The Uruguayan Parliament approved an amendment to the country's copyright law last month

Spotify will end service in Uruguay due to bill requiring fair pay for artists:: The Uruguayan Parliament approved an amendment to the country’s copyright law last month

  • Night MonkeyEnglish
    -50•7 months ago

    So basically unaffordable for the people in that country?

    • GazumiEnglish
      39•7 months ago

      No, it’s as indicated, that is, to have artists paid fairly for their creative talents. Trickle down economics exemplified. It is akin to you working your job through an agency but the agency paying you far less than minimal wage. Like a lottery, only a few will make real money.

      • AlinorEnglish
        31•7 months ago

        But according to the article 70% of the money they make from music is already going to record labels and publishers, so what exactly is Spotify supposed to do here to give more money to the artists?

        • @[email protected]English
          37•7 months ago

          Exactly… The issue isn’t spotify taking a very normal cut, it’s the record labels taking a majority cut and it seems this bill misses that entirely

          • Bruno FingerEnglish
            17•7 months ago

            That’s definitely the case, and that’s not the only country with laws that protect artists this way, for example Brazil right next to it also have it’s own set of laws, had then even before Spotify was a thing, but Spotify is happily in Brazil since 2014.

            The Uruguayan law is just not well though, and that’s what happens when you put incompetent people in charge of making laws for things they don’t have the slightest clue of how they work. They kill an entire industry.

          • CorganaEnglish
            2•7 months ago

            Spotify is still signing unfair contracts with those labels though. They could throw their weight around and demand higher cuts for artists but they aren’t. No need to let them off the hook when they’re choosing to participate and profit in a corrupt industry, IMO.

            • @[email protected]English
              2•7 months ago

              Is it Spotify that arrange the cut for artists or the label though?
              I don’t know but I’d think it’s the labels as it’s too much for Spotify to negotiate per-artist?

              When food companies use slave labour or cut down old growth forest for intensive farms do we get mad at Walmart/Tesco/Carrefour for having a normal margin on what they buy from the food companies (which may or may not leave enough for the products to be sourced sustainably, but that’s a separate argument as the food companies would likely take a higher margin over keeping the same one and making their food more sustainable if paid more) or do we blame the food companies/their suppliers?

              • @[email protected]English
                3•7 months ago

                I mean, yes, but at the same time, the grocery stores can exert pressure on the food suppliers by saying “we aren’t going to buy food that isn’t sourced sustainably and responsibly,” the same way Spotify can exert pressure on labels with unfair contracts by saying “we want to make sure everyone gets paid fairly for their music getting paid”

              • CorganaEnglish
                1•7 months ago

                idk if I found out a store I frequent was knowingly selling food grown with slave labor yes I would have a big issue with them!

        • @[email protected]English
          22•7 months ago

          iirc spotify has some weird revenue sharing thing where that 70% is split between all artists in a very non-linear way. You don’t get money based on how many of your songs get sold you get a slice of the total pie based on some weird formula. The result is that top artists get paid for more than their own songs sales and everyone elses gets less than their own songs sales to provide that extra cut to the top performers.

          • @[email protected]English
            7•7 months ago

            That’s not just Spotify though. Everyone uses a similar algorithm. Deezer and Tidal have talked about implementing user-centric payments but have not done so.

            • CorganaEnglish
              1•7 months ago

              IIRC Tidal gives 10% of the subscription to the most listened-to artist. Not a lot exactly, but still miles ahead of Spotify who gives functionally zero.

              • @[email protected]English
                2•7 months ago

                That was part of their “direct artist payouts” that they discontinued earlier this year.

                • CorganaEnglish
                  1•7 months ago

                  Ah thanks for clarifying. What a bummer!

                  • @[email protected]English
                    2•7 months ago

                    Yeah, it’s really unfortunate. Their argument was that it took too many resources to implement for the little it was giving to the artists. They replaced it with “Tidal Rising” but it really doesn’t fix the problem. When I look up the artists featured on RISING and I see that they have 1 million+ Spotify listeners while the average band I listen to is closer to 50k with some under 100 listeners I feel like they missed the mark.

                    I love Tidal + Plex as a solution for supplementing my music library so I’m not going to cancel it, but I try to buy an album per month from a band I listen to in addition to my subscription to tidal.

        • DacoTacoEnglish
          6•7 months ago

          I think the law has more to do with indie artists not getting paid shit. People who want to self publish and cut out the middle man ( record labels )