Jody Whitesides

Tag: Spotify

  • Best Laid Plans

    Best Laid Plans

    Sometimes the best laid plans don’t go as envisioned. I was hoping that the label and the distributor would get both versions of Touch released in due time that all services would have it on launch day. Maybe that’s only reserved for the big boys and girls like Taylor Swift or Imagine Dragons. We all start somewhere right?

    What am I referencing? Spotify.

    Spotify Plan

    Yes, I’m an advocate for Spotify, and other streaming services that are on the up and up for paying artists. Today marks the day that Spotify got one of the versions of Touch on their site. A week late from the actual release. Apparently they windowed themselves with their own plan. So far it’s only the explicit version that has reached the Spotify service. Better late than never. Though now I wonder if Spotify’s plan to wait another week to release the ‘clean’ version of Touch. Who knows?

    If you’re a Spotify user I apologize for the delay, it was out of my hands. Hopefully you’ll be into sending the song out to all your friends and Spotify network.

    My next step is working on getting into Rhapsody’s hands. I’m very interested in the new plan they’ve got going with Twitter. Instant audio cards that can be shared on Twitter without the need for a Rhapsody account, and somehow we artists still get paid. Someone finally cracked the nut on making music a more sociable sharing event via Twitter. Makes me wonder if Spotify will follow suit.

    Time will tell.

    Enjoy Touch on Spotify!

    Touch-Jody-Whitesides

  • In The Cat’s Den Talkin About Spotify

    In The Cat’s Den Talkin About Spotify

    In The Cat’s Den

    Last week I was in the AMR.fm studio with Johnny Cat for his show The Cat’s Den. We got off talking about a couple of the new things I’m working on at the moment. Shortly after a brief impromptu plug for the infamous Starbucks we got into a discussion about digital royalties and services such as Spotify, Pandora, et al. Especially in how it relates to what an artist really makes [smallest sound recording royalty I’ve gotten is: $0.0007].

    Digital Royalties

    One of the biggest things that so many people are unclear about in this day and age is how digital streaming services pay out royalties to the various people involved in music. As services like Pandora, Spotify, Deezer and more come under fire for paying tiny slices of cents to the creators, it really helps to find out how all of this breaks down.

    Sound Recording Royalty

    Specifically in this clip from the Cat’s Den I’m explaining the sound recording royalty that is paid to the owner of the master recording. Generally that is the record label or entity that put up the money for the artist to record their music. In the grand scheme of streaming royalties, this is the highest royalty in the pie. Other royalties include the writer’s royalty, the publisher’s royalty and the mechanical royalty.

    Other Royalties

    Since I didn’t go into the writer’s, publisher’s and mechanical royalty streams in the discussion, I’ll add a little about them here. By comparison, the sound recording royalty is the highest paid – despite it’s average of about $0.007 (that’s pretty tiny). Now imagine getting about 1/7th that amount and you’re understanding the portion that the other 3 tend to split up into. Meaning that the writer gets about $0.001 per stream. The publisher gets about $0.001 per stream. And the mechanical is about $0.001. To the Cat’s Den listeners it’s a bit of shock. To you the reader, it should be a shock. And that’s because these digital services are getting a discount on the royalty rate.

    AMR Cat's Den Radio

    Imagine putting in 100’s of hours into writing and recording a song that costs upwards of $1,000’s to get to the public, and then you’re return on investment is $0.001 a stream. That takes 100’s of millions of streams in order to get recouped and or to be able to make a living at all. With that information in your head, is it any wonder why musicians are unwilling to have services like Pandora lobbying congress for additional discounts on royalties?

    Enjoy this video snippet from the entire 2 hour interview. Audio of the entire interview will be added shortly elsewhere on the site.

    Stay tuned, more coming soon.

  • More Soccer Goodness From Don't Kick The Baby

    A little update for my side project known as Don’t Kick The Baby…

    Turns out that now the rest of the variations of Go Get The Goal are now available on iTunes and many of your other favorite digital superstores. I’m not sure how soon it will be gracing the streams of Spotify, Deezer and the like, but I’m sure it will be soon if it’s not already.

    Make sure you tell your Soccer loving friends Stateside that they can get their favorite team’s version for the MLS. For all my friends across both ponds, all of England and Australia football teams are covered at the moment for their main leagues. More leagues coming soon. As are versions for foreign language teams as well.

    Viva La Football, Viva La Soccer. <– not sure that’s the right phrase but roll with it anyway.

    — Jody

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