Personally, I have just started using Spotify and the userbase is definitely growing there. I agree with your point that quitting now is short sighted.

Good luck to you too, especially as you’re a local lad to me

As to the blog, this isn’t mine either – Yup, it’s Keiron’s again!

I will say though, that as you’re not a fool, you are able to tour the world, have a great lifestyle and are doing it, while doing something you love, then the deal you signed, all that time back has worked out quite well for you.

The streaming was obviously part of that deal so viva la Spotify

Take care pal – Jason

All the best. Good luck with the blog, they really can contribute to general debate.

Tom

3 points – The first, and most important, is that it is Keiron not I, that owns the SMP site. I wish I had the foresight & wisdom to create it, but alas…

The 2nd point – As to sharing advertising revenue from SMP to artists. Well I would argue it comes back to pushing lots and lots of listening streams on Spotify, for which musicians are rewarded. That is apart from when…..

Point 3 – … they don’t understand what contracts and agreements they are signing.

You say that for rewards to be fair, then transparency needs to be fair and open as well.

I believe it is. You chose to sign up to a label (indy or otherwise) with agreed terms. Part of those terms seem to be that you give that label the rights, including streaming rights, to your music. They agreed to pay you £X for the streaming rights and/or as part of the overall deal.

The Indy label did a deal with a large label to distribute the music in streaming format.

The large label did a deal with Spotify.

Now why on earth would Spotify need to tell you, some one who doesn’t have the rights to streamed versions of the music nor contractual relationship with them (and in fact is 3 contracts away) any financial information as to what they pay the large organisation they have a contractual relationship with?

The bottom line is still the same. You signed paperwork without realising or not caring what you signed and are now, down the line, moaning about it!

If you took legal advice, then that advice was either bad, short sighted or you ignored it!.

As to the opening gambit o f “Oh, no sypmathy please, I’m fine” I’ll forget the sarcastic tone and simply say you won’t get sympathy from me, when it was you that was a fool in (as I said above) you signed something you didn’t understand

I also don’t mind the “musicians have had it so good for so long they deserve to suffer” line of argument that pervades this whole debate. I’m a fan too, I feel screwed by labels on a consumer level. We all know it’s a changed world, we will evolve or die… maybe the world has enough new music, maybe it’s just for the hobbyists now. I didn’t ever expect to get rich from non-mainstream music, that too was a choice, I feel lucky to have the audience I do. But a small bit of me thinks if the world is changing to be more level, that should also be reflected in the transparency of Spotify’s dealings. Someone somewhere has to make the content for aggregator sites like yours to make money from the advertising they carry. How much is it by the way? I’ll add up my Spotify statements and see if I can plug the new album!

All the best

Tom