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There's a lot of data in that report that you're not mentioning. Yes, lots of people listen to FM, but lots of people ALSO use streaming services, and buy CDs, and download MP3s. It's also worth noting this conclusion that was right in the executive summary:
third man records announced if you are a member of the their vault program you can get HIFI Tidal for $5 extra a month. so it would be $75 every 3 months for the record package and Tidal.
This deal is tempting me.
wow this is great news for me, basically will save me $15/month since I already subscribe to both anyway.
having a hard time getting the voucher to work with my current account though. it works if i try to sign up for a new account.
third man records announced if you are a member of the their vault program you can get HIFI Tidal for $5 extra a month. so it would be $75 every 3 months for the record package and Tidal.
This deal is tempting me.
wow this is great news for me, basically will save me $15/month since I already subscribe to both anyway.
having a hard time getting the voucher to work with my current account though. it works if i try to sign up for a new account.
So for anyone wondering, this was kind of bullshit because there is no way to get it to work with an existing account. I even cancelled my account Friday night, then tried to resign up using the Third Man promo code and my existing account, but it still wouldn't let me.
I ended up creating a new email address just for tidal and signed up with an entirely new account using the Third Man promo code. I am confirmed only paying $5 a month now for the full "HiFi" service. Kind of lame I have to reselect all my artists and everything but its worth it for $180/year in savings.
There's a lot of data in that report that you're not mentioning. Yes, lots of people listen to FM, but lots of people ALSO use streaming services, and buy CDs, and download MP3s. It's also worth noting this conclusion that was right in the executive summary:
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Lol who's buying CDs still?
Amazingly, tons of people still buy CDs. 140 million sold in 2014, vs 117 million album downloads (and 9ish million vinyl album sales).
Thank you for another useful contribution to this discussion.
Are you one of the 45 million people in this world who listens to Spotify's free streaming service, tolerating the occasional advertisement in order to save $10 a month on entertainment? Yes? Well, dear music fan, it seems Tim Cook and Apple are out to ruin your fun. The Verge reports today that, as Apple gears up to debut its own music streaming platform, the company is urging record labels to stop its rivals from offering free, ad-supported tiers to users, "which will dramatically reduce the competition for Apple’s upcoming offering." The back-room dealing seems to set off some antitrust concerns among Department of Justice officials, who “have already interviewed high-ranking music industry executives about Apple’s business habits.”
Music sales at Apple's iTunes Store have fallen in recent years as fans have started moving over to streaming services that offer up an unlimited buffet of songs. The company has been slow to respond to the change in listening habits, but is finally preparing to relaunch Beats Music, the streaming platform it acquired last May in a $3 billion deal that also brought it the popular headphone brand founded by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. Unlike Spotify, however, the new-and-improved Beats is not expected to offer a free tier, which means that winning over listeners is almost certainly going to be an uphill battle. Initially, Apple seemed to think its sheer size and residual clout within the industry would let it negotiate a special deal with the record companies, which it lobbied to let it sell streaming subscriptions for $7.99, rather than the standard $9.99. That would have let it compete against Spotify's premium service on price. But, according to Billboard, the labels quashed the idea.
It's unclear from the Verge's report whether Apple's attempt to kill off freemium is a last-ditch attempt to even the playing field against Spotify, now that it can't offer its subscriptions at a discount, or if it suggested lowering the price of paid streaming to $7.99 while simultaneously killing off the freemium model. Either way, it seems unlikely to prevail. First, the labels still own a significant financial stake in Spotify, which makes it seem a tad, well, unlikely that they'd try to even the playing field at all for Apple. And while artists like Taylor Swift have made some very noisy stands against free streaming, and some executives are starting to consider ideas like forcing Spotify to cap how much music listeners can enjoy before paying, industry insiders still seem to agree some kind of unpaid service is a necessary counterweight to piracy, not to mention as a way to win new subscribers. To quote a source who talked with Billboard, "People don't think you can just turn it off."
Still, even if Apple fails to limit the ways consumers can listen to music, the news that it's trying isn't encouraging. Recall that the company was already found guilty once before of conspiring with publishers to raise e-book prices as Steve Jobs attempted to fight Amazon on its home turf. We may be in the Tim Cook era now. But it seems old, anti-competitive habits die hard in Cupertino.
Post by itrainmonkeys on May 4, 2015 16:35:47 GMT -5
More details about royalties:
Like most streaming services, TIDAL has taken a lot of flak lately. After downloads of the app plummeted and fellow artists questioned its business model, Jay Z was recently forced to come out in defense of his high-fidelity streaming service. Now, though, an unnamed indie record label has provided the best evidence of all in support of TIDAL: its earnings report.
Posted on Digital Music News, the data makes it clear that TIDAL averages almost double the royalty payout to Spotify. Spotify claims to pay an average of .72 cents (that’s $0.0072) per stream to rights owners; based on the numbers presented here, TIDAL’s average payout to the label was about 1.2 cents ($0.012). This number comes from taking the average Label Share Net and dividing it by the average Unit Price (bottom of the chart). Note that TIDAL seems to earn an average of $0.014 per stream, but that’s before the company takes their cut.
Speaking of cuts, the numbers here say the company keeps 30%, which is the industry standard that most streaming services follow. However, Jay himself said the company pays 75% to royalty owners, meaning they should only be keeping 25%. The discrepancy could be explained by the fact that this earnings report is for March, and TIDAL didn’t actually relaunch under its new direction until late March. Perhaps a more accurate look at the service’s payouts will come when April reports are available.
Also complicating matters is the fluctuating Unit Price, which exists due to the differentiating hi and low fidelity subscription rates. If more streams of a given song come from one rate versus the other, the earnings would obviously shift as well. The average Unit Price isn’t weighted, so we’re not seeing the purist of mathematical accuracies here, but it’s pretty close.
TL;DR; TIDAL pays an indie label an unweighted average of 1.2 cents per stream, whereas the same label would earn .72 cents per stream on Spotify. It’s literally fractions of a cent, but if Office Space taught us anything, fractions of a cent can really add up.
So as someone who's been using Tidal for a couple weeks and has used Spotify premium for a couple years, here's how I would compare the two.
Spotify's mobile app works much better than Tidal's. Tidal's mobile app is constantly freezing, at least for me.
The widget buttons never work: I press play, forward, backward, and it never registers. I have to actually open the app to perform these actions.
Tidal's play queue is all kinds of stupid. Say I want to shuffle a playlist, but want to start with a specific song. It will only shuffle the songs that come after the song I pick. Even If I have it on "repeat all" it won't include the songs before the track I choose in the play queue. So to essentially shuffle a playlist, I have to play the first track in the playlist every time. Maybe someone who has been using the app longer see's something wrong I'm doing here, but I can't figure it out.
Tidal currently loses the competition in the amount of available music. I mentioned in a previous post all the stuff I was unable to find after first signing up. Well, with this new week of releases there are albums I can't find on Tidal that I can find on Spotify. I have yet to find something on Tidal that I can't find on Spotify. Tidal had Vince Staples' Senorita single first, but it's the edited version, and they've yet to add the explicit version, which Spotify has since included.
Now, the one check that I can give Tidal (besides the higher royalty rates, which have been shown in this thread already) is sound quality. I didn't think I would notice a difference because I am not an "audiophile" or whatever that word is. However, there is a very noticeable difference in the quality (Keep in mind, this is $20/month subscription). So much so, that despite all the areas where Spotify exceeds Tidal, I am having trouble committing to Spotify and getting rid of Tidal. I am contemplating keeping both, but that seems largely unnecessary.
Last Edit: May 6, 2015 9:04:31 GMT -5 by Deleted - Back to Top
So as someone who's been using Tidal for a couple weeks and has used Spotify premium for a couple years, here's how I would compare the two.
Spotify's mobile app works much better than Tidal's. Tidal's mobile app is constantly freezing, at least for me.
The widget buttons never work: I press play, forward, backward, and it never registers. I have to actually open the app to perform these actions.
What phone and OS are you using? Tidal app was working a lot better for me under kitkat. Upgraded to lollipop last week (phone is one plus on, so cyanogen 12) and have had lots of problems with the tidal app, similar to what you describe.
Tidal's play queue is all kinds of stupid. Say I want to shuffle a playlist, but want to start with a specific song. It will only shuffle the songs that come after the song I pick. Even If I have it on "repeat all" it won't include the songs before the track I choose in the play queue. So to essentially shuffle a playlist, I have to play the first track in the playlist every time. Maybe someone who has been using the app longer see's something wrong I'm doing here, but I can't figure it out.
Functions the exact same for me, it only shuffles the rest of the playlist. I agree this is a poor implementation.
Tidal currently loses the competition in the amount of available music. I mentioned in a previous post all the stuff I was unable to find after first signing up. Well, with this new week of releases there are albums I can't find on Tidal that I can find on Spotify. I have yet to find something on Tidal that I can't find on Spotify. Tidal had Vince Staples' Senorita single first, but it's the edited version, and they've yet to add the explicit version, which Spotify has since included.
I have one example of something strange with Tidal regarding explicit albums. When you search for childish gambino in the app and go to his artist page and album list, only one version of "Because The Internet" shows up, and its the clean version. Nowhere does it indicate it is the clean version. I assumed that only the clean version was available because this is the only version of the album that shows up on his artist page. BUT, when I do a search for "Because the Internet", the little options that drop down show two versions of Because The Internet. Both appear identical, neither indicates "explicit" or "clean", neither of the album covers have PA stickers on them. I just had to listen to both, and upon identifying the explicit version, favorited it so I wouldn't lose it again. Yeah, this is really lame as hell.
Point is it could be a similar situation with the Vince Staples single. I tried to search for just "senorita" but with no luck, its such a common word in song titles. Or it could be there is no hidden "explicit" version and they do only have the clean version.
Now, the one check that I can give Tidal (besides the higher royalty rates, which have been shown in this thread already) is sound quality. I didn't think I would notice a difference because I am not an "audiophile" or whatever that word is. However, there is a very noticeable difference in the quality (Keep in mind, this is $20/month subscription). So much so, that despite all the areas where Spotify exceeds Tidal, I am having trouble committing to Spotify and getting rid of Tidal. I am contemplating keeping both, but that seems largely unnecessary.
Happy to hear you can hear the difference. I do believe the difference between MP3 and redbook is noticeable to most people. Even hip-hop and rock sounds noticeably more alive, and I believe more engaging. I'm not a believer in "hi-rez", or resolutions above 16/44 (redbook) like 24/96, 24/192, etc, I personally think its all bullshit but whatever makes people happy. But there is a clear difference between MP3 and CD/redbook quality, which is what Tidal is offering, and which makes it easy for me to forgive its other sins, crap that will hopefully be worked out over the coming months.
postjack, I am on a Samsung Galaxy S5. Those names (kitkat, lollipop, cyano-whatever) don't mean much to me. I have never downloaded an operating system update since buying the phone, though.
Yes, I feel like most of the issues I have with Tidal are things that can and will be fixed over time. And it's worth dealing with in the short term for the "more alive" (perfect description) audio quality.
Post by Roo'adelphia on May 7, 2015 13:12:31 GMT -5
For those who have used Spotify and Tidal, does Tidal have a "discover" section? The main of many reasons that I will stick with Spotify, even if free streaming gets taken away across the board, is because of how much newly found music/artist/genres I have listened to off of the Browse, Related Artist and Recommended sections.
For those who have used Spotify and Tidal, does Tidal have a "discover" section? The main of many reasons that I will stick with Spotify, even if free streaming gets taken away across the board, is because of how much newly found music/artist/genres I have listened to off of the Browse, Related Artist and Recommended sections.
Yup its called Tidal Rising. You can also search by genre where they show recommended or new albums. They also have pretty damn good curated playlists, sometimes from tidal editors, sometimes from musicians and such, covering genres from bleep bloop to classical. I don't know how such playlists compare to spotify but I've been happy with Tidals.
Amazingly, tons of people still buy CDs. 140 million sold in 2014, vs 117 million album downloads (and 9ish million vinyl album sales).
Thank you for another useful contribution to this discussion.
retro. i see no point in buying a cd when you can buy the vinyl and get a free digital copy. also most new cars like my 2014 chevy dont even bother to add a cd player. its all bluetooth linked with phone/player or XM radio.
i was at best buy the other day and chuckled to myself when i saw a lady with a stack of cd's at the register to purchase. like 70$ for a few cheap discs. streaming is just a better value for the consumer.
Amazingly, tons of people still buy CDs. 140 million sold in 2014, vs 117 million album downloads (and 9ish million vinyl album sales).
Thank you for another useful contribution to this discussion.
retro. i see no point in buying a cd when you can buy the vinyl and get a free digital copy. also most new cars like my 2014 chevy dont even bother to add a cd player. its all bluetooth linked with phone/player or XM radio.
And everyone owns a turntable these days?
Also, calling buying CDs retro and then saying you buy vinyl is funny.
Amazingly, tons of people still buy CDs. 140 million sold in 2014, vs 117 million album downloads (and 9ish million vinyl album sales).
Thank you for another useful contribution to this discussion.
retro. i see no point in buying a cd when you can buy the vinyl and get a free digital copy. also most new cars like my 2014 chevy dont even bother to add a cd player. its all bluetooth linked with phone/player or XM radio.
i was at best buy the other day and chuckled to myself when i saw a lady with a stack of cd's at the register to purchase. like 70$ for a few cheap discs. streaming is just a better value for the consumer.
My 2006 Taurus doesn't play vinyl or have bluetooth and she's probably got another 100k miles left in her. If you purchased that car new you probably shouldn't be giving sermons on value either.
Post by snowmanomura on May 11, 2015 10:55:52 GMT -5
Isn't directly related to Tidal, but this is a pretty good article discussing the different issues surrounding streaming, copyrights, transparency, and emerging/existing technologies in the changing music industry.
Post by itrainmonkeys on May 17, 2015 12:15:31 GMT -5
The Jay-Z show looks absolutely insane.
Last night, Jay Z held the first of two B-sides concerts at Terminal 5 in New York City, which was exclusively attended by Tidal subscribers, and could be livestreamed via the service. Towards the beginning of an extensive set, Jay took a moment to do a rare freestyle. In it, he dissed all of his music competitors, and paid tribute to Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Trayvon Martin. Throughout the night, he brought out some special guests including Jay Electronica, Young Jeezy, Memphis Bleek, and Beanie Sigel. And he paid tribute to the late B.B. King with a moment of silence, and Jimi Hendrix with a rendition of “Star Spangled Banner.” If you have a Tidal account, you can stream the entire concert here. Watch part of Jay’s freestyle and check out the setlist below.
Here’s the full lyrics to the freestyle via MTV:
And I don’t need no middle man to talk to my n—as I understand if you don’t understand, I figure I’m Jigga That’s where we differ I take what’s mine, you accept what they give ya, I get ya I don’t take no checks, I take my respect Pharrell even told me go with the safest bet Jimmy Iovine offered a safety net Google dangled around a crazy check I feel like YouTube was the biggest cul-prit Them n—as pay you a tenth of what you’re supposed to get You n—as die for equal pay right? You know what I’m worth? I ain’t ya slave right? You know I ain’t shuckin’ and jivin’ and hi-fivin’ You know this ain’t back in the days, right? Well I can’t tell the way they killed Freddie Gray, right? Shot down Mike Brown, how they did Tray, right? Let ’em continue choking n—as We gonna turn style (turnstile), I ain’t ya token n—a You know I came in this game independent right? Tidal, my own label, same difference Oh, n—as is skeptical when it’s their own sh-t You bought nine iPhones and Steve Jobs is rich Phil Knight is worth millions, you still bought them kicks Spotify is nine million, they ain’t say sh-t Lucy you got some esplainin’ to do The only one they hatin’ on looks the same as you That’s cool, I know they tryin’ to bamboozle you Spendin’ millions on me to tryin’ to confuse you I had to talk to myself, Hov you should be used to it It’s politics as usual Setlist: “Dynasty Intro” “Young Gifted & Black” “Pump It Up” (Freestyle) “Streets Is Watching” “Friend Or Foe” “Where I’m From” “Say Hello” Freestyle “Politics As Usual” “Guess Who’s Back” “Show U How To Do This” “Jigga My Nigga” “Hovi Baby” “22 Two’s” “U Don’t Know” “Intro / A Million And One Questions / Rhyme No More” “So Ghetto” “D’Evils” “This Can’t Be Life” “Party Life” “Ignorant Shit” “Grammy Family” (Freestyle) “Takeover” “You, Me, Him And Her” [w/ Memphis Bleek, Beanie Sigel, Young Chris, & Neef] “What We Do” (Freeway cover) “Clique” “I Made It” (Freestyle) [w/ Jay Electronica] “Exhibit C” (Jay Electronica cover) [Jay Electronica and Just Blaze performed] “Go Crazy” (Young Jeezy cover) [w/ Young Jeezy] “Who Dat” (Young Jeezy cove) [w/ Young Jeezy] “Can I Live” “In My Lifetime (Remix)” “Feelin’ It” “Imaginary Player” “Death Presidents (Part 1)” “It’s Like That” “Never Change” “Blueprint (Momma Loves Me)” B.B. King moment of silence “Allure” “Star Spangled Banner” (Jimi Hendrix tribute) “Public Service Announcement”
Post by Roo'adelphia on May 27, 2015 8:50:16 GMT -5
Well turns out its not my hardware. Seems Spotify has a limit on the amount of songs you can save/like? What bullshit! Is the premium version like this as well? Ive been trying to figure out what has been going on for weeks, a cap though really?
See now THIS is the problem with streaming music services. It's not Spotify or Jay-Z being greedy, it's record companies demanding huge advances for their catalogs (Sony is threatening to pull their whole catalog, not just Beyonce), and then generally not passing that money on to artists.
See now THIS is the problem with streaming music services. It's not Spotify or Jay-Z being greedy, it's record companies demanding huge advances for their catalogs (Sony is threatening to pull their whole catalog, not just Beyonce), and then generally not passing that money on to artists.
I completely agree, I just thought that it was humorous that of the catalogs they are threatening to pull that Beyonce was among them. Big record company's are the greediest and the worst, especially if they own a piece of you. That's all it takes, just a piece.
Post by itrainmonkeys on May 29, 2015 9:33:02 GMT -5
I wish everyone could just get on board and figure out a way to work together to make money. It's not just streaming music either.
For a while Netflix was fantastic. Then it started to make money and have buzz and people loved it so we get Hulu, Amazon Prime, Yahoo Screen, and more. Everyone wants to make money but also they want to make THE MOST money while also maintaining full control.
Why can't they just make things easy for me....the consumer.
that could be a big deal, up to six family members for $14.99. separate accounts and everything.
It looks nice but not revolutionary. I like human curated playlists but you get that anywhere. I like the radio station idea but I already have SiriusXM. I'm sure the design will be super slick and work well.
Things I'm curious about:
-Streaming sample rate? I know Apple doesn't really talk technical stats in these presentations but it would be nice to know if its 320kbps (easy to assume its not any higher than that) -Artist royalties? assuming they are shitty. -Offline play? Either on phones or iTunes? I assume they must have this at least on the phone.