[smichel17]

Years ago when I read about this, the issue was that the remaining 70% was split between all copyright holders proportional to the number of plays. So if I listen to artist X for 10 minutes, and you listen to artist Y for 60 minutes, then artist X gets 10% of the total money and artist Y gets 60%. It would make more sense if each subscriber's money were split between the artists they listen to.

I'm not sure if this is still the case.

[ponker]

Is this that bad? I'm not saying your way is bad -- but both seem reasonable. Are some artists heavily benefited or harmed because their listeners listen to much less or much more total music than the average?

[gurkendoktor]

I'd guess that Spotify's model benefits artists that make radio-friendly or ambient music because some people will listen to them 8h a day while at work. Nobody listens to the same amount of intricate and challenging music, which is probably more expensive to produce in the first place.

[tripzilch]

I believe it's bad. It's making all of music more generic.

There's composers and producers with quite high production values, very complex and intricate music, the kind you want to pay attention to, in order to get the most out of it.

But I don't listen to that music all day. I got other music for background.

In my view the latter is not more valuable because I listen to it for more minutes.

When it was CDs I'd pay roughly the same for my Autechre as my Kruder & Dorfmeister.