Comment on And they mocked me for my WoW subscription 😗

• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Do artists benefit more from ad-dense, algorithm gamed, corporate controlled media outlets kicking them a few bucks every month?

  Or is a guerilla campaign of populist free-at-download distribution better for long term concert attendance and merch sales?

  On the whole, there is minimal moral difference between an individual playing an album on Spotify or lifting it wholesale from a seedy site. The actual difference is that if you are pirating or file-sharing, you’re about 30% likelier to actually buy music

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  • Alaknar@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Do artists benefit more from ad-dense, algorithm gamed, corporate controlled media outlets kicking them a few bucks every month?

    No idea, I don’t use those.

    The service I use pays (for the 2023-2024 fiscal year) around US$0.01873 per stream in royalties to labels and publishers. Spotify (as of 2025) does $0.003-$0.005 per stream, so it actually improved massively - it’s only 6 times less than Qobuz (used to be 12 times less).

    Or is a guerilla campaign of populist free-at-download distribution better for long term concert attendance and merch sales?

    Doesn’t work for small acts that don’t do massive, world-wide tours. Nor for fully independent artists who just don’t have the budget to do larger concerts.

    The actual difference is that if you are pirating or file-sharing, you’re about 30% likelier to actually buy music

    Cool. Apparently I’m not “average person”, because that doesn’t apply to me.

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