#Spotify stream payments

[rich4a1]

Why It's Time to Move to a Decentralized Music Industry

Why It’s Time to Move to a Decentralized Music Industry Let’s talk about something most people never think about: how musicians get paid. It might seem simple. You listen to a song, and the artist gets some money. But the truth is, for independent musicians those who aren’t signed to big record labels it’s not that simple at all. In fact, the current system often feels like a maze full of unfair…

[pennyrigby]

yes, I'm a pirate, but of the good and honourable kind... you see, I have morals: I only steal from the empire anything that belongs to Disney/Marvel or just any blockbuster that I know for sure it's going to be a box office success, I watch it illegally and I never attack smaller ships I try to support indipendent films by going to the cinema

[vonsoh]

! Currently, Vonsoh, the producer behind FunkatearsMuSIC and Funkatears Electro, is actively working on crafting new tracks for the Gay Fight Club (GFC). While facing some time constraints, the dedication to producing high-quality GFC Club songs remains unwavering. Despite missing the creative input from Mc Cock, who is presently preoccupied, the team persists in delivering irresistibly delicious tunes. The challenge lies in balancing the demands of artistic expression with the practicalities of sustaining a livelihood. The current streaming frequency is insufficient for financial sustainability, but the team takes solace in the support of their fans. They recognize the value of having a dedicated fan base and acknowledge the challenges of navigating the music industry's political landscape. The essence of their message revolves around embracing a carefree, authentic, and inclusive ethos, encouraging listeners to revel in their unique expression of identity. The call to "stay gay" is a rallying cry for individuality and freedom, transcending societal norms. The mention of exploring the GFC side on Spotify You can support there work by making payments via PayPal at fairsplitter@gmx.de. Alternatively, immerse yourself in the sonic tapestry of his project by listening and streaming.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Penguin Random House, AI, and writers’ rights

NEXT WEDNESDAY (October 23) at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, GEORGIA, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

My friend Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a wellspring of wise sayings, like "you're not responsible for what you do in other people's dreams," and my all time favorite, from the Napster era: "Just because you're on their side, it doesn't mean they're on your side."

The record labels hated Napster, and so did many musicians, and when those musicians sided with their labels in the legal and public relations campaigns against file-sharing, they lent both legal and public legitimacy to the labels' cause, which ultimately prevailed.

But the labels weren't on musicians' side. The demise of Napster and with it, the idea of a blanket-license system for internet music distribution (similar to the systems for radio, live performance, and canned music at venues and shops) firmly established that new services must obtain permission from the labels in order to operate.

That era is very good for the labels. The three-label cartel – Universal, Warner and Sony – was in a position to dictate terms like Spotify, who handed over billions of dollars worth of stock, and let the Big Three co-design the royalty scheme that Spotify would operate under.

If you know anything about Spotify payments, it's probably this: they are extremely unfavorable to artists. This is true – but that doesn't mean it's unfavorable to the Big Three labels. The Big Three get guaranteed monthly payments (much of which is booked as "unattributable royalties" that the labels can disperse or keep as they see fit), along with free inclusion on key playlists and other valuable services. What's more, the ultra-low payouts to artists increase the value of the labels' stock in Spotify, since the less Spotify has to pay for music, the better it looks to investors.

The Big Three – who own 70% of all music ever recorded, thanks to an orgy of mergers – make up the shortfall from these low per-stream rates with guaranteed payments and promo.

But the indy labels and musicians that account for the remaining 30% are out in the cold. They are locked into the same fractional-penny-per-stream royalty scheme as the Big Three, but they don't get gigantic monthly cash guarantees, and they have to pay the playlist placement the Big Three get for free.

Just because you're on their side, it doesn't mean they're on your side:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

In a very important, material sense, creative workers – writers, filmmakers, photographers, illustrators, painters and musicians – are not on the same side as the labels, agencies, studios and publishers that bring our work to market. Those companies are not charities; they are driven to maximize profits and an important way to do that is to reduce costs, including and especially the cost of paying us for our work.

It's easy to miss this fact because the workers at these giant entertainment companies are our class allies. The same impulse to constrain payments to writers is in play when entertainment companies think about how much they pay editors, assistants, publicists, and the mail-room staff. These are the people that creative workers deal with on a day to day basis, and they are on our side, by and large, and it's easy to conflate these people with their employers.

This class war need not be the central fact of creative workers' relationship with our publishers, labels, studios, etc. When there are lots of these entertainment companies, they compete with one another for our work (and for the labor of the workers who bring that work to market), which increases our share of the profit our work produces.

But we live in an era of extreme market concentration in every sector, including entertainment, where we deal with five publishers, four studios, three labels, two ad-tech companies and a single company that controls all the ebooks and audiobooks. That concentration makes it much harder for artists to bargain effectively with entertainments companies, and that means that it's possible -likely, even – for entertainment companies to gain market advantages that aren't shared with creative workers. In other words, when your field is dominated by a cartel, you may be on on their side, but they're almost certainly not on your side.

This week, Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the history of the human race, made headlines when it changed the copyright notice in its books to ban AI training:

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/penguin-random-house-underscores-copyright-protection-in-ai-rebuff

The copyright page now includes this phrase:

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

Many writers are celebrating this move as a victory for creative workers' rights over AI companies, who have raised hundreds of billions of dollars in part by promising our bosses that they can fire us and replace us with algorithms.

But these writers are assuming that just because they're on Penguin Random House's side, PRH is on their side. They're assuming that if PRH fights against AI companies training bots on their work for free, that this means PRH won't allow bots to be trained on their work at all.

This is a pretty naive take. What's far more likely is that PRH will use whatever legal rights it has to insist that AI companies pay it for the right to train chatbots on the books we write. It is vanishingly unlikely that PRH will share that license money with the writers whose books are then shoveled into the bot's training-hopper. It's also extremely likely that PRH will try to use the output of chatbots to erode our wages, or fire us altogether and replace our work with AI slop.

This is speculation on my part, but it's informed speculation. Note that PRH did not announce that it would allow authors to assert the contractual right to block their work from being used to train a chatbot, or that it was offering authors a share of any training license fees, or a share of the income from anything produced by bots that are trained on our work.

Indeed, as publishing boiled itself down from the thirty-some mid-sized publishers that flourished when I was a baby writer into the Big Five that dominate the field today, their contracts have gotten notably, materially worse for writers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/19/reasonable-agreement/

This is completely unsurprising. In any auction, the more serious bidders there are, the higher the final price will be. When there were thirty potential bidders for our work, we got a better deal on average than we do now, when there are at most five bidders.

Though this is self-evident, Penguin Random House insists that it's not true. Back when PRH was trying to buy Simon & Schuster (thereby reducing the Big Five publishers to the Big Four), they insisted that they would continue to bid against themselves, with editors at Simon & Schuster (a division of PRH) bidding against editors at Penguin (a division of PRH) and Random House (a division of PRH).

This is obvious nonsense, as Stephen King said when he testified against the merger (which was subsequently blocked by the court): "You might as well say you’re going to have a husband and wife bidding against each other for the same house. It would be sort of very gentlemanly and sort of, 'After you' and 'After you'":

https://apnews.com/article/stephen-king-government-and-politics-b3ab31d8d8369e7feed7ce454153a03c

Penguin Random House didn't become the largest publisher in history by publishing better books or doing better marketing. They attained their scale by buying out their rivals. The company is actually a kind of colony organism made up of dozens of once-independent publishers. Every one of those acquisitions reduced the bargaining power of writers, even writers who don't write for PRH, because the disappearance of a credible bidder for our work into the PRH corporate portfolio reduces the potential bidders for our work no matter who we're selling it to.

I predict that PRH will not allow its writers to add a clause to their contracts forbidding PRH from using their work to train an AI. That prediction is based on my direct experience with two of the other Big Five publishers, where I know for a fact that they point-blank refused to do this, and told the writer that any insistence on including this contract would lead to the offer being rescinded.

The Big Five have remarkably similar contracting terms. Or rather, unremarkably similar contracts, since concentrated industries tend to converge in their operational behavior. The Big Five are similar enough that it's generally understood that a writer who sues one of the Big Five publishers will likely find themselves blackballed at the rest.

My own agent gave me this advice when one of the Big Five stole more than $10,000 from me – canceled a project that I was part of because another person involved with it pulled out, and then took five figures out of the killfee specified in my contract, just because they could. My agent told me that even though I would certainly win that lawsuit, it would come at the cost of my career, since it would put me in bad odor with all of the Big Five.

The writers who are cheering on Penguin Random House's new copyright notice are operating under the mistaken belief that this will make it less likely that our bosses will buy an AI in hopes of replacing us with it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

That's not true. Giving Penguin Random House the right to demand license fees for AI training will do nothing to reduce the likelihood that Penguin Random House will choose to buy an AI in hopes of eroding our wages or firing us.

But something else will! The US Copyright Office has issued a series of rulings, upheld by the courts, asserting that nothing made by an AI can be copyrighted. By statute and international treaty, copyright is a right reserved for works of human creativity (that's why the "monkey selfie" can't be copyrighted):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

All other things being equal, entertainment companies would prefer to pay creative workers as little as possible (or nothing at all) for our work. But as strong as their preference for reducing payments to artists is, they are far more committed to being able to control who can copy, sell and distribute the works they release.

In other words, when confronted with a choice of "We don't have to pay artists anymore" and "Anyone can sell or give away our products and we won't get a dime from it," entertainment companies will pay artists all day long.

Remember that dope everyone laughed at because he scammed his way into winning an art contest with some AI slop then got angry because people were copying "his" picture? That guy's insistence that his slop should be entitled to copyright is far more dangerous than the original scam of pretending that he painted the slop in the first place:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/artist-appeals-copyright-denial-for-prize-winning-ai-generated-work/

If PRH was intervening in these Copyright Office AI copyrightability cases to say AI works can't be copyrighted, that would be an instance where we were on their side and they were on our side. The day they submit an amicus brief or rulemaking comment supporting no-copyright-for-AI, I'll sing their praises to the heavens.

But this change to PRH's copyright notice won't improve writers' bank-balances. Giving writers the ability to control AI training isn't going to stop PRH and other giant entertainment companies from training AIs with our work. They'll just say, "If you don't sign away the right to train an AI with your work, we won't publish you."

The biggest predictor of how much money an artist sees from the exploitation of their work isn't how many exclusive rights we have, it's how much bargaining power we have. When you bargain against five publishers, four studios or three labels, any new rights you get from Congress or the courts is simply transferred to them the next time you negotiate a contract.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our 2022 book Chokepoint Capitalism:

Giving a creative worker more copyright is like giving your bullied schoolkid more lunch money. No matter how much you give them, the bullies will take it all. Give your kid enough lunch money and the bullies will be able to bribe the principle to look the other way. Keep giving that kid lunch money and the bullies will be able to launch a global appeal demanding more lunch money for hungry kids!

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

As creative workers' fortunes have declined through the neoliberal era of mergers and consolidation, we've allowed ourselves to be distracted with campaigns to get us more copyright, rather than more bargaining power.

There are copyright policies that get us more bargaining power. Banning AI works from getting copyright gives us more bargaining power. After all, just because AI can't do our job, it doesn't follow that AI salesmen can't convince our bosses to fire us and replace us with incompetent AI:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

Then there's "copyright termination." Under the 1976 Copyright Act, creative workers can take back the copyright to their works after 35 years, even if they sign a contract giving up the copyright for its full term:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Creative workers from George Clinton to Stephen King to Stan Lee have converted this right to money – unlike, say, longer terms of copyright, which are simply transferred to entertainment companies through non-negotiable contractual clauses. Rather than joining our publishers in fighting for longer terms of copyright, we could be demanding shorter terms for copyright termination, say, the right to take back a popular book or song or movie or illustration after 14 years (as was the case in the original US copyright system), and resell it for more money as a risk-free, proven success.

Until then, remember, just because you're on their side, it doesn't mean they're on your side. They don't want to prevent AI slop from reducing your wages, they just want to make sure it's their AI slop puts you on the breadline.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/19/gander-sauce/#just-because-youre-on-their-side-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-on-your-side

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[saphushia]

Finally working on getting away from using spotify (been meaning to for ages but sunk cost fallacy knowing id have to remake my massive library) and so far I'm really happy using a mix of mediamonkey to organize my downloaded files n listen on pc, and plex/plexamp to stream them to my phone!

Going to take a while to build my library back up w/ having to download it all from scratch, but it gives me some busy work to chug along with and i have a big external drive to store them on so I don't have to worry abt running out of space lol

And I can finally add all the music not on spotify to my regular listening! I always hated I couldn't add local files to my favorites!

Only downsides are I have to have my computer on and awake to listen on my phone (just have to remember to turn it on before work), it takes slightly more effort to share music with friends (an extra few clicks finding the song somewhere else to grab a link), and I'll have to manually update my playlists to keep them synced between plex and MM. But that's all a fair tradeoff to me in exchange for not being beholden to the fuckery of spotify anymore (and not having to give them stupid amounts of money)

So tldr if your music desires are similar to mine (listen to ALL my music on my phone without having to explode my phone storage, share my music library between phone and comp, be able to listen to wierd niche songs not available on major platforms), and you have a computer you can leave on regularly, MM and plex seem to be solid! As a bonus they're both doing everything I want rn on the free versions, but plex is only $5/mo and MM is a one time payment that's $40-ish if I remember right. Which is sooooo much more reasonable imo

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

All or Nothing and lowave records

Strap in because this is gonna be a long one. This post will try to shed some light on how the whole lowave records thing works, how you can use this music, how it is being distributed, and what all a contract with lowave would include. All this and more below the cut!

Let us start with the basics: What is lowave records?

Quite succinctly summed up on their website as follows:

They make and distribute royalty-free music for content creators - specifically video-format content creators like Youtubers and streamers - they share some streaming revenue (30%, we'll get into that) with the creators who are labelled 'co-artists' and get promotion of their music through the content creators.

So, that brings us to the next big question: What is royalty-free music?

This is music that is free to use. Yes, by anyone, by Dan and Phil, by other creators, by you and me, any of us. This is by no means a new thing of course, anyone who has created content online would have come across other such services. just as an example, bensound.com hosts a large library of royalty-free music which you can use in any video by simply crediting the site in your description. Lowave works in a similar fashion. The music is not copyrighted. However, the rights to the music are held by lowave records and there are limitations on its use, which we will get into ahead.

How is the money working (preliminary edition)?

I will add details to this later when I discuss the contract, but let's see the info we get straight away from the FAQs: You do not have to pay them anything to make music for you

The money is coming in from the streaming platforms, depends completely on amount of streams, and is shared between lowave and the creators

Also from the FAQs: how can this music be used?

Anyone can freely use any of the music from lowave records, which means that yes, you can use any music from All or Nothing for your purposes with credit, it will not be taken down

Is this the only music we will hear on dapg now? Will there be more albums?

Not necessarily! This isn't an exclusive deal, DnP can use any music they want on the channel. As for new albums, seems like it depends on how this one does (and it seems to be doing quite well!) which will unlock future avenues for more collabs with lowave

Okay BASICS DONE if you're still reading you're probably here for the real meat so let us get into it

How is the money working (director's cut)?

Let us start with the terms on the partner agreement:

Content Creators get 30% of the 'remaining income'. This basically means any costs that streaming platforms are deducting, any processing fees, taxes etc will be deducted before the 30% share is calculated. The second point there basically means that the deductions here do not include business expenses of the label itself, ie when the label calculates its own profit production costs and various other expenses are deducted from the income, but these costs will not affect the revenue received by the content creators (You are probably already thinking 'how is this company earning enough to keep going?' and I will touch on that later as well)

Payment installments are simple enough but here we see a third party enter the chat: DistroKid. Who is DistroKid and why are payments going through them, Hazel? I hear you ask. Well I'll tell you dear readers:

It is basically a service that takes a yearly fee for putting your music on streaming platforms efficiently and then pockets 0% of the royalties. The royalties go from the streaming services (eg Spotify) to DistroKid who then send it to the rights-holders (in this case, lowave records). lowave records is using this service for a yearly fee to upload all their music through.

But wait! If DistroKid is working with lowave, and lowave owns all the rights, why is DistroKid making direct payments to the content creators?

Well, over the years they have offered a bunch of services:

I am guessing lowave is making use of the teams feature to send royalties owed to content creators ("collaborators") directly from Diskworld, which makes sense, the less people money goes through the less chances of mishandling.

People have of course been talking about what percentage Spotify even pays for many many years. The short answer: we don't know for sure because it is confidential, Spotify won't tell and artists aren't allowed to. The longer answer: people have estimated from a bunch of publically available data that the share seems to be 70-30 (rights-holders- spotify).

However spotify is not paying per stream anymore so that makes these figures harder to pin down. they are using a 'streamshare' system which is much more convoluted:

That was all about the money, now let's talk Licensing

Creators can use this music in any capacity, and do not have to share any of the revenue from their own content with lowave. They have put a stipulation that it may not be used in a way that is "illegal, immoral, discriminatory or derogatory to [lowave]" but what constitutes 'immoral' and 'discriminatory' is not really defined.

The other limitation applies to the contracted Content Creators only as far as I can tell: they are not allowed to remix, sample, or edit these songs without prior permission. This probably only applies to altering the songs and playing under the same name, so fan remixes should not run into issues here, as long as they are not monetised. (thanks kate @goldenpinof for making me think about this part a bit more, I think it should be safe, but even royalty free music cannot be transformed without permission at least in a commercial capacity)

They will also make more music free of cost if the streaming targets they set are being met by the albums produced. The process:

Other services they provide will be handling the creator's account which they set up (DanAndPhilBeats in this case) on streaming platforms and making changes as required, so the Cheeky Banter -> Project X thing was probably done from their end, possibly an older change that they forgot to update?

Also below are promotional obligations:

The promotion wasn't a one-time thing, it is expected to be ongoing, so we will probably be hearing about this in future videos as well. However, later in the partner agreement it is added that this has to be done as often as possible in a way that is "natural and appealing to their audience" which again, is pretty vague wording

Also the licensing goes both ways, so lowave can also use segments of the content DnP make that has the music in the background to promote their music:

Additional stuff from the contract:

lowave takes the guarantee of creating original works that it has the rights to and which do not infringe on copyrights, and the creators likewise take the guarantee not use the songs in content which infringes copyright. If there are any disputes regarding such infringement in the future the record and the creators have to back each other up (including sharing legal fees)

I mentioned before some parts of the agreement being written in vague language. There is also a clause that says if any provision ends up being illegal/not possible to enforce by a court (eg if a court were to it's impossible to say whether content featuring the songs was 'immoral') then only that provision will be removed, the rest of the contract stands.

The waiver part basically means that if any of the parties decide to not sue or forgo a complaint about breach of contract, that does not mean that those provisions are now unavailable, they can still sue later on or for some other breach if they wish.

That's the contracts done. Some of the framing there makes it seem to me like it's a pretty small company. The revenue they hope to generate does not seem to be very sustainable, especially since the revenue is being shared with content creators but the cost is not and they are additionally paying for other services like DistroKid.

So I looked more into this record label: they started business in 2022. If you go to their socials though, twitter and instagram they have followers in double digits and post very sparsely. Their tiktok seems to have nothing on it at all (thanks @lesbiandanhowell for the screenshot) and you may have noticed, Dan did not tag the lowave account at all when he announced the album on twitter

The agreement never mentions creators promoting lowave's social channels or tagging them either (and it is quite odd, I have worked with a bunch of organisations in their infancy and this is, now more than ever, a common requirement from collaborators). lowave records does not seem to be actively working towards promoting themselves on social media or building an online presence, even though they have been operational two years producing music throughout.

There are three people involved with the company on public record:

Benjamin Johnson listed as 'Head of Production' is probably the 'Ben' Dan has been talking about who made the songs. Seems like their scale of operations is not very big and possibly not a lot of producers in the records at all (despite the spotify page saying they have 'producers' plural, but that doesn't have to mean a lot many lol). Anyway, that would solve the mystery of 'how are they playing their employees?' if there aren't many employees to begin with (not even an intern to manage their social media it seems).

Look at the last person in the screenshots though: Robin. I looked at what other companies Robin is associated with and several of them - yeah several different operations that he's involved in - have the same correspondence address of '60 Thorpe Road...', so probably operating out of a ghost office (just to have a registered address and receive mail at etc). And one of these businesses that Robin is associated with is RWD, the business that made lowave records' website for them:

The no-cost production of royalty-free music, little attention to social media presence, vaguely written contract, seemingly small scale of operations with technical assistance like website design coming from an affiliated organisation makes me think that lowave records might be a side project. A labour of love, possibly, hoping to sustain itself enough to keep putting out royalty-free music in a time of extreme crackdown on copyrighted music use.

It makes sense to use content creators for promotion, gets you way more streaming than making your own music and putting it out. And the incentive of unique but guaranteed royalty free music at no cost is great for content creators of all sizes. It is far from sustainable on its own though, especially with streaming revenue being basically peanuts, and I do not think there's much interest in gaining a following or putting in that effort either, so it's probably a very small business by a few people. How long it manages to sustain itself as a project I am not sure, but it certainly isn't looking like something particularly geared towards profit and growth in its current state.

We are at an end! If you read this far, leave me like an A+ or a star for my essay so I can have academic validation from this please. Of course I probably have not covered everything possible in connection to this so if anyone has more info feel free to add on! And if this was all very long and there's something particular you wanted to know you can drop an ask into the inbox about it!

Thank you for coming with me on this journey! Back to the important things, which was your favourite song from the album? I think mine is Arcade Admission

[funkin-news]

ninjamuffin newgrounds post!

tl;dr

fuck ads!! use adblocker whenever you can!!

the crew tries to make fnf as ad-free as possible, not just the game but where you download it- it's why it's on itch/newgrounds and not anywhere that offers ad revenue

that being said, fnf mobile will likely have a free version which... will have ads. they will try not to make the ads too obnoxious

(there will be an ad-free paid version too!)

extra note from me, not the post: if you're an android user you totally shouldn't use youtube revanced and purpletv or anything for mobile youtube and twitch adblockers. it would be such a hindrance to the advertisers. ha ha

full post copied below ⬇️

greetings and merry xmas newgrounds

on my brain for a very long time has been advertisements. Something about ads that stick in my brain ever since I came across this little thing from Lichess.

In due time, unfortunately this post will become a bit hypocritical, as we will eventually publish FNF onto mobile, and that will very likely have a free ad supported version. Hopefully that doesn't undermine my thoughts too much, however FNF is more than just me and my brain! Not everything I say goes in terms of FNF decisions! So with all that being said, let me begin shouting about everything I hate about ads.

I use adblocker on everything, and you should too. UBlock Origin has been my reliable go to. Online ads are especially an insidious breed. I'll try not to be some tinfoil hat, but I do often wonder what the internet would look like if the online ad model *wasn't* fruitful back in the early days of the internet. Would Facebook, Google, etc. have an arms race to the bottom to get infinite amounts of data on every single person ever? Would social media algorithms optimize for a different experience other than *spend as much time as possible on our site*? Ads have existed before Youtube, Google, internet though. They exist on TV, on subways and buses, on radio, in newspapers. I think for the most part my deep hatred of ads is for online kind, I do think there can be "irl" ads that I find very unpleasant. Going on a subway or sitting at a bus stop, I think people deserve more dignity from their city public transit than to have something sold to them! I don't think an ad free life should be only reserved for those who can pay for spotify premium, youtube red, etc. I think everyone should be entitled to that DIGNITY.

X (the everything app, formerly Twitter ) has a Premium subscription that costs 10$/month (CAD), and they will only give you *half* the ads in your feed. How generous of them. I will be dramatic, and say that I look at ads with disgust. I hope to think I'm somewhat justified, as most ads look like dogshit, and are pretty worthless.

For a very long time (and currently, as of writing/posting) FNF has been entirely ad free. We did stand up to putting it on other web portals that offer ads and ad payments/rev share, because we do somewhat want to be part of the change we'd like to see in the world. We want to believe in a world where someone can put out a free game on itch/newgrounds, and have the development be supported purely off donations (which FNF was supported by that in the early days / first 6 months of development!). We definitely could have made much MUCH more money if we put FNF on websites that offer ad rev share, but we didn't, and I hope that doesn't fall on deaf ears.

However we do promote our own things from within the game, Kickstarter, merch, etc. I suppose I'm less upset or even thinking about that, I think there's a big difference if we had a lil Kickstarter trailer in-game that played, opposed to having an in-game advertisement for some fuckass mobile game or some cosmetics or somethin. We specifically are still curating what we are putting in the game with our lil links to merch, kickstarter, etc.

We also provide the soundtrack on Spotify / streaming services, which do indeed get money from ads. I think I'm so detatched from Spotify ads and being angry at them, since I've been spotify premium user even at the brokest poorest in my life... i need them album downloads!!! I do think that's an aspect where there is an adfree alternative, which is Bandcmap, where you can listen to the FNF OST as much as you want, and if you pay some coin, you can download it in high quality!

My thoughts on FNF mobile with ads is that they will make me very unhappy and deeply sad. I do sincerely apologize to those of you who would be unable to play FNF on anything other than a mobile device, and aren't able to get the full mobile version, so you become punished with ads. We do hope to not be obnoxious with mobile ads. If you have a computer, even a shitty busted one that runs slow, I personally hope you end up compiling the mobile version yourself to get past ads. The thought of that lets me rest easier just a little bit. The FNF will be proudly open source forever.

There will also be a paid version of FNF mobile, that will have no ads. Pay for that one if you please.

[feyti-odinsdottir]

Maybe you're all living in a digital streaming hellscape in 2025, but not me. I'm living in the golden age of media consumption. I have a $50 walmart dvd player and a $10 VCR and I simply hit up the thrift stores every payday and load up on all of my favorite movies and tv shows for the one-time price of 1.99 each. And they all just sit in my apartment. No recurring payments to continue access to them. All the physical media is so cheap now because everybody switched to streaming. God forbid if I lived in the pre-streaming era when I had to pay full price for all this media. And when spotify goes to shit, I will have my stack of $0.50 cds and my dad's cd radio from the 90s. Be like me. Deny the hellscape. Buy dvds from goodwill.

[rich4a1]

Spotify’s Discovery Mode: The New Payola Hurting Indie Artists

Making a Scene Presents – Spotify’s Discovery Mode: The New Payola Hurting Indie Artists In the early days of the music industry, the word “payola” was practically a scandal. It referred to the shady practice of record labels secretly paying radio DJs to play their artists’ songs, manipulating what listeners heard and artificially inflating a track’s popularity. It was unethical, it was illegal,…

[technician-the]

Do you have a spotify?

I do not have any music on spotify :( only bandcamp and youtube

I looked at spotifiy, but without a record label, I would have had to pay a service to get them to put up my music. the monthly payments were more then I projected I would make in royalties, and I couldn't afford them.

Honestly, I would like to offer an easier streaming option, but with spotifiy cutting royalties again this year, I don't see any path for my music to ever be on their site.

As a consolation prize, here is something slightly random out of my WIP folder. fun little electronic theme, no name, still kinda short, never decided if it would work better as a verse, chorus, or bridge

[roo-bastmoon]

Suspicious Treatment of Jimin: What am I forgetting?

I have serious medication-induced brain fog so my memory is swiss cheese these days. I am trying to map out something so I can understand what is happening with our Jimin....

So far:

Hanteo deleted hundreds of thousands in sales; company did not comment.

YouTube froze and deleted millions of streams every day; company did not comment.

Jimin's Spotify profile was not properly listed. It still has no description or link to merch.

Jimin's works are not added to the company's playlist for days and sometimes weeks while other members' works and collabs are added immediately.

Spotify froze and filtered millions of his streams; company did not comment.

His title track was deliberately split, despite qualifying to count as one unit.

His in-ear devices failed to work during a live performance.

He was allowed only 9 days of promotion.

He was denied when he requested more than 2 music videos.

His historic Hot 100 #1 was not acknowledged by the company except for one single retweet the day-of.

He had no celebrations, no formal acknowledgement by company leadership of his achievement or of the resulting huge increase in stock prices.

Billboard changed their charting rules in Week 2; company did not comment until it was time for a different album to sell.

His albums did not ship to China and have not been restocked on WeVerse for weeks (whereas other artists' albums have).

His instagram was shadow banned. His videos on TikTok are also soft-blocked from being boosted.

All other members' YouTube focused views for Take Two auto-generate a preview photo; his does not (this must be deliberately selected not to generate an image). *Apparently they have fixed this issue after enough fans called it out on Twitter.

Some have observed that since Hybe took over, Jimin has been given fewer lines in group songs and less time dancing center as well.

A recent WeVerse article about Morgan Wallen downplayed both Yoongi's tour and Jimin's album as achieving "some partial success in breaking up [Wallen's] domination of the Hot 100."

Add to this the company "omitting" his bills four times, which lead to late payments on insurance premiums, which led to his apartment being "seized," which led to a smear campaign in the press the very same day his OST With You dropped... followed by his personal address and national identity number being doxxed online... and this honestly looks suspicious as hell.

What am I forgetting?

I'm not a manti but if I don't get reasonable explanations I'm gonna become one.

How can it look like anything other that deliberate sabotage so that one member does not outshine the rest?

How is this good business sense?

Jimin is a humble, hardworking team-player with no ambitions to go solo and leave his members. Why would anyone have it out for him?

It's possible there's prejudice and bigotry at play, but deep enough to span multiple departments and cut into the company's bottom line?

And yet how can it not be deliberate? How can any company be THIS incompetent for just ONE member?

And yet if we raise hell, we look like victimizing solos. Yet look at this laundry list!! And it just keeps happening. What can be done??

Can we not organize a quiet mass-email campaign? Can someone not write up a well-researched UCC article to share in English and Korean and keep tagging Hybe? Would it not be possible to comment respectfully about this in WeVerse?

Or would acknowledging it at all make it worse for Jimin?

I don't understand all the politics at play here.

I have no real idea what is happening but part of me is quietly terrified they have it out for him during contract negotiations for some reason.

What is BTS without all our beloved seven?

I'm genuinely very deeply upset.

[fromtenthousandfeet]

The Goose That Laid the "Golden" Egg

When Jungkook's Golden album came out I have to admit I was really confused about exactly who the songs were supposed to appeal to. The explicit lyrics in Seven and 3D really didn't fit with your average BTS fan. The collabs were strange, too. Usher and Justin Timberlake? Was this album geared towards old Millennials? Jack Harlow and Latto (who, by the way, is hardly a household name here in the US) - rap enthusiasts? DJ Snake and Major Lazer - EDM fans? Was the album geared towards men or women? Young or old? Like who the heck was the target market?

And then one day it hit me. I was asking the wrong question! The target market didn't matter one iota. The right question was cui bono? Or rather, who stands to gain? This got me started digging into the song credits on JK's album. And here's what I discovered - every collaborator has writing credits.

Let's break it down.

3D featuring Jack Harlow. Harlow has writing credits. Justin Timberlake has writing credits on the remix.

Closer to You featuring Major Lazer. Diplo, a.k.a. Thomas Pentz, has writing and producing credits.

Seven featuring Latto. Latto, a.k.a. Alyssa Stephens, has writing credits.

Standing Next to You Usher Remix. Usher Raymond IV has writing credits.

Please Don't Change featuring DJ Snake. DJ Snake, a.k.a. William Grigahcine, has writing and producing credits.

The features are paid up front for their collaboration, and then, because they have writing credits, they will continue to earn royalties from streams and sales. Not a bad deal for the folks listed above. The same goes for the well-known song writers and producers on the album, like David Stewart, Andrew Watt, Jon Bellion, Shawn Mendes, Ed Sheeran, and many others. Here's an article about how royalties work for those who care:

I shudder to think how much was spent on marketing Seven/Golden. I assume HYBE America paid for marketing expenses since Scooter was the one doing A&R while leveraging his extensive web of contacts in the music industry. I don't know this for certain, though, without seeing HA and BH's expenditures. Either way, someone paid iHeartRadio (among others) for media play and radio airplay. And then there were paid advertisements all over social media platforms, including forced adverts on YouTube that counted towards Billboard charts.

So much money was spent on Spotify. Paid playlists, paid playlist positions, Spotify Discovery Mode. I know Spotify also modified the search algorithm so JK's Seven would pop up first in the results when one searched for Jimin. If I remember correctly, this happened in YouTube as well (such a dirty move). Like, somebody got paid to rewrite code to override the search function.

More money was paid for media play with Billboard, Rolling Stone, Forbes, and I'm pretty sure NME and Consequence of Sound, too. There were probably many adverts I didn't notice. And then there were performances, awards, and his ad campaign which I won't discuss but I've definitely wondered who paid whom for that endorsement deal.

I don't need to go on and on rehashing 2023, but what I want to point out is that BIG MONEY was spent on the roll out of Jungkook's first single and subsequent album. Was Seven the most expensive single in pop music history? And cui bono? Not Big Hit, since essentially none of the in-house writers and producers were involved. Streams don’t yield big payouts and the digital singles and albums were often sold at a discount. Jungkook didn’t make huge bank since he had zero writing or producing credits. But Scooter Braun's clients and industry friends seemed to do pretty well. And just about every company that's related to the western music industry received payments for pushing and playing the songs from Golden.

So, I see two potential scenarios here.

Number One! HYBE used Golden as a means to, shall we say, line the pockets of the western music industry (cough...bribe...cough) so that releases from HYBE labels will get treated favorably in the future. Also, given the scope of marketing, media play, playlisting, and radio play, Golden could have been used for market research to determine where the company gets the most return on investment in terms of reach and charting. I think you can see this with the rollout of Illit's Magnetic, which has heavy Spotify Discovery Mode and a huge focus on TikTok, but very little standard media play via the traditional music media outlets. And no posters.

Number Two! Scooter Braun saw this album as an opportunity to financially enrich his friends, colleagues, and the companies he has investments in, like Spotify. Was he siphoning money out of HYBE by promising to make Bang PD's dream of western validation come true? Can't you see Scooter whispering sweet nothings into Bang's ear? "Mr. PD, give me a big budget and I will make you the biggest music mogul in 1,000 years!"

Whatever the grand scheme was behind Golden, one thing's for sure, the western music industry and social media platforms made out like bandits.

FYI:

HYBE America lost more in 2023 than Big Hit earned.

HYBE America Sales: 226.3 billion Net Profit: -142.4 billion won

Big Hit Music Sales: 552.3 billion Net Profit: 140.3 billion won

142 billion won is just under 105 million USD. Yowza.

In other news, HYBE Corporation was designated a conglomerate today. I'll try to unpack the implications of this if anyone is interested.

[abby-yerblue]

My thoughts on Watcher.

Been having some thoughts. Trying to be ok with this. I really wanna support them. I really do. It's not I don't wanna support them or i rather support corporations YouTube or patreon but I'm a college student. I can't afford any streaming service. I only have Netflix bc my mom wants it. I can't even pay it myself! You know how I desperately want dropout? How I watch crumbs of them on YouTube? I domt have amazon prime, hulu, disney plus. Not even spotify premium. Then how can I support Watcher besides that I must have money? Not to mention that I'm from Asia. 6 dollars is like around 220 baht. Not that I don't wanna pay that and admittedly it might not be much for a month but I really can't. I don't have credit card. Or any card to pay abroad. I can't even support their patreon.

With that said, I'm glad that there's people who are happy for this change and can afford them. I really wish I can be happy too. I only hope that they would reconsider to not make it exclusively payment only. Even if they support sharing passwords and all.

Though I feel like people who can support them financially don't get a say in why we can't be upset about this. There's probably many people in the similar situation that's why a lot of us are upset.

But then again don't go attack some people who can support them too. I saw some people got called bootlickers.

Still I hope that now they see feedbacks and will reconsider or make some adjustments. But then again I'm not in business, I don't know much. I just hope at least they don't abandon YouTube completely like dropout. Or that they still have their streaming service but have like parts where we can still watch for free and another premium or bonus content. Does this make sense?

Listen, I swear that when I got a job and a better financial, I'll support them but right now I can't do much besides watching and occasionally draw fnarts. I really still want to follow them.

EDIT: Final thought. If they're really doing this then I wish them luck and the best. I genuinely mean it. I really hope it works out for them. I hope this decision comes from difficulty and their best interests to keep making quality content.

[so-long-soldier-writes]

absolutely random kol mikaelson headcanons

huge maneskin fan

has an anxious habit of biting his nails that bex often scolds him for doing

heavily reliant on autocorrect whenever he texts

he can spell just fine, but is still getting used to the small keyboard

a lot of the time, he pushes 'enter' instead of the send button, expecting it to send, but it just makes a new paragraph and his texts are never actually sent

it pisses his siblings off big time

canonically spends time in records shops to flirt with girls, but secretly has a record player and owns many albums

100% pulls harmless pranks on his siblings, and 50% of the time, they never realize it was him

but one time, he meant to scare bex by hiding behind a door, and accidentally scared elijah, and the man had a fit of rage at his youngest brother after nearly jumping out of his own skin

thinks damon would be a cool friend / murder / prank buddy if they could put aside their differences (wanting each other dead) and give it a try

definitely has mommy issues (what mikaelson doesn't?), but his make him more passive than aggressive

the only people he's ever opened up to, he's ended up killing out of fear of his secrets being shared

loves a good fruity cocktail every now and then, but it's a secret he guards with his life

bonus points if the straw has an umbrella

was never actually going to kill jeremy, he just wanted to get under bonnie's skin

however, he was ready to kill any of them that wanted to raise silas

and would've killed april young for fun had she not been a friend of his sister's, and he and his sister were getting along that day

has a playlist full of songs from musicals that is locked from his profile, just in case one of his siblings look at his account (btw, elijah pays for the family spotify account)

and since elijah pays for spotify, kol pays for netflix, bex pays for disney+, and klaus pays for hbo

they all get the money from the same place, but they feel like they're making meaningful contributions to the family by putting their names on these specific bills

when kol died, bex was not happy about having to pay for two streaming services, but she was not about to miss out on finishing the shows she had started

when kol came back, she immediately gave him back his payment responsibility

whenever they're pissed at each other, they change the password and the one at whom they're mad has to complete a series of puzzles to get access to the new password

kol started this, but klaus does it the most

has a secret affinity for iced coffee, and goes ham for pumpkin spiced lattes every year

pumpkin flavored everything, really

when bex finds out, the teasing never ceases

kol and bex spend halloween together watching movies all day, but then going out and scaring children at night

elijah chides them for being childish, so sometimes they sneak out before he can ruin the fun

wants to kill matt donovan solely for the fact that he slept with his sister

wanted to kill him before, but now it's personal

secretly adores hope, even though klaus doesn't let him near her

braids her hair whenever his brother isn't around, then says elijah or bex did it, and klaus doesn't question it

has tea parties with her and lets her paint his nails

when klaus finally catches them, hope defends her uncle, and her father reluctantly lets them continue to hang out

weapon of choice has been a baseball bat ever since he got a huge satisfaction out of hitting damon with one

likes caroline over cami when it comes to klaus' dating life

likes that caroline persistently rejected him despite his multiple attempts to woo her

painted itty bitty ghost into one of klaus' paintings and he has yet to notice

lives in fear of the day he finally does notice (but not enough to regret doing it)

doesn't often drink so much he gets drunk, but on bourbon, he's a rather upset drunk, however on wine, he's a very giggly drunk

touchier than people would think, and many never realize until he is drunk and lets his guard down a little

has a fear of tight spaces

much prefers being a witch, but also enjoys the thrill of tearing off someone's head with his teeth

no outfit is complete without a little bit of blood

[softlyfiercely]

im going to absolutely lose my shit...

after seeing that spotify paid money to trump, i decided to switch, but it was a whole fucking ORDEAL cause i've been using spotify since 2016 and have tons of specialized playlists, so i downloaded this special tool to shift playlists over to another music player, and then of course i had to figure out what other music player to change over to cause i'm not trying to switch to just another evil tech monopoly, so i'm doing all this research on the ethical backgrounds of all these random streaming services and getting really overwhelmed and frustrated...finally pick one run by an entertainment company in france, then get all set up with my playlists shifted over which takes forever

then i go to cancel my spotify.....................and realize that im actually not paying for it....im mooching off someone else in my polycule

so then i just went in and canceled a bunch of other subscriptions and recurring payments so i have more money to donate to important causes and shit and am also no longer paying for amazon prime (though i have to keep kindle unlimited subscription for Career Reasons...this is the bad place)

[dearlexies]

How to stream ENHYPEN on Spotify

SPOTIFY GUIDES & INFO

Engenes, these are our Updated Guides on HOW TO STREAM ON SPOTIFY!! Please Spread so people that are new to streaming can see this as well!

1. Spotify Free vs Premium

🔵 Spotify Premium plays songs in order, allows downloads and unlimited skips, it has no ads, and weighs more for the charts!!

➡️ If possible, use Premium for the comeback - you can check for a Free Trial. If you have used a Free Trial before - you will need a new account, with new login information and a new form of payment.

♥️ There is Streaming teams & individuals who are giving premium accounts - please contact the Fanbases so they can help retweet and spread if you are still offering Premium accounts for ENGENES.

🟢 Spotify Free

You can use Free Spotify to stream, but it has some streaming limitations:

➡️It has ads, you can’t use it offline, you can only skip a couple of songs per day!

🔀The Free Mobile version nowadays shuffles your playlists in a way where it actually avoids repeating songs, so it ruins the point of the Focused Playlists.

‼️The best way to use Spotify Free would be with the Desktop App - because it plays the songs of a playlist in order - so you can take full advantage of the Focused Playlists that help with Title Track streaming.

✅ If Spotify Free on Mobile is your only option - that is still ok - your streams will still count but they will be more spread out on the discography and lesson the focused song!

2. PLAYLISTS: Curated Playlists vs Focused Playlists

🟢 Curated Playlists are the Official Spotify playlists. (K-Pop ON!, New Music Friday, etc)

When streaming from Curated Playlists: Only play ENHYPEN’s songs!

❌ Do NOT listen to other artists (after ENHYPEN’s track plays, exit the playlist)

❤ Like the track

➕ Add it to your own playlist

📲 Share it on socials (this shows engagement and helps the algorithm!

🔵 FOCUSED PLAYLISTS are Fan-Made! They are Designed to repeat the title track while minimizing Spotify filtering!!

‼️You Must include at least 2 filler songs between repeats!!

Fillers are mainly other ENHYPEN songs, but sometimes on longer Overnight Playlists, you can use non-EN tracks for variety and breaking up patterns!

@EN_onSpotify (on both twitter/x and Spotify) will provide you with different Focused Playlists to stream from, or feel free to make your own - you can use the Sample Spotify Playlist Gude below!!

⚠ FILTERING: WHAT IT IS, AND HOW TO AVOID IT:

Spotify filters streams in real-time and also daily, based on usage patterns.

🔵The so-called FILTERED STREAMS are used for the Spotify Charts. Spotify Charts come out once a day.

🟢The UNFILTERED STREAMS are the streams you see on the Spotify counter.

(The Counter streams are considered unfiltered, but keep in mind that even they have already been filtered in real time!!)

‼️To avoid losing excessive streams, follow these rules‼️⬇️

✅ Use at least 2 fillers between repeating the same song.

❌ Don’t loop songs or playlists!!

❌ Don’t use VPNs, APKs, or anything that hides your IP!!

✅ Engage naturally: occasional pausing, skipping, liking tracks

helps avoid bot-like behavior.

✅Switch between streaming from a Focused playlist, Streaming the Album in Full, and playing Bad Desire from Curated Playlists.

📣Spotify has now also started an extra round of filtering once a month where they may delete suspected botted streams at the start of every month!!

🖤ENHYPEN have NEVER had streams deleted so far, so this is why it's important to continue to follow proper streaming methods!

📢 FOR MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS - THE MAX ACCOUNTS YOU CAN USE PER IP IS 6.

Multiple accounts can help with Charting! (if done correctly!)

‼️BUT - CONSISTENCY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE NUMBER OF ACCOUNTS you are using!

It's actually better to only use 1 account throughout the entire comeback than use 6 accounts on day 1, and then drop off after! If we start sharply dropping it's going to signal to Spotify and mess with our algorithm!

But - If you can sustain more than 1 accounts through the comeback and want to help with the Charting - read the details below!!♥️