• raptir@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    That’s not the issue though. There’s a finite amount of money that Spotify pays out based on the amount of subscription fees it is bringing in. That $38 million would be divided up amongst all the other artists if it wasn’t being paid to white noise podcasts.

    • FringeTheory999@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So someone creates an ambient noise track, people enjoy the ambient track, and the person who created the ambient track gets paid. I don’t see the problem.

        • yiliu@informis.land
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          1 year ago

          Are we going to try paying artists by the level of effort it took to create a track?

            • austin@aussie.zone
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              1 year ago

              Are you trying to say that took no effort? Instrumental went hard and the talkbox would have taken some time to develop progression. Especially in the 90s, where digital music technology wasn’t widely available. Today, a song like that would be no big deal but at the time, “Around The World” was much ahead of its time.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              That is far more complex than you would imagine, as is most Daft Punk music. Their sampling is pretty amazing. They do things like take nanoseconds-long samples and put them together into something musical. There are breakdowns of their songs on YouTube and it’s very impressive stuff.

            • yiliu@informis.land
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              1 year ago

              I know that. But so what? There’s YouTube videos of guys making half-decent-sounding techno tracks in minutes, and on the other hand some artists spend months on a single track. If people listen to their tracks, they get paid, regardless of how hard it was to produce.

              This is that principle taken to it’s logical extreme: tracks that are effectively effortless to produce. But that…doesn’t really change anything, does it? Aside from the fact that the ‘artists’ should expect a hell of a lot of competition (including from Spotify).

        • happyhippo@feddit.it
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          1 year ago

          So what? Of absurdly the whole user base of Spotify got into white noise overnight and ditched music and voice podcasts, where’s the problem?

          Users still pay for the premium/family subscriptions, and it’s only fair that creators of the content most listened to are rewarded proportionally.

        • Asymptote@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          So you didn’t read the article posted by *checks notes* you?

          Besides, why should you get to decide who Spotify pays out to? Why are you so worried about whether a giant corporation makes more money?

          • efstajas@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Why are you so worried about whether a giant corporation makes more money?

            Tbf there are a shitton of severely underpaid independent artists on Spotify that make a laughable amount of streaming revenue. They’d at least somewhat benefit from a higher $ / stream rate

        • FringeTheory999@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          So what? They wouldn’t be bitching if people didn’t want that kind of content. Most media is junk. I don’t really see how this is unique?

      • rglullis@communick.news
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        1 year ago

        White noise it’s not copyrightable. So, anyone can make a copy, including Spotify themselves. They could “pirate” all the white noise podcasts and redirect them to something they own. Problem solved.

          • rglullis@communick.news
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            1 year ago

            If you are a Spotify exec, there is a problem.

            If you are an indie musician who sees your payout being reduced because Spotify says they need to pay white noise podcasts, there is a problem.

            If you believe that this is a zero-sum game and Spotify prints money like magic, there is no problem.

            • FringeTheory999@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              No one should care about a spotify exec. This includes their parents and wife. Everyone who creates audio projects for spotify should be paid. This includes musicians and creators of ambient noise tracks. People like those tracks, they are popular, they should be paid. It’s not a difficult concept. Make a product. Distribute the product. Get paid for the product. You perception of the products relative value compared to other disimilar products in the same file format, is about the least relevant thing in the world. Even if you don’t think the product represents enough “effort” to be considered equal.

              All of this is crazy.

              • rglullis@communick.news
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                1 year ago

                I didn’t say anything about “value”, I said about copyright.

                If it is copyrightable, then the original creator of the concept should have rights, and the clones should be considered plagiarism.

                If it is not copyrightable, then it doesn’t matter who is the author, and Spotify can just do their own.

                All that, and we haven’t even mentioned that Spotify can just change the terms of service and get rid of the white noise podcasts. They are no obligated in anyway to keep a creator that is not worth the business.

                • FringeTheory999@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  so, you don’t believe that people should profit from the redistribution of public domain works? I think the entire publishing industry would have something to say about that. Considering the amount of non-copyrightable/public domain material that is bought and sold commercially every day. That’s a pretty funky belief you’ve got there.

                  You’re right, spotify could release a competing distro, yet they aren’t.

                  • rglullis@communick.news
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                    1 year ago

                    people should profit from redistribution of public domain works

                    You are making my argument for me. Who is distributing in this case? I’d say that it is Spotify.

            • Sentient Loom@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              All you’re saying is that different tracks/shows are competing for attention, and white noise is doing well in that competition. You could make the same argument about any genre.

              Country music is taking a portion of the income that white noise could get paid. Therefore remove all country music from sp0tify.

        • bomberesque1@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Well then, from a purely business pov, it seems that what spoitfy should do is wipe these white noise casts, post some of their own (possibly from a subsidiary) and watch that extra 38mill roll in

          • EssentialCoffee@midwest.social
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            1 year ago

            Not podcasts, but Spotify does curate white noise playlists just like they do other music playlists.

            I listen to either Night Rain, Dreamy Vibes, or Floating Through Space some nights.

        • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          There have been claims inside youtube against white noise videos, so at least in their privately managed rights system, white noise is fair game for diverting $ from the poster of the content.

    • Sharkwellington@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      That $38 million would be divided up amongst all the other artists if it wasn’t being paid to white noise podcasts.

      It would be divided amongst the record labels and distributed to artists as those labels see fit.

    • synae[he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      I’ve listened to some music that is only a few steps away from white noise- atmospheric black metal, dark ambient, etc. Stuff that many people would scoff at and not even call it music. But it was intentionally created, and put out there for people to listen to. Regardless of the quality or enjoyability of the music, it’s unreasonable to draw a line as to what is or is not “sound meant for other people to listen to”.

      Just because someone has found a way to make “music” with less effort and doesn’t make it “not music”, regardless of what it sounds like. Hell, one of the most famous pieces of experimental/avant garde music “4’33” is literally silence from the performers and the “music” is the sounds of the environment you are experiencing it in.

      If I want to listen to any of these things on Spotify, well, they better pay whoever the rights-holder is that licensed it to Spotify to stream at the agreed upon rate. Spotify, other artists, and (most importantly) their labels can whine all they want. These are the contracts they’ve agreed to and as a subscriber I’ll exercise my contractually-agreed-upon ability to listen to whatever is on the platform for as long as I want. Maybe I’m awake, maybe I’m not, maybe I’m subliminally absorbing the music while sleeping. That’s no one’s business but my own.