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It is you who are mistaken in a whole lot of thigns. Spotify's revenue in 2015 was $2.18B -- about 10 times higher than your number and 80% higher than the previous year. Yes they posted a loss, but that is common for startups in growth mode. They will likely make a tidy profit this year

Actually, those numbers were from further back than I thought, about 5 years ago. If they're at 2.2B now, that's a nice 10-fold growth. However, they've yet to post a profit. Sounds like Amazon, without the monopoly.

The worth of Spotify as a company has everything to do with what it pays artists. To Spotify, artists represent a cost. The goal of any business is to reduce costs as much as possible while maximizing income. Spotify is no different than any other music lable/aggregator/distributor. They acquire content rights and monetize it. But let's not get into the weeds. Is Elk's contribution really worth $400M? Seems kinda unfair to me.

Seems like it's nothing the artists couldn't have done and bought into as an aggregate group. In fact, as a group... I'll leave that thought unsaid.

I was going to respond to your last paragraph but I'm not even sure where to start. It's just a smattering of dubious, contradictory, and speculative assertions. For instance, you claim that OSPs (e.g., Youtube) are "not currently really profiting from your efforts" while previously you accused me of wanting to destroy youtube by denying them music. I cannot rightly apprehend the confusion of ideas that would lead to such posts.

I'm hurt, the last paragraph is actually chock full of statements.

First, OSPs aren't making money off your work. They are not reselling your music and, in fact, host at their cost. Are you paying YouTube for hosting your self-promoting material? I thought not. Would they make as much without your content? No, but neither would you.

I took your statements about your desire to sue OSPs and took it too its natural conclusion, which truly isn't really any different than what has been proposed by various rights holders in the past - they all want pay for play. Actual customers so far have basically said "take a hike".

I also stated what's pretty much the going rate for music. Songs are about $1 each and streaming packages are roughly 10-15/month. The market will not bear more. That's the music revenue base you have to work with, and it's usually capped as well - meaning nothing on your side will really grow revenue in the aggregate.

My last statement was based on the 2015 estimate of global music revenue, stated to be slightly over $15B US. So music is definitely bringing in revenue. If you're not seeing any and your contributions are more than 0% of the pie, perhaps I could state it this clearly: I guarantee you it's not the OSPs that are taking it.

I'm not sure what was so hard about that, other than the "looking in the mirror" part. I'll understand if you don't like it, and you're free to disagree, much like Trump and his belief that "clean coal" doesn't affect the climate.

I'll leave you with this thought - what you get in this life is a combination of right time, right place, and a good dose of luck when you make the right decisions. Be happy with your decisions, it's pretty much the only thing you control.

And this is where you're mistaken in a whole lot of things. First, Spotify's revenue is about $200M US a year. It's actually posting a loss, meaning there's no profit at the end of that.

It is you who are mistaken in a whole lot of thigns. Spotify's revenue in 2015 was $2.18B -- about 10 times higher than your number and 80% higher than the previous year. Yes they posted a loss, but that is common for startups in growth mode. They will likely make a tidy profit this year

Ek's worth is based off what investors think Spotify is worth as a company, which really has little to do with what you're paid, which is a function of revenue they bring in minus musicians payouts, which appears to be a sizable portion of what they're bringing in.

The worth of Spotify as a company has everything to do with what it pays artists. To Spotify, artists represent a cost. The goal of any business is to reduce costs as much as possible while maximizing income. Spotify is no different than any other music lable/aggregator/distributor. They acquire content rights and monetize it. But let's not get into the weeds. Is Elk's contribution really worth $400M? Seems kinda unfair to me.

I was going to respond to your last paragraph but I'm not even sure where to start. It's just a smattering of dubious, contradictory, and speculative assertions. For instance, you claim that OSPs (e.g., Youtube) are "not currently really profiting from your efforts" while previously you accused me of wanting to destroy youtube by denying them music. I cannot rightly apprehend the confusion of ideas that would lead to such posts.

First, why do you say that Sony lobbied for the laws you're complaining about (it would help also if you articulated those laws with specificity, but then that would make your assertions falsifiable, which I imagine you don't want.)

What, have you been living under a damn rock for the last 20 years? Sony has lobbied for pretty much every recent copyright law. DMCA, SOPA, PIPA, TPP -- you name it, they've lobbied for it. It's not a goddamn secret, you know!

They're mostly hardware, they have no skin in the game on software protection.

What the fuck are you talking about? Sony operates major movie, music and video game studios in addition to making hardware. And don't even try to feed me some bullshit about "that's some other division" -- they're all owned by the same corporation.

Also, I find it telling that so many seem to switch seamlessly back and forth between characterizing Microsoft as using their monopoly powers to coerce manufacturers into doing things that aren't in their own economic best interest, and characterizing Microsoft and Sony as voluntary co-conspirators

Microsoft is not forcing Sony to install Windows at gunpoint. Sony is installing Windows because they want to install Windows and have entered into a contractual agreement with Microsoft to do so -- that's called a partnership.

$1B isn't a whole lot of money after it's sliced a million ways

According to http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/global-record-industry-income-drops-below-15bn-for-first-time-in-history/ (and corroborated by a couple other sites I found on a quick Google search,) the entire US music industry is only generating $15B annually, putting Youtube's injection at a bit under 7%.

That's not bad revenue considering they don't have to do anything to get it beyond claim their copyrights (often excessively to the point of fraudulent but that's another rant.)

Of course the most obvious counters would be a) Google is doing the math different which is well.. given what we already know about the RIAA's accounting schemes, that wouldn't be surprising (huh.. all of your artists lost money and had to pay out of pocket but you simultaneously reported record profits? Fancy! Not as bad as the MPAA's version though I suppose so that's something.)

Or b) Google's dividing that billion around the world, where it would be closer to 2% (some more Googling suggests around $50B global revenues.) I wouldn't be surprised by this scenario -- all sides love to massage the numbers in their favor. But still, 2% of your revenue for doing little beyond hosting DMCA threatbots and bitching to anyone who will listen isn't a bad return. Hell, I'd love to get paid a bonus 2% of my annual earnings just for being a loudmouth. I complain about things all the time I'd be great for the job!

From the original submission, this is the link that you are looking for. Yep, it's a industry rag reporting on Nielsen data. No way that's not going to be a victim of lies, damn lies and statistics...

http://www.musicbusinessworldw...