'll put that £5 towards buying a legal download of some music, where a reasonable amount of that money will actually reach the artist*. In fact, I might use the fact that Spotify stops you listening to a song more than 5 times as a guide to which music I should be buying...

*That being said, the Information is Beautiful graph also shows that there is a massive difference between revenue received by the artist depending on where you buy the music from. So where possible, I'll source it directly from the artist to ensure they get the largest cut of my money possible.