I've been thinking a lot about music streaming services lately. It all started with conversations I was seeing online, especially around movements like the "Ditch Spotify" protest, where artists were pulling their music. The immediate question people had was, "What's a better service to use?" But for me, that wasn’t the right question I thought we should ask.
The conversation always quickly turns to artist compensation; the fraction of a cent royalties that musicians get is pretty much the same across all platforms really. While it is a huge problem, it's not the only problem, and it wasn't the one that immediately came to my mind when I was recently working on updating my band's album info.
The Middleman Problem
My biggest initial question, and the one I posed online, was this:
Why do artists have to use a third-party service that either takes a cut or requires a subscription just to upload music?
You can’t just go directly to Apple Music or Spotify and say, "Hey, here's my new song." You have to use an approved distribution service like DistroKid or Landr.
Here’s how it works, and why it's so frustrating:
- You upload your music, album art, and info to the third-party service.
- They distribute your files to all the various streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.).
- You pay for them to do this.
These distributors either charge you a monthly or annual subscription fee (e.g., "$12 a month for using our service and to keep it on there") or, if they offer a "free" service (like OneRPM), they take a cut of your already small royalties (e.g., 29% of your fraction of a penny).
Think about that math: Let's say, if I made $3 in a month from streaming, but paid $12 that month for the distribution service, I'm actually losing money.
Seeking a Dialogue, Not a Solution (Yet)
I realize the streaming platforms would likely charge an upload fee anyway if you were able to upload music to them directly, and they also host the music and deal with the bandwidth. But the mandatory middleman adds an unnecessary layer of complication for me.
For me, the larger issue that this highlights is artist control and ownership.
- How can an indie artist keep ownership of their music while still being a part of the streaming community?
- What if the artist kept the music, and the streaming service was just allowed to use it?
We keep giving our music to other parties to manage. Right now, all the streaming services do essentially the same thing; they are just owned by different companies. I don't have the solution either.
But I do want to start a dialogue about what a better model could look like. If you could change one thing about music streaming, what would it be? For now, I'd get rid of the third-party distribution requirement.
I asked this question online, and I received a lot of answers. Every musician has an opinion on this, and I want to dive into those responses in this vlog, one by one, as I go on.
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