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Snow

Former Spotify executive slams Taylor and other musicians, calls them entitled

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Jim Anderson, a former executive at streaming platform Spotify has sparked controversy after claiming that musicians are “entitled” in asking for more money from the streaming service. 

Spotify’s business model has faced increasing scrutiny in recent years, with many musicians claiming that the meagre amount paid per stream is severely affecting their ability to earn a living. Notable artists including Taylor Swift have called out the streaming platform over their poor rates, which at last count were hovering between $.003 and $.005.

Anderson recently spoke at a music conference in New York where he was grilled on Spotify’s payment model by singer-songwriter Ashley Jana. Jana noted that while Apple Music recently boosted its royalties to 1p per stream, Spotify’s rates remain a fraction of that.

Anderson replied: “So we should talk about entitlement. I mean, I have an issue with Taylor Swift’s comments. I have this issue with it, and we’ll call it entitlement. I mean, I consider myself an artist because I’m an inventor, okay? Now, I freely give away my patents for nothing. I never collect royalties on anything.”

He added: “I think Taylor Swift doesn’t need .00001 more a stream. The problem is this: Spotify was created to solve a problem. The problem was this: piracy and music distribution. The problem was to get artists’ music out there. The problem was not to pay people money. The problem, the problem was to distribute music. Not to give you money, okay? The problem was to distribute music.”

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Jana has uploaded a part of the conversation to her channel.

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A text version of the back-and-forth between Jana and the executive is also available here.

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11 minutes ago, Snow said:

He added: “I think Taylor Swift doesn’t need .00001 more a stream. The problem is this: Spotify was created to solve a problem. The problem was this: piracy and music distribution. The problem was to get artists’ music out there. The problem was not to pay people money. The problem, the problem was to distribute music. Not to give you money, okay? The problem was to distribute music.”

Piracy was a problem and streaming platforms like Spotify definitely contributed to a massive decrease of that phenomena… but artists are not creating their art for free dead1 Why a platform would make the most profit of somebody’s work? It’s just wrong. If Taylor is entitled then he is a greedy bastard.

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If it's Spotify's job to distribute the art others create without paying the artist then they also have no right charging money for any of their platform. Go on and be another broadcast radio platform then and rely SOLELY on ad money.

I actually can't believe a music executive said something so profoundly stupid. I mean, I can see how he tripped over his own flawed logic just trying to spit it out, but yeah, this man was an executive. Yikes. 

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28 minutes ago, Strobo said:

Imagine thinking artists wanting to get paid for their art is entitled.

 

Serving For Exposure teas

“Oh, you want money? Surely, although your portfolio would benefit more from that fantastic opportunity we’re giving you!” rav1 
 

I hate leeches

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2 hours ago, Urbi said:

Piracy was a problem and streaming platforms like Spotify definitely contributed to a massive decrease of that phenomena… but artists are not creating their art for free dead1 Why a platform would make the most profit of somebody’s work? It’s just wrong. If Taylor is entitled then he is a greedy bastard.

hey get money tho, especially taylor with her 20 billion streams in the platform jj3

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Well he’s not entirely wrong. The more Spotify pays its artists the more customers will have to pay for the service. And with more and more customers unable to afford paying for Spotify, piracy will return.

And it’s not like big artists like Taylor Swift need the money anyway. Maybe paying smaller artists more and bigger artists less could help. Bigger artists have more sources of revenue than smaller artists do anyway.

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So, by his logic, Taylor should only get 2,500 for over 250 million streams... creep1 

 

Honestly, I did the math and the royalties Taylor gets currently (0.003-0.005) is pretty decent considering how many streams she garners. But it becomes a huge problem when it comes to smaller artists who don't get those numbers. The royalty rates are probably the same, so they get shit for the streams they get. Streaming has dominated the music industry to the point where small artists basically have no choice but to post their music on Spotify. It's how people consume music. But they're getting much less than they normally would if they were selling their music. It's messed up and his logic is idiotic. 

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1 hour ago, Starboy said:

And it’s not like big artists like Taylor Swift need the money anyway. Maybe paying smaller artists more and bigger artists less could help. Bigger artists have more sources of revenue than smaller artists do anyway.

and that's the point, and when she spoke up about it she wasn't talking about herself but of the entire industry, for smaller artists who actually should be getting revenue from it. obviously taylor doesn't get her main income from streaming services so if she's speaking up about it isn't definitely not out of greed like he's saying it is rip4

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4 hours ago, Hyun. said:

and that's the point, and when she spoke up about it she wasn't talking about herself but of the entire industry, for smaller artists who actually should be getting revenue from it. obviously taylor doesn't get her main income from streaming services so if she's speaking up about it isn't definitely not out of greed like he's saying it is rip4

!!

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10 hours ago, Starboy said:

Well he’s not entirely wrong. The more Spotify pays its artists the more customers will have to pay for the service. And with more and more customers unable to afford paying for Spotify, piracy will return.

Tea, he has a point about Spotify being better than piracy, and I still don't understand how so many people went from stealing all of the music to paying £9.99 a month for it dead4

It's a shame Spotify has the monopoly and can provide shitty rates, but I suppose their logic is that $0.03 or whatever is better than $0

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"Because they don't need the money" is an irrelevant petty stupid moronic response from someone who should have the brain capacity to know better. Taylor isn't saying she wants more money or needs more money but that artists (especially those lesser known) should be getting a fairer share. Obviously someone like Taylor speaking out is going to have far more impact than some random producer who gets about 10 streams a day. 

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4 hours ago, Billie Frank said:

"Because they don't need the money" is an irrelevant petty stupid moronic response from someone who should have the brain capacity to know better. Taylor isn't saying she wants more money or needs more money but that artists (especially those lesser known) should be getting a fairer share. Obviously someone like Taylor speaking out is going to have far more impact than some random producer who gets about 10 streams a day. 

I assume this guy got paid $0.03 per hour by Spotify and the rest of his income came from touring and merch? gag1

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