Both the Atoms for Peace producer Nigel Godrich and musician Thom Yorke have taken down their band’s music from the streaming superpower Spotify. Fans, bands, and listeners alike are now tuning in on the debate via Twitter.
“Someone’s gotta say something. It’s bad for new music,” tweeted Godrich, criticizing one of the newest and most popular ways to listen to music. He and Yorke both agree that Spotify benefits only the artists and labels with vast backlogs of music and the stockholders of the streaming service. “Meanwhile small labels and new artists can’t even keep their lights on. It’s just not right,” Godrich tweets.
“Make no mistake new artists you discover on Spotify will not get paid,” Yorke agrees on Twitter. “Meanwhile shareholders will shortly being rolling in it. Simples.”
Music Week reports Spotify responded by saying that their ultimate goal is to grow a service people want to pay for, and “provide the financial support to the music industry necessary to invest in new talent and music… We’ve already paid US$500M to rightsholders so far and by the end of 2013 this number will reach US$1bn. Much of this money is being invested in nurturing new talent and producing great new music.”
Godrich was not appeased. Pitchfork reports his response: “The way that Spotify works is that the money is divided up by percentage of total streams,” he explains. So big labels with backlogs on backlogs of albums get the most streams and consequently the most revenue, but “the smaller producers and labels get pittance for their comparatively few streams.”
To protest and to stand up for upcoming music, Godrich and Yorke have pulled Atoms for Peace’s Amok and The Eraser down from Spotify’s service. Other bands have followed in suit such as Four Tet who tweets, “I had everything on my label taken off. Don’t want to be part of this crap.”
Is this a small meaningless rebellion, or will more bands now start to follow the trend? Is it fair that larger, more established labels get a bigger cut of the pie, or should the priority be for the newer emerging labels? The debate over streaming music is vaguely reminiscent of the debate over music file sharing, and has enough potential to be just as controversial.
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