Spotify really angers me. They complain about Apple and yet when Apple released an open API so music services or apps can tap into AirPlay2 (for multiroom streaming to non-Apple devices, and HomePods, and AirPort Expresses of which I have several) way back in 2018, they are yet to implement it. People on the spotify forums have been clamouring for it for years. My podcast app supports it even. Spotify said they would do this a few times, but here we are nearly 6 years later. So Spotify forced me to use Apple Music instead. Which sucks for them, and it sucks for me. Also, their Mac app when installed runs at launch on every startup. It used to by default use the microphone to listen to audio in your environment to know what song is playing nearby (even from the radio in the room!) luckily they no longer do this - however it's super invasive still. If you're not signed into a spotify account, you CANNOT disable launch of the app at login every time the computer boots. You have to be signed into a spotify account and only then can you access the settings, and hidden under advanced you'll find allowing spotify to launch minimised at startup, and you set that to no, to stop it loading. Just very user hostile.
@@darwiniandude At least on windows you can disable any app launching on startup from the startup apps tab in the task manager, is there nothing similar on mac?
My friends always get frustrated with me on this topic, because I refuse to use any of those mainstream services. The closet I get to that is bandcamp, otherwise I'm buying the stuff and slapping it on my own streaming box.
It's worse than that. The high priests of music have set up an elaborate scam where they defraud the people submitting music for inclusion, and then pay them a pittance if anything. And have now gotten to the part where they randomly excommunicate some of those people and keep the money they were owed. The high priests made a mistake this time, because they did it to someone well respected with a lot of people to raise a stink. But they pulled out a fig leaf to cover their sin and it will all go away in a minute or two.
I have often viewed modern times as analogous to the hardships of medieval times. But, _this_ time it’s not about religion per se - it’s about “the economy”. Rather, the model of economy that we are taught to be the only correct one for decades. The issue is simply our _faith_ in that economic model - however you’d like to name it. So, no priests. Just banks, CEO’s and nearly every politician. We are not smarter than we were 600 years ago, are we…? 😅
Yup. The problem in our real world version of that is that many, many people are complicit with the gatekeepers/"priests" as long as the priesthood is censoring in favor of their preferences. It keeps getting worse because people say "well it's okay to give them power to decide if it's in alignment with my worldview," thus creating the issue and it ultimately comes back around to bite them back too.
This is corporate music trying to remove the indie musician from accessing the money they want to keep in their pockets. Hopefully, there will be a solution to this unfair squeeze of small musicians.
Im a son of polish immigrants. Some of my most favorite nostalgic songs that I've heard growing up in the car are all wiped CLEAN off Spotify, maybe only with some crappy live version. I am so thankful I have it all in my dad's 25 year old CD pouch
I wish there was an alternative to Spotify. Most of my stuff that I actually want is on CDs although there's a few things that I recently found on Spotify that I like need to track down. Are you Spotify as a dip my toe in the pond see if I like some thing. But I also use it as an oh you wanna hear that song and I don't want to hear that song with the ads playing over a giant sound system between bands.
Yeah I'd rather own music than pay rent to some corrupt digital landlord for the privilege of listening to it. Same with movies. Maybe I'm a cave man but I just prefer not having to depend on internet access, subscription fees, and the whims of inscrutable megacorporations, or inscrutable AI algorithms, just to listen to some music or watch a movie.
@@delta-9969I forgot to mention I also have blue race Blu-rays and DVDs if I think it's good and worth Rewatching more than once and I can afford it. The only probably maintaining some sort of disc playback device and breaking copy protection to back up my DVDs and violating the DM.C.IA. I was talking to somebody who thought I was crazy and insane for saying that piracy is on the rise in and that's terribly unethical but the fact is it is. Why because the marketplace is not supplying demand in a reasonable way. And FYI half Polish, so this thread caught my attention also. We're heading for everything's a subscription which is really freaking out the conspiracy theorists. There's all sorts of reasoning behind it but it couldn't be that we have money loving corporations that need to satisfy their board.
I buy all my music, put it on my own streaming server and have a daily backup to google drive just in case there is a fire or my server breaks beyond repair.
I can so relate with your story differently & unfortunately. 4 platinum albums, 19 “real radio” top 40 singles, 13 Grammy nominations, millions & millions of airplay worldwide. And then … nothing but nothingness. My music sites bugged with invisible scripts, play counts wiped, it’s a rigged game. Thank you for sharing your story & speaking out.
There's only one question I want Spotify to answer, which is: If they "know" the streams are botted, then why not just remove the streams and the bots? I'm guessing the answer is the labels won't be happy to see their numbers reduce. And I'm also guessing 100% of the bots are from free ad-supported accounts, so keeping the bot numbers helps them sell to advertisers.
Didn't instagram do something like this, where they removed a bunch of bot-likes maybe 5 years ago or so? The outcry from the sweatshop-bikini advertisers -- I mean influencers was so great, that they actually reinstated some of those likes back.
2 weeks ago I got a mail that all my life's work was taken down from all platforms... Part of me was just relieved, cause Spotify isn't worth it anyways... I'm just focus on building a community and selling directly to my fans... What I ought to be doing in the first place, instead of chasing Spotify numbers
This might be my biggest motivation for releasing my music on physical media types. You can't just delete 500 vinyls with a single click on a button. And I like the thought that, once i'm gone my music still exists as sign that I once existed on this planet.
That doesn't matter when no-one seems interested in hearing the music in the first place. Or can't find it. Or said musicians cannot advertise in spaces where they get accused of self promotion etc etc. The challenge of GETTING ATTENTION remains.
Exactly. Why I purchase my DAW and music software. I don't do subscriptions on my music tools. I have multiple cd burners and I make hard copies of all my recordings, not depending on "the cloud" for storage. I print small batches (50 - 100) of CD's for each of my original music releases. Don't even get me started talking about CDBaby. I have one album released with them. I can't sell any copies of it because its available everywhere for free.
Thank you for the breakdown of how thoroughly corrupt the music industry is. I’ve used CD baby in the past because I was told I had to if I was going to be taken seriously as a musician. I didn’t make any money because I was just in a little pop rock group playing local shows. The most money I made was from selling merch at these shows. I became disenchanted very quickly with the whole music dream. Everything is about money, money, money. It sucks the joy and life out of making art.
You complain that it is about money but that is what it is about with you as well. "The most money I made was from selling merch at these shows." Why sell merchandise if it isn't at all about making money?
@@jimlovesgina my point was that if there was any money to be made at all, it was made at the shows selling CDs. It’s just a fact, not really something to get contentious about. Besides, what am I going to do - not sell physical media? Not have cool graphic shirts printed? That was a fun and exciting process of being in a “real” band.
“Poor people just can’t write music” LOL. The music industry is more open minded about this. Something like “Actually, poor people write the best music, which with sufficient evil we can make money off while keeping them poor, and thus able to make more great music.” Also, as a gen-X developer, I apologize for helping to create the cultural tire fire that we now constantly warm ourselves with today.
FWIW, I think Steve Jobs had a point. Remember, that presentation was quite a while ago... My first brush with digital music distribution was mp3 period calm. (Modified slightly, of course, so as not to anger the sentinels.) I was super excited to find it, but that excitement didn't last very long, because it was filled with amateurs and their 4-track Tascam tape mixers singing into a Radio Shack mic and uploading it in 96kbps MP3. I DID find _some_ cool stuff there, and even ended up buying a CD in the last year of some band that I had discovered there in the late 90s. But most of it was ... uhm ... let's just say "aspirational." Apple was trying to prevent becoming Atari after the video game crash of 84. They were trying to convey to users that this was professionally recorded music -- the stuff you would find at the store, on a CD, just without having to peel that permanently-bonded sticker off the top before you could play it. At that time, it would've been reassuring, if not critical, to know that it wasn't just a library of songs live from open mic night. And BTW, that Adiemus album is fantastic.
loool. yes bro nice one! all Oppressive forces in the world evil etc stylize themselves this way "we create opportunity by enforced suffering". strangely it is kind of true. though i'm not crazy about the dynamic 😅
Spotify erased all my music after 5 years and hundreds of thousands of plays claiming fake streams. CD baby offers no solution. Thanks Benn for speaking up. Something has to change.
Agree. So sorry this happened to you. Same here, my entire catalog was taken down in 2021 [by another distributor] for "fraudulent activity", but I never paid for any promo. They eventually reinstated my account and paid me my earnings (which they were going to keep) and said I could reupload my music but I lost all faith in the system. Now I just sell through my website and, fortunately, I do other things like production, mixing, synchs and film/tv work. I never knew others were having this issue until the wave of complaints lately. Thanks for posting this video, Benn. Definitely sharing!
Oh no... Im gearing up to start to put music out for the first time, and Watching these videos and getting informed about distrokid and tunecore and how they are moving had me thinking that cdbaby was the only option i should use to avoid all of this. Now reading this comment my heart sank. I have no idea what to do now. I dont think its wise to do direct to consumer yet as a completely unknown artist either... This is all very discouraging
@@aje-olokunsChile I hear your concerns but I would try to focus on the positive. This news is out there now and many higher profile artists are trying to make changes, attorneys and politicians are jumping on this as well, and Benn and James Blake along with a few others are trying to work on new distribution methods and platforms. It might take a little time before things are "fixed" but consider working on your art a bit more, creating a social media presence, starting a YT channel, learning the ins and outs of the music business and making more music. You can always release on Bandcamp as well and start creating a fan list so that in the future you can sell direct. There's a lot you can do to prepare yourself for a long term career in this business. Wishing you the best and good luck! :)
I had this recently with Distrokid, except they never cited any reason for my music being nuked from streaming. No missed fees paid, no accusations of botted streams, just all my music gone. I've sent them all of the details of the missing songs but they still have yet to respond to me. God being a musician and trying to actually get somewhere can be so fucking exhausting when you have to deal with stuff like this.
Thanks for putting this out there so publicly. This is basically what Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow’s book ‘Chokepoint Capitalism’ covers. Parasitic middlemen companies have entrenched themselves in every part of the culture and arts economy.
and lest we forget : all for an industry that laughed off digital distribution in a Homer Simpson manner ("the internet ? is that thing still around?") only 25 years ago. They just dropped the ball instead of developing their own distribution. Movie and TV companies sure paid attention to that lesson...
As an artist with music on Spotify, anyone can add my music to their bot-ridden playlist without my knowledge or consent. Spotify will respond by removing my music from their platform. What’s wrong with this picture? Obviously they’re going after the wrong people. Block the bots, ban the playlist owners, but don’t punish legitimate artists for what other people did with their music!
This happened with my label, and our partner labels too. They removed full albums of all streaming services. RouteNote said that this a deal they have with Spotify. Since we are so small we have nothing we can do but reupload the albums without the problematic songs. THERE IS NO PROBLEMATIC SONGS, WE ARE GETTING NUKED BY SOMETIHNG WE CANT DO SHIT ABOUT. JUST DELETE THE BOT STREAMS ITS NOT SO DIFFICULT SPOTIFY.
Decades ago many people had a vision of a future in which creatives could make a modest yet reasonable living for their efforts. Over the years I have had hopes for what I had began to call the “creative middle class” even as I watched the Internet consistently fail to provide tools and services that might help establish such a thing. With this news, It’s so sad to see that dream dismantled so completely.
Ditto. I have never subscribed to a streaming music service, and never will. If I can't at least download the MP3/AAC for use on _any_ of my own devices: no sale. Really wish there was an equivalent on the video side, but the movie and TV industry were both so paranoid of what happened to music, they wouldn't come within 10 miles of a meeting to talk about DRM-free distribution. And for that, there's AnyDVD and physical discs.
@@nickwallette6201 eh, can always get a vpn and pirate tv shows if you really need them offline, it's cheaper than streaming service. It's how we used to do it in the old days before all these new fangled streaming sites. If they don't want to offer you the service you desire so you can watch stuff offline without god awful buffering and low bitrates, then screw them
Thank you for all your work, this is IMO one of the most important pieces of info/opinion about the music industry I've seen in a long time. This past year I've just been realising that despite being a musician/producer/engineer for over 15 years, I have NO IDEA how to fix any of this. Not even a super optimistic, idealised idea. You know things are bleak when even a cishet white dude from Europe doesn't get up to say "it's easy, just do BLANK".
Ugh... I hate having my music on Spotify but there's no denying that it's where people listen to music. I held out for so long but gave up. I wish there was a way out of this loop of musical pointlessness. I didn't realize they implemented the 1000 plays thing, I now realize why I haven't been getting anything lately. There goes breaking even......
Isn't it wild that we've allowed an org to get powerful enough that they can literally just decide not to pay for intellectual property they profit from? Like... "nah.." But, I mean, what are you going to do? Come after them? If you haven't got 1k/month streams, you're not very intimidating. If only we had some kind of protection against monopolies taking advantage of consumers....
Wow! This is an incredibly good video! Thank you so much for all this information. Concise, compelling and easy to digest. Shocking to realize what an awful state streaming is in for independent musicians. I can only imagine the terrible feeling realizing your entire catalog disappeared. I am subscribing to your channel and I am very interested in the progress of your own distribution company efforts. Huge thanks.
Beautiful episode. And I call your videos episodes since they’re truly written and constructed so effectively that they deserve the attention of an episode.
Thanks for finally giving me the push to just cancel my distribution deals after I already p much quit using those services as consumer. I realise now it was mostly the vanity of being everywhere and not what I started making music for in the first place. I'm done with the fake nature of online streaming and I don't want to have anything to to with big corporations like WMG or Access Holding and I'm in the most fortunate position of doing music as a passion instead of a profession while also being able to upload the music to my own servers for people to just download them without any disgusting corporation making a profit off of my work without doing any good for my community or the world at large.
We stopped having an actual economy in the 1970s. Now we're stuck with the Grifter Economy wherein everything in existence is a blatant scam perpetuated by a megacorporation. The music industry is now just another leg of that economy full of grifters.
Exactly. I'm still dumbfounded that so many Americans trusted Pfizer and Moderna. They are part of the stock market too. Main goal is exponential profit for its shareholders but somehow everyone thought" they care about my health"
I'm absolutely guffawed that America is even standing, how have megacorps managed to all agree to walk the fine line so perfectly between "300M people in America run out of money and are left on the streets" and "people can afford to buy quality products that last longer, and without having to pay 8 different corporation's some large cut of the product's profits"
The point about most musicians spending more money on distribution than they make in royalties is so depressing, and infuriating. Especially, as Spotify could've just opened the gates and let people upload directly. I mean, with something like Distrokid and flat fees, the outcome is pretty much the same. Absolutely a scam. Very depressing. As, I feel like, most artists desperately feel like they need to be on Spotify. That is the cultural capital Spotify currently holds.
"artists desperately feel like they need to be " And therein lies the crux of the problem, people seeking attention and validation and seek to use the music business as a vehicle to obtain it. It has almost nothing to do with music.
Yeah, and something I've noticed is that a lot of people take not being on Spotify as a sign of not being "legit" in lack of a better word, one way or another; I still don't have any of my stuff there, but I guess it's only a matter of time before it can't be put off any longer. It's honestly depressing, and with every passing day I miss Myspace more... it was the perfect combination of social media and music streaming. Oh well, the internet (and even world) as a whole has changed so much that something like Myspace wouldn't work anymore, ironically people are no longer "ready" for it. Almost like we're devolving as a species...
@@axeman2638 I admit, I don't work in the music industry... I find these comments odd, though. Maybe someone can clarify. How does a musician that produces recorded music for 10 hours a day make money to survive if they do not sell their music?
What is "streaming fraud"? Is shittify not paying artists I listen to over and over again, just because I listen to them over and over again?!? This is infuriating, and makes me want to terminate every "subscription", and just go back to ripping my CDs to a non-connected iPod.
Surprised to hear how little Spotify makes, but no mention that their CEO apparently has made 3.5 billion. He's never written or recorded a song, but he's made more than Paul McCartney. So glad he's decided to begrudge us independent artists our fraction of a cent per stream, eh? Gee, I wonder if there's a financial connection?
I just noticed the other day that one of my songs was added to a "scam playlist" (which I did NOT pay for or have anything to do with). This generated an unusual amount of plays and saves on this song for the short while it was there. I feel worried about Spotify removing my music. Any ideas what I should do? Should I tell Spotify? Or could that trigger a removal?
Pretty sure that plays on your songs should be reflected by the playlists popularity, which means you should be fine. I think the issue was really having views that cannot be accounted for it or explained, urs are explained by said playlist even if the playlist is sketchy
@@BennJordan But this does bring up an even more concerning question, that of weaponizing bots and fake plays. Anyone can easily drop your stuff onto one of these playlists for whatever reason, and I could imagine a whole new industry of organized crime blossoming, holding you to ransom and threatening to destroy your career unless you pay a protection fee of some kind. Scary stuff.
Thanks so much for this video, this is exactly what happened to me and I’ve been struggling to find any answers about what was really going on, this clears it up a lot. Love your channel.
Is selling your work to a company that is creating a machine learning database that will be sold to big tech companies really a better option than the broken system we have now though?
thanks for going into this in detail like this. pleas do more so others especially the younger ones can understand because people think its the normal and only way to get your music out please !
We need somewhere to listen to music that’s safe. No ads, no algorithmic tweaking, no weird rules about payment. Something that’s just a music player, search and playlists that can only be made by listeners. Somewhere you can trust won’t throw away all your work. Where anybody can just listen to what they want without being used for their data. We’re tired of being exploited. We’re tired of our information being stolen and sold. We’re tired of ads. We’re tired of being told we did something wrong. We need to band together and create a place for artists to thrive. It’s the only way to be treated fairly at this point.
welcome to the early internet. it still exists under layers of bullsh*t companies whose business models include convincing you it doesn't. independent artists or small labels can still run (or hire out) their own websites or streaming servers. distributed recommendation algorithms still need some work. payment is a problem of its own to tackle, but there are plenty of opportunities to cut out middlemen there right now.
Sounds like you just want your own library of music, just buy music physically or Bandcamp or where-ever else and just go full digital library. Literally no way for any third party or company to screw you in ANY form with that. It can be as simple as just having local files on your device as historically done, or something more involved like your own music server. I just run Navidrome on my PC and access my library where-ever with internet access. Even in cases where I don't have internet access I can just download it to my device from my server before hand.
I recommend a membership model. Users pay per month with no free, ad-supported option. Give them a free trial period or limited listening time each month until they pay the monthly membership fee. The membership fees are then distributed to the artists proportionately based on total listening time. Has anyone done that? This is similar to how Medium does things for writers, which I'm familiar with. It could probably be done decentralized with some web 3.0 nonsense and crypto to totally cut out the middlemen.
Summary: The major labels continue to find more ways to profit from or exploit musicians regardless if they sign with them or not. I fear the only winning move for musicians is to not play, and the world will lose as a result.
@@axeman2638 No. Artists need to be able to live and live decently to make music. They make something we all find valuable. You sound exactly like the dozens of people who abuse their love of the craft as a tactic for exploiting the artist. They make it, people want it, and they should be paid what they deserve and they aren't. If you're expecting art and entertainment for free, you are entitled and don't appreciate it. You don't sound like an artist or someone who appreciates it at all. Don't consume any music or entertainment I guess, if it's not worth anything to you.
Hey Benn, I’m an amature musician and a longtime Flashbulb fan and I appreciate what you’ve done here. You bring to light what I already had doubts about and I love the way you present it. Thanks and all the best, Adriaan
Daniel Ek's analogy comparing musicians to football/soccer players was one of the most self-serving, cringe things I've ever heard. Couple that with his weird obsession about getting AI to be a big player on Spotify, and I've thrown in the towel on that whole mess. In fact, moving forward, my plan is to adopt the film industry model of releasing music on pay-only platforms for 6 months initially, and then release to streaming platforms.
For my last release, I had a one-month delay between releasing on Bandcamp and releasing on streaming platforms. For my next release, I'm going to do that again -- Bandcamp first, streamers a month later -- except that for Spotify, the delay will be 6 months to a year. Or I might just skip Spotify altogether.
Easiest way around this, DON'T send your music to Spotify. if they're not going to fork out for music streams less than 1,000 a year then whats the point in having your music on their stores and if you run the risk of having your music added to a ''bot list'' or be falsely accused of utilising a bot, then it seems to me not to bother having your music on there in the first place. more labels are going to just sell their music on their own website and just totally bypass any middle man.
I think that if all independent musicians united, we might have enough strength to fight these abuses, after all, if we don't make the product that sustains this industry... there won't be an industry.
The solution could be to develop a new music streaming platform based on the distributed network model (or federated model), like Mastodon and BlueSky. In other words, the artist controls their own server which would stream only their music and would be added to the collective available music on the service. The platform could charge a minimal fee for each stream that would provide for the costs of operation and would be non-profit. The artist would get 100% of the remainder.
Sounds annoying. I often listen music randomized. That'd mean switching servers every song and also subscribing to hundreds of servers sucks. And how will you find new bands without a recommendation service because everything is seperated into their own servers?
@@SyntheticFutureI don't think you understand how distributed networks work. They are technically separate, but this is invisible to the user. Obviously, there could be programming that would randomly select from different servers and artists. You wouldn't have to "switch" between servers, just like you don't have to on Bluesky or Mastodon. You can just search for anyone you're looking for in the search box.
Who makes money directly from Mastodon, though? Who gets paid, where does the money go, how is it divided up? I don't think the locations where the files are stored or served from is the issue, especially since Spotify actually was P2P until 2014. The issue is that a lot of the legal rights to the music are owned by a few big corporations, so no matter how small your margins are... the big companies always want their share.
@@ehhhhhhhhhhI agree. If the musician is entirely independent, it would work fine, the cost of doing business would come out of the streaming pay. But most musicians are not set up that way. The contracts, shared ownership, writing and studio work royalties, producers, agents, etc. would make everything get sticky. But if the platform were popular and artists could eventually extract themselves from those contracts to become fully independent, then it would work fine. And while I don't fully understand Benn's situation, it seems like he would benefit from such a situation better than most. And any new artists trying to make a name for themselves right now, who are not already entangled in the music biz, could benefit immediately as well. It would give them a free platform for making their name.
There already is something a little like that, a distributed network for music and podcast streaming, it's called Funkwhale. I think due to the nature of the thing, it's only allowed to publish music licensed under Creative Commons or similar (but tbh I think everyone should license their stuff under permissive licenses anyway). There is also no integrated payment, but I think having a way to give artists you enjoy money directly, and normalizing doing so might be more the way to go, and at least is already a big step up from where we're at.
Maybe we had it right during the days of the importance of FM radio and physical format recordings (cassettes, CDs & records). The days of music stores like Musicland, Camelot and Sam Goody... Maybe, just maybe, we had it right at one time.
Very interesting video. I am a musician but I am old and don't care much about money anymore so I have not kept up with all the changes in the music industry since I chased that dream in the 80's. So much has changed...I had no idea how bad it has gotten. Late stage capitalism?
I had a 1 mil stream song removed for no reason. It was on an account on Amuse that also had an artist with chill music in a playlist that was advertised (paid ads) on instagram. It was not paid bot-streams, but legit ads for a playlist just like any other. Amuse removed the account and took the money because they claim it's bots playing the music and when explaining and wanting to show receipts for the ads, they just say no. They said no 4 times in 4 different emails after me trying to explain my situation. They steal the money which is crazy, and they do a lifetime ban which is crazy. If there's bots they should remove the bots, not the creators. Amuse and Spotify don't care because they make too much money.
thanks Ben. big effort here. what a horrifying ordeal. i can only imagine. It seems that, below a certain unknown threshold of popularity, this machine they've cobbled together thinks it is mostly just for the only compensation to be "promotion" of the artist. They truly do not believe these independent artists *should* be paid, but they do not come right out and say that. It goes back to the "editing" Jobs alluded to in that stage act. I wouldn't be surprised if that line came to him by way of talks with the labels themselves. So we've gone full circle. They are effectively editing out who receives compensation, which effectively means they are assimilating distro and streaming so thst the major labels once again possess full control of the entire industry. I am not read up on it but I am curious how much changes in digital services tax law, or any other 'regulation' may have driven this shady practice--or is it just pure predatory greed
Independent small artists tend to cost more money than they earn. So, that's what the term "negative value" means. That's one reason (but not the only one) why 73% of the musicians in Benn's survey paid more money in distribution fees than they received in royalties last year. Now, I do think there's something wrong with payout amounts, and wherr that cutoff line is, because too many middlemen and investors have their hands in that pie. Those people havr an even larger drag (negative value) on the system, but somehow those are the very people the system caters to. And also, the negative value artists actually DO pay the difference - they pay more to distribute the music than the profits they receive. Whereas, the negative value middlemen and investors keep taking and taking. Many of those investors (labels, for example) sure seem to have weaseled their way into that equity stake. And then, as owners, they gave themselves favorable terms. IOW, it's the usual situation - once somebody has internalized the ethics of capitalism, then you shouldn't trust them. It's possible to exist in capitalism without internalizing its ethics, but it's rare - most people who claim such are lying for profit, maybe even subconsciously. It's understandable and forgivable and will be our culture's downfall, because a time will come when that trust will be necessary for the culture to remain, but we won't be able to. For evidence, look at societies that quit without there being a decisive foreign invasion. In the past, culture often hinged on natural conditions that, when changed (prolonged lack of rains, for example) imploded society's power structure. Maybe we've outgrown these superstitions... or maybe money is the new rain?
@@GizzyDillespee that "system" you allude to, based on Ben's research and certain previous articles regarding this topic, seem to be a carefully orchestrated fraudulent mechanism. We can easily draw parallels to corrupt shadow-government interventionism and inherently corrupt implementations, such as the IMF.
You know what? I've watched three of your videos and every single one of them has really grabbed my attention by the brainstem and been super worth my time. Subscribed. I do have a Spotify sub, but I still go out and buy everything that I really like, and this shit right here is why. Every one of these "Physical media is dead" idiots are going to have a real bad day one day, and it's probably going to be soon.
Do it as an Artist Owned! It could get huge. Then, when Big Corp wants to buy you out, you can reply that you’d love to run their offer by your 10 8 million partners
I work in the high arcanes of IT, I have over 2 decades of experience in high level corporation work, including leading teams, customer service, corporate lingo and whatnot. "Internal investigation" almost always means "We don't wanna tell you, fk off!" What seems to have happened is that there was some incompetent, stupid guy entrusted with your stuff who was probably 40% cheaper than a real employee and he might have deleted stuff accidentally.
I'm this years old when I learned the Flashbulb, an artist I've on-and-off enjoying for two decades now, is Benn. I guess I never looked into it in more details.
Pretty wild how I independently discovered your music in my youth and independently discovered your channel as an adult and never knew the connection until today
This video made me re-examine what it was I've been paying for all these years (Tunecore, too) and it's this: I was buying credibility. The credibility of being available on a "major" platform without having to be signed to a major label, and the investment groups behind these companies knew it before I did. Followup: the most money I've ever earned from royalties derived from plays on the local high school FM station. Who knew?
Same, I've made pockets of cash here and there through radio play, sync, and Bandcamp. Spotify etc is just so the music is easily accessible. I'm struggling to justify it these days though...
We need new laws to cover this sort of thing, as well as online streamers on UA-cam. Online content creators shouldn't have fewer rights than workers. You should lobby some politicians. It seems like these companies are the ones running the fake streaming businesses behind the scenes.
YT deleted 6 of my channels once with no strikes without telling me what happened. Billions of views gone. I just promoted music, I still don't know what happened. When I contacted them after weeks of them ignoring me they just acted very angry at me because they thought "everyone who gets kicked off must be guilty"
@@IndieGuvencyou are the only one to blame. UA-cam being horrible to content creators is well known and channels disappear all the time and even "famous" UA-camrs it happens to have difficulty getting answers or their channels restored If you cannot accept that , you really shouldn't be on that platform. The smarter creators publish at least on several alternative platforms to keep at least some income going if the main stuff on UA-cam goes down. UA-cam doesn't care about you, more stuff is uploaded every minute then you can watch in a year.
Thanks, I’m going through a similar nightmare with same distributor. Due to this I’m finding alternatives now for my music. All guidance and help is much appreciated. It’s also interesting that your issue happened the same time as a lot of artists…there’s a lot that’s wrong and I feel like it’s the Wild West, either way no evidence required.
this video made me remember about the talk I had with my friend around 5-6 years ago, about copyright low in general , and there was a topic about AI produced content, which goes something like "what if giant music company would just rent shit ton of compute for 24/7 music production and anything which has even close resemblance to this database could go under copyright infringement", after all music has limited amount of patterns, our voices even less, a full monopoly of several groups on majority of audio content, and if you want to do anything, you'll need to pay for a license, which is always an object to change, will there be a large amount of music producers left or there will be only "faces", "logos" and likable "patterns", like idol groups or digital personas. A full media control, inability to share content, and ultimate legal persecution, ain't no way we'll end up like this right, this is too stupid, right?
@@paulbogan3400 Yep, some guys recorded all the possible combinations of notes and put them in the public domain. The idea was that a musician could write and play and monetize any of those combinations, but another musician (or more likely, a major) couldn't claim copyright.
Hopefully this helps relieve some of your worries: All AI-generated works have been declared public domain in the US by the US Copyright Office. That's because AI-generated work lacks sufficient human authorship, and copyright is meant to protect human effort. (In a similar case, a photo taken by a monkey was decided to be public domain.)
@senselessinductor7921, Not how it works at all. Pay flows from the employer to the employee (it’s actually a fundamental part of the definition of those two words).
@@brawndothethirstmutilator9848, Yeah, keep pretending you understand economics. The employer doesn't have a giant pool of money, from which all moneys flows. When you're a business owner, and you're ready to "expand" you seek to bring in somebody who will create more incoming cash flow. And you won't hire someone who brings just enough to cover their wage, you'll bring them in for a lower wage than the productivity gains that come with them. So, in defacto chronology, in order to have a "job" you produce, and of that productivity, your employers takes their "cut." The differentiation from rentiers is that rentiers produce nothing. And so it is a scarcity of the means or production, held by the owners, as a means to extract productivity in the form of "profits." Amazing that you live in capitalism, and you don't even understand how it works. I find that ridiculous.
It’s infinitely frustrating that it’s so difficult to actually just support artists by consuming their work via legal methods. So much of what gets thrown their way seems to evaporate into the pockets of others before it even reaches them.
In an ideal world, we would not have digital distributors and platforms would have provided the means to upload music and utilize the already existing systems for paying royalties, automated or otherwise done by living human beings, that's what accountants are for. The only necessary middleman is a streaming platform, a server that provides an interface for viewing files stored on it, across the internet. A glorified warehouse. There are so many platforms and somehow they all bought into the grift of a digital distributor. Why is it necessary to gatekeep artists and musicians? Because of the negative value apparently, which isn't the fault of the creators. It comes down to politics, as it always does. When the system is failing, it's the fault of some person or some ideology. What's next?
How do you feel about bandcamp? I know it's not good, when they were bought up by Epic, but I like the original idea. I often hope that something similar gets made, that aren't own by a big Corp. I have own music server, so I have more control, where stuff doesn't get removed all of a sudden. I get the music of CD's and digital purchased files.
Cutting out DSP's sounds amazing, every time I'm happy about releasing something I've invested my soul in. DSPs always break my spirits when it comes time to release it. Then it's a downward spiral for a couple weeks, in which I could've been using that time for creating. Just time waisted for many of us. It's actually heart breaking
Why not just host it on youtube tagged as "music" so it appears in youtube music? I beleive that works. And youtube music seems to be the largest catalog and best features for the listeners aswell.
This is why i gave up using Spotify ages ago, they charge to much and dont innovate then screw over artists. I pay for UA-cam premium which already includes UA-cam music which their app has really improved lately. Also literally any UA-cam video that's ever been uploaded with music in it can be added to your playlist so you can listen to what I think is the widest variety of music out there, including dj mixes and music that some random user uploaded even if it was from a popular artist, you can still play it and add it to your playlist.
Uh... well.. _at the time_ you got, IIRC, 128kbps AAC. But this was from their own AAC encoder, which was (and might still be -- I dunno) superior to any commonly available AAC encoder. I spent a weekend comparing, and came to the conclusion that this was noticeably better than the 192kbps MP3s I was encoding myself with LAME, in less space. (Which it should be -- LAME makes MP3 files -- aka, MPEG 1 layer III -- which aren't as technically advanced as MPEG 4 audio. But I needed to hear the difference myself.) So, when I got my first iPod, I re-encoded ALL of my personal library from the original CD images (in wav format) to 128kbps AAC, using iTunes. I would have much rather used FAAC or something, which would have made the task far easier, but the Quicktime / iTunes encoder really was that much better. The 33% savings in space was enough to be a make-or-break point of fitting my entire library on the iPod's hard drive. That kind of thing mattered back then. Incidentally, not much later, they increased the price by 20 percent, and started distributing everything in 256kbps AAC. At that point, good luck differentiating it from lossless -- especially on earbuds, on-the-go. Apple Music is not my cup of tea. But Jobs-era iTunes was, and to the extent that it still more or less exists today, my favorite digital music distribution platform. At least, unless or until everything I want is available via a BandCamp model, where I can buy the whole album losslessly, for a reasonable price (equal to or cheaper than just buying the CD and ripping it myself.)
_"In addition to AAC, the entire Apple Music catalog is now also encoded using ALAC in resolutions ranging from 16-bit/44.1 kHz (CD Quality) up to 24-bit/192 kHz."_ Nice try.
Do remember that half the US was on dialup at the time. Downloading a song like that might still take minutes. So unlike today when only a fifth of the US doesn't have broadband internet access. There is no use in high quality audio of its played through crappy computer speakers.
@@bzuidgeest What the kid's saying, though, is _"they only _*_allow_*_ you to download it from itunes at like 128kbps LMAO",_ which might have been true 20 years ago (when other, illegal, music sites had 64k mp3s or even worse), but it's just false nowadays. He's so modern and hip that he thinks Apple hate is still _edgy._ A 128kbps mp3, btw, is a perfectly normal way to listen to pop music even on a good system. But the kid must have _golden ears lmao lol rotfl etc._
Just here to say it's still happening. Me and a friend released a song together, apparently one of the other songs from the EP it was on got on a botted playlist, no clue which one is doing it 😢😢
If your using Spotify to listen to music, you're a part of the problem. I still buy all my music because at least its still somewhat helping support the artist. If no one uses Spotify anymore they'll either make changes or fold.
i rip and upload to my google drive, i just need to develop some sort of APK, like a web based media player that can decode the mp3's from the cloud because right now its not as seamless as i would like.
You want to use FLAC. MP3 is an awful codec that's been outdated for 25 years. Put the FLACs on your server and let Plex convert to Opus when streaming. WAV/AIFF is completely pointless since FLAC exists.
Wild to find this video now. When it happened, I thought it was just Apple music (the service I use) and a business decision you made so I just bought the albums 6 I listen to off of bandcamp, and re-added them back via whatever iTunes match is called these days. It never even occurred to me that the real explanation would be this bonkers.
Please make Reels and Tiktoks of your videos, this information is so important, I want to share this on all of my socials. It's almost impossible to get someone to stop and pay attention to a UA-cam link. A shortened version of this would help get the word out tremendously! Thanks for the quality content Benn!
![Should We Hate Spotify? [An Objective View From A Professional Musician]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MXudOLStaXA/mqdefault.jpg)
Spotify not paying out royalties until someone hits a threshold, is completely illegal in Australia.
🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺
Spotifys policy is universal (here in the states too)
very interesting, I'd like to check it out
do you have any reference to that?
Spotify really angers me. They complain about Apple and yet when Apple released an open API so music services or apps can tap into AirPlay2 (for multiroom streaming to non-Apple devices, and HomePods, and AirPort Expresses of which I have several) way back in 2018, they are yet to implement it. People on the spotify forums have been clamouring for it for years. My podcast app supports it even. Spotify said they would do this a few times, but here we are nearly 6 years later. So Spotify forced me to use Apple Music instead. Which sucks for them, and it sucks for me. Also, their Mac app when installed runs at launch on every startup. It used to by default use the microphone to listen to audio in your environment to know what song is playing nearby (even from the radio in the room!) luckily they no longer do this - however it's super invasive still. If you're not signed into a spotify account, you CANNOT disable launch of the app at login every time the computer boots. You have to be signed into a spotify account and only then can you access the settings, and hidden under advanced you'll find allowing spotify to launch minimised at startup, and you set that to no, to stop it loading. Just very user hostile.
@@darwiniandude At least on windows you can disable any app launching on startup from the startup apps tab in the task manager, is there nothing similar on mac?
This kind of shit is why I always refuse to use Spotify and try to buy from the artist directly as much as possible
Yep UA-cam music or actually physical media, so CD, DVD you own
@@annieinwonderland UA-cam stamp out any music on videos, they are obsessed. Even background music in the car: Banned!
My friends always get frustrated with me on this topic, because I refuse to use any of those mainstream services. The closet I get to that is bandcamp, otherwise I'm buying the stuff and slapping it on my own streaming box.
Same, wish I could give more than one like.
@@G-ra-ha-mI listen to music all the time on UA-cam, including background in the car. You need to become a subscriber, though.
This is literally the plot of Rush's 2112 album, where high priests control all music and decide what everyone gets to hear.
It's worse than that. The high priests of music have set up an elaborate scam where they defraud the people submitting music for inclusion, and then pay them a pittance if anything. And have now gotten to the part where they randomly excommunicate some of those people and keep the money they were owed.
The high priests made a mistake this time, because they did it to someone well respected with a lot of people to raise a stink. But they pulled out a fig leaf to cover their sin and it will all go away in a minute or two.
OH YES WE KNOW
IT'S NOTHING NEW
IT'S JUST A WASTE OF TIME!!!
Good call. One of the greatest pieces of music ever!
I have often viewed modern times as analogous to the hardships of medieval times.
But, _this_ time it’s not about religion per se - it’s about “the economy”. Rather, the model of economy that we are taught to be the only correct one for decades.
The issue is simply our _faith_ in that economic model - however you’d like to name it.
So, no priests. Just banks, CEO’s and nearly every politician. We are not smarter than we were 600 years ago, are we…? 😅
Yup. The problem in our real
world version of that is that many, many people are complicit with the gatekeepers/"priests" as long as the priesthood is censoring in favor of their preferences. It keeps getting worse because people say "well it's okay to give them power to decide if it's in alignment with my worldview," thus creating the issue and it ultimately comes back around to bite them back too.
Actually it's a step further than that, art itself is seen as something that doesn't serve "the average" in the 2112 universe
This is corporate music trying to remove the indie musician from accessing the money they want to keep in their pockets. Hopefully, there will be a solution to this unfair squeeze of small musicians.
Im a son of polish immigrants. Some of my most favorite nostalgic songs that I've heard growing up in the car are all wiped CLEAN off Spotify, maybe only with some crappy live version. I am so thankful I have it all in my dad's 25 year old CD pouch
What were some of those albums? 😢
I wish there was an alternative to Spotify. Most of my stuff that I actually want is on CDs although there's a few things that I recently found on Spotify that I like need to track down. Are you Spotify as a dip my toe in the pond see if I like some thing. But I also use it as an oh you wanna hear that song and I don't want to hear that song with the ads playing over a giant sound system between bands.
Yeah I'd rather own music than pay rent to some corrupt digital landlord for the privilege of listening to it. Same with movies. Maybe I'm a cave man but I just prefer not having to depend on internet access, subscription fees, and the whims of inscrutable megacorporations, or inscrutable AI algorithms, just to listen to some music or watch a movie.
@@delta-9969I forgot to mention I also have blue race Blu-rays and DVDs if I think it's good and worth Rewatching more than once and I can afford it. The only probably maintaining some sort of disc playback device and breaking copy protection to back up my DVDs and violating the DM.C.IA. I was talking to somebody who thought I was crazy and insane for saying that piracy is on the rise in and that's terribly unethical but the fact is it is. Why because the marketplace is not supplying demand in a reasonable way. And FYI half Polish, so this thread caught my attention also.
We're heading for everything's a subscription which is really freaking out the conspiracy theorists. There's all sorts of reasoning behind it but it couldn't be that we have money loving corporations that need to satisfy their board.
I buy all my music, put it on my own streaming server and have a daily backup to google drive just in case there is a fire or my server breaks beyond repair.
I can so relate with your story differently & unfortunately. 4 platinum albums, 19 “real radio” top 40 singles, 13 Grammy nominations, millions & millions of airplay worldwide. And then … nothing but nothingness. My music sites bugged with invisible scripts, play counts wiped, it’s a rigged game. Thank you for sharing your story & speaking out.
There's only one question I want Spotify to answer, which is:
If they "know" the streams are botted, then why not just remove the streams and the bots?
I'm guessing the answer is the labels won't be happy to see their numbers reduce. And I'm also guessing 100% of the bots are from free ad-supported accounts, so keeping the bot numbers helps them sell to advertisers.
Didn't instagram do something like this, where they removed a bunch of bot-likes maybe 5 years ago or so? The outcry from the sweatshop-bikini advertisers -- I mean influencers was so great, that they actually reinstated some of those likes back.
Soundcloud. Never ever subbed once to Spotify. Why the hell.
Dingdingding! It's all a fuckin scam
Spotify should go to prison for it
Governments forget what the law is all about
Righteousness
Spotify is there to make software execs rich. Not to help artists.
2 weeks ago I got a mail that all my life's work was taken down from all platforms...
Part of me was just relieved, cause Spotify isn't worth it anyways... I'm just focus on building a community and selling directly to my fans...
What I ought to be doing in the first place, instead of chasing Spotify numbers
This might be my biggest motivation for releasing my music on physical media types. You can't just delete 500 vinyls with a single click on a button. And I like the thought that, once i'm gone my music still exists as sign that I once existed on this planet.
Have you seen benns video on vinyl? 😅
@@DJDiskmachineLOL, yes I have, which is a good reason not to do it for sure. I guess i'm screwed either way.
Theres also these things called CDs you know
That doesn't matter when no-one seems interested in hearing the music in the first place. Or can't find it. Or said musicians cannot advertise in spaces where they get accused of self promotion etc etc. The challenge of GETTING ATTENTION remains.
Exactly. Why I purchase my DAW and music software. I don't do subscriptions on my music tools. I have multiple cd burners and I make hard copies of all my recordings, not depending on "the cloud" for storage. I print small batches (50 - 100) of CD's for each of my original music releases. Don't even get me started talking about CDBaby. I have one album released with them. I can't sell any copies of it because its available everywhere for free.
And they wonder why music piracy is rampant...
Thank you for the breakdown of how thoroughly corrupt the music industry is. I’ve used CD baby in the past because I was told I had to if I was going to be taken seriously as a musician. I didn’t make any money because I was just in a little pop rock group playing local shows. The most money I made was from selling merch at these shows. I became disenchanted very quickly with the whole music dream. Everything is about money, money, money. It sucks the joy and life out of making art.
The greedy leeches are infuriating.
Same here. Released one CD through CDBaby. I have regretted it ever since.
You complain that it is about money but that is what it is about with you as well. "The most money I made was from selling merch at these shows." Why sell merchandise if it isn't at all about making money?
@@jimlovesgina my point was that if there was any money to be made at all, it was made at the shows selling CDs. It’s just a fact, not really something to get contentious about. Besides, what am I going to do - not sell physical media? Not have cool graphic shirts printed? That was a fun and exciting process of being in a “real” band.
Artists are allowed to earn a living just like everyone else.
It all makes sense. Claiming fake streams and reinstating your catalog paying a fee is an actual business model.
“Poor people just can’t write music” LOL.
The music industry is more open minded about this. Something like “Actually, poor people write the best music, which with sufficient evil we can make money off while keeping them poor, and thus able to make more great music.”
Also, as a gen-X developer, I apologize for helping to create the cultural tire fire that we now constantly warm ourselves with today.
It's true. I'm poor, and all of my music sucks.
@@unduloidNO its the other way around. You're poor BECAUSE all of your music sucks. 🤣
FWIW, I think Steve Jobs had a point. Remember, that presentation was quite a while ago...
My first brush with digital music distribution was mp3 period calm. (Modified slightly, of course, so as not to anger the sentinels.) I was super excited to find it, but that excitement didn't last very long, because it was filled with amateurs and their 4-track Tascam tape mixers singing into a Radio Shack mic and uploading it in 96kbps MP3.
I DID find _some_ cool stuff there, and even ended up buying a CD in the last year of some band that I had discovered there in the late 90s. But most of it was ... uhm ... let's just say "aspirational."
Apple was trying to prevent becoming Atari after the video game crash of 84. They were trying to convey to users that this was professionally recorded music -- the stuff you would find at the store, on a CD, just without having to peel that permanently-bonded sticker off the top before you could play it. At that time, it would've been reassuring, if not critical, to know that it wasn't just a library of songs live from open mic night.
And BTW, that Adiemus album is fantastic.
loool. yes bro nice one! all Oppressive forces in the world evil etc stylize themselves this way "we create opportunity by enforced suffering". strangely it is kind of true. though i'm not crazy about the dynamic 😅
@@unduloid I resemble this remark.
Spotify erased all my music after 5 years and hundreds of thousands of plays claiming fake streams. CD baby offers no solution. Thanks Benn for speaking up. Something has to change.
Agree. So sorry this happened to you. Same here, my entire catalog was taken down in 2021 [by another distributor] for "fraudulent activity", but I never paid for any promo. They eventually reinstated my account and paid me my earnings (which they were going to keep) and said I could reupload my music but I lost all faith in the system. Now I just sell through my website and, fortunately, I do other things like production, mixing, synchs and film/tv work. I never knew others were having this issue until the wave of complaints lately. Thanks for posting this video, Benn. Definitely sharing!
Oh no... Im gearing up to start to put music out for the first time, and Watching these videos and getting informed about distrokid and tunecore and how they are moving had me thinking that cdbaby was the only option i should use to avoid all of this. Now reading this comment my heart sank. I have no idea what to do now. I dont think its wise to do direct to consumer yet as a completely unknown artist either...
This is all very discouraging
@@aje-olokunsChile I hear your concerns but I would try to focus on the positive. This news is out there now and many higher profile artists are trying to make changes, attorneys and politicians are jumping on this as well, and Benn and James Blake along with a few others are trying to work on new distribution methods and platforms. It might take a little time before things are "fixed" but consider working on your art a bit more, creating a social media presence, starting a YT channel, learning the ins and outs of the music business and making more music. You can always release on Bandcamp as well and start creating a fan list so that in the future you can sell direct. There's a lot you can do to prepare yourself for a long term career in this business. Wishing you the best and good luck! :)
@@aje-olokunsChile well maybe look into voice swap which is being made by the guy who made this video to avoid this stuff
@@aje-olokunsChilewatch til the end
They are working toward a world where the only music we are allowed to have access to is this same shit they feed us on the radio.
and banning Tiktok is a big step in that direction
😂, friend, the internet is completely open…keep ya head up and make 🪄
@@johnviera3884sorry buddy. The Chinese communist party spyware that is TikTok needs to go.
@@johnviera3884 music was fine before ShitTok, it'll be fine without ShitTok
@@ItsWesSmithYo oh boy.... you realllly shouldn't learn what ISPs have been doing for decades now with bandwidth and traffic restrictions
I had this recently with Distrokid, except they never cited any reason for my music being nuked from streaming. No missed fees paid, no accusations of botted streams, just all my music gone. I've sent them all of the details of the missing songs but they still have yet to respond to me. God being a musician and trying to actually get somewhere can be so fucking exhausting when you have to deal with stuff like this.
Thanks for putting this out there so publicly. This is basically what Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow’s book ‘Chokepoint Capitalism’ covers. Parasitic middlemen companies have entrenched themselves in every part of the culture and arts economy.
They don't have to. They only do it because we let them.
@@thewhitefalcon8539”We” have nothing to do with it, but our elected officials have everything to do with it.
You know they gon cap mans fa dis right?
and lest we forget : all for an industry that laughed off digital distribution in a Homer Simpson manner ("the internet ? is that thing still around?") only 25 years ago. They just dropped the ball instead of developing their own distribution. Movie and TV companies sure paid attention to that lesson...
Legends are not only found on maps, this man is well on his way of becoming a Legend. Thank you sir for your efforts and dedication and service.
As an artist with music on Spotify, anyone can add my music to their bot-ridden playlist without my knowledge or consent. Spotify will respond by removing my music from their platform. What’s wrong with this picture? Obviously they’re going after the wrong people. Block the bots, ban the playlist owners, but don’t punish legitimate artists for what other people did with their music!
It seems obvious doesn't it? Yet, for some reason, the streaming companies can't figure that out.
please make a distro platform. I would honestly pay for it. I love your ethics and your ideals benn.
hell yeah
This happened with my label, and our partner labels too. They removed full albums of all streaming services. RouteNote said that this a deal they have with Spotify.
Since we are so small we have nothing we can do but reupload the albums without the problematic songs. THERE IS NO PROBLEMATIC SONGS, WE ARE GETTING NUKED BY SOMETIHNG WE CANT DO SHIT ABOUT. JUST DELETE THE BOT STREAMS ITS NOT SO DIFFICULT SPOTIFY.
it's refreshing to see someone on youtube mocking steve jobs
You don't watch enough "PC master race" youtubers :D
Decades ago many people had a vision of a future in which creatives could make a modest yet reasonable living for their efforts. Over the years I have had hopes for what I had began to call the “creative middle class” even as I watched the Internet consistently fail to provide tools and services that might help establish such a thing. With this news, It’s so sad to see that dream dismantled so completely.
This is another example of the sociopathic nature of corporate law.
This is why i only listen to mp3s on my own devices. Streaming services could take my favorite songs away overnight
this has happened to me multiple times and i’ve been doing the same as you because of it
Same reason I buy physical copies if possible.
Ditto. I have never subscribed to a streaming music service, and never will. If I can't at least download the MP3/AAC for use on _any_ of my own devices: no sale.
Really wish there was an equivalent on the video side, but the movie and TV industry were both so paranoid of what happened to music, they wouldn't come within 10 miles of a meeting to talk about DRM-free distribution. And for that, there's AnyDVD and physical discs.
@@nickwallette6201i do miss friends sharing mp3s w each other via cd. what about soundcloud or bandcamp though? much less cooperate.
@@nickwallette6201 eh, can always get a vpn and pirate tv shows if you really need them offline, it's cheaper than streaming service. It's how we used to do it in the old days before all these new fangled streaming sites. If they don't want to offer you the service you desire so you can watch stuff offline without god awful buffering and low bitrates, then screw them
Thank you for all your work, this is IMO one of the most important pieces of info/opinion about the music industry I've seen in a long time.
This past year I've just been realising that despite being a musician/producer/engineer for over 15 years, I have NO IDEA how to fix any of this. Not even a super optimistic, idealised idea. You know things are bleak when even a cishet white dude from Europe doesn't get up to say "it's easy, just do BLANK".
Ugh... I hate having my music on Spotify but there's no denying that it's where people listen to music. I held out for so long but gave up. I wish there was a way out of this loop of musical pointlessness. I didn't realize they implemented the 1000 plays thing, I now realize why I haven't been getting anything lately. There goes breaking even......
Isn't it wild that we've allowed an org to get powerful enough that they can literally just decide not to pay for intellectual property they profit from? Like... "nah.." But, I mean, what are you going to do? Come after them? If you haven't got 1k/month streams, you're not very intimidating.
If only we had some kind of protection against monopolies taking advantage of consumers....
Wow! This is an incredibly good video! Thank you so much for all this information. Concise, compelling and easy to digest. Shocking to realize what an awful state streaming is in for independent musicians. I can only imagine the terrible feeling realizing your entire catalog disappeared. I am subscribing to your channel and I am very interested in the progress of your own distribution company efforts. Huge thanks.
The "Ownership Society" strikes again.
They own YOU and YOUR WORK.
Beautiful episode. And I call your videos episodes since they’re truly written and constructed so effectively that they deserve the attention of an episode.
Ironic given how much Spotify relies on bot-generated content.
Thanks for finally giving me the push to just cancel my distribution deals after I already p much quit using those services as consumer. I realise now it was mostly the vanity of being everywhere and not what I started making music for in the first place.
I'm done with the fake nature of online streaming and I don't want to have anything to to with big corporations like WMG or Access Holding and I'm in the most fortunate position of doing music as a passion instead of a profession while also being able to upload the music to my own servers for people to just download them without any disgusting corporation making a profit off of my work without doing any good for my community or the world at large.
We stopped having an actual economy in the 1970s. Now we're stuck with the Grifter Economy wherein everything in existence is a blatant scam perpetuated by a megacorporation. The music industry is now just another leg of that economy full of grifters.
Exactly. I'm still dumbfounded that so many Americans trusted Pfizer and Moderna. They are part of the stock market too. Main goal is exponential profit for its shareholders but somehow everyone thought" they care about my health"
I'm absolutely guffawed that America is even standing, how have megacorps managed to all agree to walk the fine line so perfectly between "300M people in America run out of money and are left on the streets" and "people can afford to buy quality products that last longer, and without having to pay 8 different corporation's some large cut of the product's profits"
a lot of my favorite songs are from small indie bands, most of my most hated songs are from the mainstream major labels.
The point about most musicians spending more money on distribution than they make in royalties is so depressing, and infuriating.
Especially, as Spotify could've just opened the gates and let people upload directly. I mean, with something like Distrokid and flat fees, the outcome is pretty much the same.
Absolutely a scam. Very depressing. As, I feel like, most artists desperately feel like they need to be on Spotify. That is the cultural capital Spotify currently holds.
"artists desperately feel like they need to be "
And therein lies the crux of the problem, people seeking attention and validation and seek to use the music business as a vehicle to obtain it.
It has almost nothing to do with music.
Yeah, and something I've noticed is that a lot of people take not being on Spotify as a sign of not being "legit" in lack of a better word, one way or another; I still don't have any of my stuff there, but I guess it's only a matter of time before it can't be put off any longer. It's honestly depressing, and with every passing day I miss Myspace more... it was the perfect combination of social media and music streaming. Oh well, the internet (and even world) as a whole has changed so much that something like Myspace wouldn't work anymore, ironically people are no longer "ready" for it. Almost like we're devolving as a species...
@@axeman2638 I mean some people want their music to be listened to. Otherwise, why release music in the first place?
@@Akab it they want people to listen to it they can give it away. Stop lying, you want money and attention.
@@axeman2638 I admit, I don't work in the music industry... I find these comments odd, though. Maybe someone can clarify. How does a musician that produces recorded music for 10 hours a day make money to survive if they do not sell their music?
What is "streaming fraud"? Is shittify not paying artists I listen to over and over again, just because I listen to them over and over again?!? This is infuriating, and makes me want to terminate every "subscription", and just go back to ripping my CDs to a non-connected iPod.
Surprised to hear how little Spotify makes, but no mention that their CEO apparently has made 3.5 billion. He's never written or recorded a song, but he's made more than Paul McCartney. So glad he's decided to begrudge us independent artists our fraction of a cent per stream, eh? Gee, I wonder if there's a financial connection?
I just noticed the other day that one of my songs was added to a "scam playlist" (which I did NOT pay for or have anything to do with). This generated an unusual amount of plays and saves on this song for the short while it was there. I feel worried about Spotify removing my music. Any ideas what I should do? Should I tell Spotify? Or could that trigger a removal?
I'm sorry, there's literally no course of action anyone provides for you. It's utterly messed up. :(
Pretty sure that plays on your songs should be reflected by the playlists popularity, which means you should be fine. I think the issue was really having views that cannot be accounted for it or explained, urs are explained by said playlist even if the playlist is sketchy
@@BennJordan But this does bring up an even more concerning question, that of weaponizing bots and fake plays. Anyone can easily drop your stuff onto one of these playlists for whatever reason, and I could imagine a whole new industry of organized crime blossoming, holding you to ransom and threatening to destroy your career unless you pay a protection fee of some kind. Scary stuff.
@@fracnis6309and in steps a new middleman tier with insurance to protect against this
I love your profile pic btw
Thanks so much for this video, this is exactly what happened to me and I’ve been struggling to find any answers about what was really going on, this clears it up a lot. Love your channel.
Is selling your work to a company that is creating a machine learning database that will be sold to big tech companies really a better option than the broken system we have now though?
Always appreciate being sampled in a Benn Jordan video.
Yo Weaves. Sup. o/
I can't watch a Benn video without thinking about the horrible eyebrow accident he was in
@@fenexj lame
thanks for going into this in detail like this. pleas do more so others especially the younger ones can understand because people think its the normal and only way to get your music out please !
We need somewhere to listen to music that’s safe. No ads, no algorithmic tweaking, no weird rules about payment. Something that’s just a music player, search and playlists that can only be made by listeners. Somewhere you can trust won’t throw away all your work. Where anybody can just listen to what they want without being used for their data. We’re tired of being exploited. We’re tired of our information being stolen and sold. We’re tired of ads. We’re tired of being told we did something wrong. We need to band together and create a place for artists to thrive. It’s the only way to be treated fairly at this point.
isn't that what soundcloud is? or did that go down the crapper too
welcome to the early internet. it still exists under layers of bullsh*t companies whose business models include convincing you it doesn't. independent artists or small labels can still run (or hire out) their own websites or streaming servers. distributed recommendation algorithms still need some work. payment is a problem of its own to tackle, but there are plenty of opportunities to cut out middlemen there right now.
No problems with ads if it encourage to pay for a subcription and that money goes straight to artists
Sounds like you just want your own library of music, just buy music physically or Bandcamp or where-ever else and just go full digital library. Literally no way for any third party or company to screw you in ANY form with that. It can be as simple as just having local files on your device as historically done, or something more involved like your own music server. I just run Navidrome on my PC and access my library where-ever with internet access. Even in cases where I don't have internet access I can just download it to my device from my server before hand.
I recommend a membership model. Users pay per month with no free, ad-supported option. Give them a free trial period or limited listening time each month until they pay the monthly membership fee. The membership fees are then distributed to the artists proportionately based on total listening time. Has anyone done that? This is similar to how Medium does things for writers, which I'm familiar with.
It could probably be done decentralized with some web 3.0 nonsense and crypto to totally cut out the middlemen.
I really really like this, dude. I have no problem boycotting these corporate sociopaths for a good cause.
Summary: The major labels continue to find more ways to profit from or exploit musicians regardless if they sign with them or not.
I fear the only winning move for musicians is to not play, and the world will lose as a result.
The music itself is the reward, if you give up any idea of making money from it and just get into the music you'll have a lot more fun with it.
@@axeman2638 this is such a moronic take I don't even know where to start refuting it from.
@@danieliroh Sounds like you are more interested in money and attention than music.
cant eat fun j@cķ@sś
@@axeman2638 No. Artists need to be able to live and live decently to make music. They make something we all find valuable. You sound exactly like the dozens of people who abuse their love of the craft as a tactic for exploiting the artist. They make it, people want it, and they should be paid what they deserve and they aren't. If you're expecting art and entertainment for free, you are entitled and don't appreciate it. You don't sound like an artist or someone who appreciates it at all. Don't consume any music or entertainment I guess, if it's not worth anything to you.
Hey Benn, I’m an amature musician and a longtime Flashbulb fan and I appreciate what you’ve done here. You bring to light what I already had doubts about and I love the way you present it. Thanks and all the best, Adriaan
Daniel Ek's analogy comparing musicians to football/soccer players was one of the most self-serving, cringe things I've ever heard. Couple that with his weird obsession about getting AI to be a big player on Spotify, and I've thrown in the towel on that whole mess. In fact, moving forward, my plan is to adopt the film industry model of releasing music on pay-only platforms for 6 months initially, and then release to streaming platforms.
For my last release, I had a one-month delay between releasing on Bandcamp and releasing on streaming platforms. For my next release, I'm going to do that again -- Bandcamp first, streamers a month later -- except that for Spotify, the delay will be 6 months to a year. Or I might just skip Spotify altogether.
@@MaximusNYC Skip altogether
Easiest way around this, DON'T send your music to Spotify. if they're not going to fork out for music streams less than 1,000 a year then whats the point in having your music on their stores and if you run the risk of having your music added to a ''bot list'' or be falsely accused of utilising a bot, then it seems to me not to bother having your music on there in the first place. more labels are going to just sell their music on their own website and just totally bypass any middle man.
Trigger warning for anyone who cares about music and artists. Again.
BOTs 😂
So I could ruin any musician's day just by setting a bot to play their songs?
You would probably ruin more than their day.
Likely not. If all requests came from a single IP it would just be discounted or blocked . You would need a bot network.
I think that if all independent musicians united, we might have enough strength to fight these abuses, after all, if we don't make the product that sustains this industry... there won't be an industry.
I'm not a musician but it's fascinating the way you're explaining this mess. I loved you in The Walking Dead too.
thanks for talking about this
So sorry to hear this! 😥 Good luck recovering the algorithms' favors.
The solution could be to develop a new music streaming platform based on the distributed network model (or federated model), like Mastodon and BlueSky. In other words, the artist controls their own server which would stream only their music and would be added to the collective available music on the service. The platform could charge a minimal fee for each stream that would provide for the costs of operation and would be non-profit. The artist would get 100% of the remainder.
Sounds annoying. I often listen music randomized. That'd mean switching servers every song and also subscribing to hundreds of servers sucks. And how will you find new bands without a recommendation service because everything is seperated into their own servers?
@@SyntheticFutureI don't think you understand how distributed networks work. They are technically separate, but this is invisible to the user.
Obviously, there could be programming that would randomly select from different servers and artists. You wouldn't have to "switch" between servers, just like you don't have to on Bluesky or Mastodon. You can just search for anyone you're looking for in the search box.
Who makes money directly from Mastodon, though? Who gets paid, where does the money go, how is it divided up? I don't think the locations where the files are stored or served from is the issue, especially since Spotify actually was P2P until 2014. The issue is that a lot of the legal rights to the music are owned by a few big corporations, so no matter how small your margins are... the big companies always want their share.
@@ehhhhhhhhhhI agree. If the musician is entirely independent, it would work fine, the cost of doing business would come out of the streaming pay. But most musicians are not set up that way. The contracts, shared ownership, writing and studio work royalties, producers, agents, etc. would make everything get sticky.
But if the platform were popular and artists could eventually extract themselves from those contracts to become fully independent, then it would work fine.
And while I don't fully understand Benn's situation, it seems like he would benefit from such a situation better than most.
And any new artists trying to make a name for themselves right now, who are not already entangled in the music biz, could benefit immediately as well. It would give them a free platform for making their name.
There already is something a little like that, a distributed network for music and podcast streaming, it's called Funkwhale. I think due to the nature of the thing, it's only allowed to publish music licensed under Creative Commons or similar (but tbh I think everyone should license their stuff under permissive licenses anyway). There is also no integrated payment, but I think having a way to give artists you enjoy money directly, and normalizing doing so might be more the way to go, and at least is already a big step up from where we're at.
Maybe we had it right during the days of the importance of FM radio and physical format recordings (cassettes, CDs & records). The days of music stores like Musicland, Camelot and Sam Goody...
Maybe, just maybe, we had it right at one time.
Very interesting video. I am a musician but I am old and don't care much about money anymore so I have not kept up with all the changes in the music industry since I chased that dream in the 80's. So much has changed...I had no idea how bad it has gotten. Late stage capitalism?
Creativity now has negative value.
I had a 1 mil stream song removed for no reason. It was on an account on Amuse that also had an artist with chill music in a playlist that was advertised (paid ads) on instagram. It was not paid bot-streams, but legit ads for a playlist just like any other. Amuse removed the account and took the money because they claim it's bots playing the music and when explaining and wanting to show receipts for the ads, they just say no. They said no 4 times in 4 different emails after me trying to explain my situation. They steal the money which is crazy, and they do a lifetime ban which is crazy. If there's bots they should remove the bots, not the creators. Amuse and Spotify don't care because they make too much money.
thanks Ben. big effort here. what a horrifying ordeal. i can only imagine. It seems that, below a certain unknown threshold of popularity, this machine they've cobbled together thinks it is mostly just for the only compensation to be "promotion" of the artist. They truly do not believe these independent artists *should* be paid, but they do not come right out and say that. It goes back to the "editing" Jobs alluded to in that stage act. I wouldn't be surprised if that line came to him by way of talks with the labels themselves. So we've gone full circle. They are effectively editing out who receives compensation, which effectively means they are assimilating distro and streaming so thst the major labels once again possess full control of the entire industry. I am not read up on it but I am curious how much changes in digital services tax law, or any other 'regulation' may have driven this shady practice--or is it just pure predatory greed
Independent small artists tend to cost more money than they earn. So, that's what the term "negative value" means. That's one reason (but not the only one) why 73% of the musicians in Benn's survey paid more money in distribution fees than they received in royalties last year. Now, I do think there's something wrong with payout amounts, and wherr that cutoff line is, because too many middlemen and investors have their hands in that pie. Those people havr an even larger drag (negative value) on the system, but somehow those are the very people the system caters to. And also, the negative value artists actually DO pay the difference - they pay more to distribute the music than the profits they receive. Whereas, the negative value middlemen and investors keep taking and taking. Many of those investors (labels, for example) sure seem to have weaseled their way into that equity stake. And then, as owners, they gave themselves favorable terms.
IOW, it's the usual situation - once somebody has internalized the ethics of capitalism, then you shouldn't trust them. It's possible to exist in capitalism without internalizing its ethics, but it's rare - most people who claim such are lying for profit, maybe even subconsciously. It's understandable and forgivable and will be our culture's downfall, because a time will come when that trust will be necessary for the culture to remain, but we won't be able to. For evidence, look at societies that quit without there being a decisive foreign invasion. In the past, culture often hinged on natural conditions that, when changed (prolonged lack of rains, for example) imploded society's power structure. Maybe we've outgrown these superstitions... or maybe money is the new rain?
@@GizzyDillespee It sounds bleak. Have you found a way to get by personally that you're okay with?
@@GizzyDillespee that "system" you allude to, based on Ben's research and certain previous articles regarding this topic, seem to be a carefully orchestrated fraudulent mechanism. We can easily draw parallels to corrupt shadow-government interventionism and inherently corrupt implementations, such as the IMF.
Many companies are out of control with their customer service and their reach and power.
I LOVE that you held your sense of humour throughout this :).
You know what? I've watched three of your videos and every single one of them has really grabbed my attention by the brainstem and been super worth my time. Subscribed.
I do have a Spotify sub, but I still go out and buy everything that I really like, and this shit right here is why. Every one of these "Physical media is dead" idiots are going to have a real bad day one day, and it's probably going to be soon.
Do it as an Artist Owned! It could get huge.
Then, when Big Corp wants to buy you out, you can reply that you’d love to run their offer by your 10 8 million partners
Which is what the purpose of Bandcamp is for
I work in the high arcanes of IT, I have over 2 decades of experience in high level corporation work, including leading teams, customer service, corporate lingo and whatnot.
"Internal investigation" almost always means "We don't wanna tell you, fk off!"
What seems to have happened is that there was some incompetent, stupid guy entrusted with your stuff who was probably 40% cheaper than a real employee and he might have deleted stuff accidentally.
the feeling that i get when I'm bored and a new benn jordan video drops is insane
I'm this years old when I learned the Flashbulb, an artist I've on-and-off enjoying for two decades now, is Benn. I guess I never looked into it in more details.
Pretty wild how I independently discovered your music in my youth and independently discovered your channel as an adult and never knew the connection until today
This video made me re-examine what it was I've been paying for all these years (Tunecore, too) and it's this: I was buying credibility. The credibility of being available on a "major" platform without having to be signed to a major label, and the investment groups behind these companies knew it before I did.
Followup: the most money I've ever earned from royalties derived from plays on the local high school FM station. Who knew?
So... you were PAYING for "exposure"... Man, what a scam
Same, I've made pockets of cash here and there through radio play, sync, and Bandcamp. Spotify etc is just so the music is easily accessible. I'm struggling to justify it these days though...
@@rudeboyjohn3483 Yet another form of "Payola"... sadly it's rampant in the music industry.
We need new laws to cover this sort of thing, as well as online streamers on UA-cam.
Online content creators shouldn't have fewer rights than workers.
You should lobby some politicians.
It seems like these companies are the ones running the fake streaming businesses behind the scenes.
You completely ignored BANDCAMP! What's up with that?
YT deleted 6 of my channels once with no strikes without telling me what happened. Billions of views gone. I just promoted music, I still don't know what happened. When I contacted them after weeks of them ignoring me they just acted very angry at me because they thought "everyone who gets kicked off must be guilty"
When is the point of legal action?
@@ReubenHorner thousands of hours editing videos down the drain. At this point I'm just blaming myself
@@IndieGuvencyou are the only one to blame. UA-cam being horrible to content creators is well known and channels disappear all the time and even "famous" UA-camrs it happens to have difficulty getting answers or their channels restored
If you cannot accept that , you really shouldn't be on that platform. The smarter creators publish at least on several alternative platforms to keep at least some income going if the main stuff on UA-cam goes down.
UA-cam doesn't care about you, more stuff is uploaded every minute then you can watch in a year.
Daniel Ek is a thief. I boycott Spotify everyday by not listening nor downloading their app.
The stuff with iTunes really made me laugh. Sad, but your delivery was excellent.
Thanks, I’m going through a similar nightmare with same distributor. Due to this I’m finding alternatives now for my music. All guidance and help is much appreciated. It’s also interesting that your issue happened the same time as a lot of artists…there’s a lot that’s wrong and I feel like it’s the Wild West, either way no evidence required.
this video made me remember about the talk I had with my friend around 5-6 years ago, about copyright low in general , and there was a topic about AI produced content, which goes something like "what if giant music company would just rent shit ton of compute for 24/7 music production and anything which has even close resemblance to this database could go under copyright infringement", after all music has limited amount of patterns, our voices even less, a full monopoly of several groups on majority of audio content, and if you want to do anything, you'll need to pay for a license, which is always an object to change, will there be a large amount of music producers left or there will be only "faces", "logos" and likable "patterns", like idol groups or digital personas. A full media control, inability to share content, and ultimate legal persecution, ain't no way we'll end up like this right, this is too stupid, right?
Nah, that's the next stage.
I seem to remember that someone had actually done something like this a few years ago, pre-AI.
@@paulbogan3400 Yep, some guys recorded all the possible combinations of notes and put them in the public domain. The idea was that a musician could write and play and monetize any of those combinations, but another musician (or more likely, a major) couldn't claim copyright.
Hopefully this helps relieve some of your worries: All AI-generated works have been declared public domain in the US by the US Copyright Office. That's because AI-generated work lacks sufficient human authorship, and copyright is meant to protect human effort. (In a similar case, a photo taken by a monkey was decided to be public domain.)
I realized calling them "some guys" is awfully rude.
ua-cam.com/video/sJtm0MoOgiU/v-deo.html
Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin. Life savers!
This is the exact reason why i started copying cd's/"pirating" and host my own free and open source music service for my personal use
Wait, you're paying them?
Thats like paying someone to allow you to work.
Uh, you pay every employer for the right to work. So yeah, that's just how capitalism works. (And in a lot of cases, you pay them a big percentage)
@senselessinductor7921, Not how it works at all. Pay flows from the employer to the employee (it’s actually a fundamental part of the definition of those two words).
@@brawndothethirstmutilator9848, Yeah, keep pretending you understand economics.
The employer doesn't have a giant pool of money, from which all moneys flows.
When you're a business owner, and you're ready to "expand" you seek to bring in somebody who will create more incoming cash flow. And you won't hire someone who brings just enough to cover their wage, you'll bring them in for a lower wage than the productivity gains that come with them.
So, in defacto chronology, in order to have a "job" you produce, and of that productivity, your employers takes their "cut."
The differentiation from rentiers is that rentiers produce nothing. And so it is a scarcity of the means or production, held by the owners, as a means to extract productivity in the form of "profits."
Amazing that you live in capitalism, and you don't even understand how it works. I find that ridiculous.
@@brawndothethirstmutilator9848 They know that. They're saying that they take a huge cut of the actual money you produce.
Thanks for using your plattform for this! People needs to hear.
It’s infinitely frustrating that it’s so difficult to actually just support artists by consuming their work via legal methods. So much of what gets thrown their way seems to evaporate into the pockets of others before it even reaches them.
This might sound a bit out of left field, but, but what did you think of the 90s electronica band Leftfield?
They are a bit to left field for my taste but my partner loved them
Class-action lawsuit. Let the lawyers take care of Spotify and these other parasites. Make the evil fight itself.
All of this shit is INSANE lately. They are stacking the decks, and no one seems to care.
"Spotify is bad so I decided to create something even worse."
Masterful gambit.
Great stuff as usual! How does band camp stand in that dreary landscape?
This is one reason why I buy downloads rather than stream. I need to know the music that I like isn't going to vanish on me.
Waiting for this one after all (almost all) your tunes vanished from Spotify recently. Pleased they have since been reinstated!
This exact situation happened to me two weeks ago with an album I made with a friend, "The Jump To Nowhere". We're still pissed.
In an ideal world, we would not have digital distributors and platforms would have provided the means to upload music and utilize the already existing systems for paying royalties, automated or otherwise done by living human beings, that's what accountants are for.
The only necessary middleman is a streaming platform, a server that provides an interface for viewing files stored on it, across the internet. A glorified warehouse.
There are so many platforms and somehow they all bought into the grift of a digital distributor.
Why is it necessary to gatekeep artists and musicians? Because of the negative value apparently, which isn't the fault of the creators.
It comes down to politics, as it always does. When the system is failing, it's the fault of some person or some ideology.
What's next?
Choke point capitalism
How do you feel about bandcamp? I know it's not good, when they were bought up by Epic, but I like the original idea. I often hope that something similar gets made, that aren't own by a big Corp. I have own music server, so I have more control, where stuff doesn't get removed all of a sudden. I get the music of CD's and digital purchased files.
Cutting out DSP's sounds amazing, every time I'm happy about releasing something I've invested my soul in. DSPs always break my spirits when it comes time to release it. Then it's a downward spiral for a couple weeks, in which I could've been using that time for creating. Just time waisted for many of us. It's actually heart breaking
Why not just host it on youtube tagged as "music" so it appears in youtube music?
I beleive that works.
And youtube music seems to be the largest catalog and best features for the listeners aswell.
Fr💀
This is why i gave up using Spotify ages ago, they charge to much and dont innovate then screw over artists. I pay for UA-cam premium which already includes UA-cam music which their app has really improved lately. Also literally any UA-cam video that's ever been uploaded with music in it can be added to your playlist so you can listen to what I think is the widest variety of music out there, including dj mixes and music that some random user uploaded even if it was from a popular artist, you can still play it and add it to your playlist.
so apple cared that much about 'good' music that they only allow you to download it from itunes at like 128kbps LMAO
Uh... well.. _at the time_ you got, IIRC, 128kbps AAC. But this was from their own AAC encoder, which was (and might still be -- I dunno) superior to any commonly available AAC encoder. I spent a weekend comparing, and came to the conclusion that this was noticeably better than the 192kbps MP3s I was encoding myself with LAME, in less space. (Which it should be -- LAME makes MP3 files -- aka, MPEG 1 layer III -- which aren't as technically advanced as MPEG 4 audio. But I needed to hear the difference myself.)
So, when I got my first iPod, I re-encoded ALL of my personal library from the original CD images (in wav format) to 128kbps AAC, using iTunes. I would have much rather used FAAC or something, which would have made the task far easier, but the Quicktime / iTunes encoder really was that much better. The 33% savings in space was enough to be a make-or-break point of fitting my entire library on the iPod's hard drive. That kind of thing mattered back then.
Incidentally, not much later, they increased the price by 20 percent, and started distributing everything in 256kbps AAC. At that point, good luck differentiating it from lossless -- especially on earbuds, on-the-go.
Apple Music is not my cup of tea. But Jobs-era iTunes was, and to the extent that it still more or less exists today, my favorite digital music distribution platform. At least, unless or until everything I want is available via a BandCamp model, where I can buy the whole album losslessly, for a reasonable price (equal to or cheaper than just buying the CD and ripping it myself.)
_"In addition to AAC, the entire Apple Music catalog is now also encoded using ALAC in resolutions ranging from 16-bit/44.1 kHz (CD Quality) up to 24-bit/192 kHz."_
Nice try.
Do remember that half the US was on dialup at the time. Downloading a song like that might still take minutes. So unlike today when only a fifth of the US doesn't have broadband internet access.
There is no use in high quality audio of its played through crappy computer speakers.
@@bzuidgeest What the kid's saying, though, is _"they only _*_allow_*_ you to download it from itunes at like 128kbps LMAO",_ which might have been true 20 years ago (when other, illegal, music sites had 64k mp3s or even worse), but it's just false nowadays. He's so modern and hip that he thinks Apple hate is still _edgy._
A 128kbps mp3, btw, is a perfectly normal way to listen to pop music even on a good system. But the kid must have _golden ears lmao lol rotfl etc._
Just here to say it's still happening. Me and a friend released a song together, apparently one of the other songs from the EP it was on got on a botted playlist, no clue which one is doing it 😢😢
If your using Spotify to listen to music, you're a part of the problem. I still buy all my music because at least its still somewhat helping support the artist. If no one uses Spotify anymore they'll either make changes or fold.
Wow as you said this is the definition of a piramid scheme -you ask your "representatives" for money to make money.
Yet another reason why I’m going to build my own server and buy music, no streams, just my own mp3s on my own network.
i rip and upload to my google drive, i just need to develop some sort of APK, like a web based media player that can decode the mp3's from the cloud because right now its not as seamless as i would like.
yet another reason why I have my own laptop with ableton to create music, no streams, just my own sounds.
you might even consider saving your music in clean WAV or AIFF files
Plex makes this simple.
You want to use FLAC. MP3 is an awful codec that's been outdated for 25 years. Put the FLACs on your server and let Plex convert to Opus when streaming.
WAV/AIFF is completely pointless since FLAC exists.
Wild to find this video now. When it happened, I thought it was just Apple music (the service I use) and a business decision you made so I just bought the albums 6 I listen to off of bandcamp, and re-added them back via whatever iTunes match is called these days.
It never even occurred to me that the real explanation would be this bonkers.
Please make Reels and Tiktoks of your videos, this information is so important, I want to share this on all of my socials. It's almost impossible to get someone to stop and pay attention to a UA-cam link. A shortened version of this would help get the word out tremendously!
Thanks for the quality content Benn!