This year marks 20 years since Metallica (and others) settled/win a case Napster in a case for artists rights. At the time, Metallica were widely criticised by many fans...people called them out of touch, hypocrites, greedy.

Metallica just wanted control over their music and to prevent other people make money from being a unauthorized music distribution service.

Now, we have the streaming age. People have the instant access to music for pretty much free if you like...and there are growing concerns over artists getting proper reimbursement for their material.

Odd now that generally, its gone from "big rich rock stars being greedy" to "musicians need payment for their work"

The internet has become less of a hive of scum and villainy since the late 90's/early naughts basically. There's a slight defense in that we were before a transition there where the only option was "pay the super rich labels or steal" or no middle ground which led to the napster fight, but it's become more nuanced over the years resulting in the we've gone too far/the balance is fucked to fuck type deal we see today.

I guess before it felt smaller, more just people sharing their shit like a big party. These streaming platforms are now the big industry normal, so the industry normal not actually paying the content creators feels shitty. With that said this industry normal was required to beat the pirates, the old (possibly misattributed) adage of Steam's mantra of offering a service that's better than the pirates. Back when Napster was a thing, the options were spend an eternity finding something rarely stocked or a heap of money on a $30 new release CD. The middle ground of consumer comfort and artist/label money joy wasn't really there.

As it stands it's probably gone too far, the average person can probably access all the free music they could ever want without ever needing to touch a shady russian blogspot in this day and age, which sadly means it's pretty fuckin' impossible to walk back on to since any walk back is not going to be accepted. They probably needed to go for more of a "here's the album right now for five bucks" model early on opposed to "come to Apple and pay 2 bucks per song" one they opted for, which is closer to your Steam approach. It also doesn't help that even today music is far, FAR more easily shared illegally than movies or games.

There's also the issue that most of those other mediums are far less susceptible to multiple uses. Sure, some people watch their favourite movies or play their favourite games over and over, but nothing like music. So music taking on this pay-per-play model is a bit more sensible than the lump sum to be on the platform like with Netflix or Gamepass, but it's pretty obvious that the split is fuuuuuuccckkkkeeed. With that said giving them an appropriate amount per album listen just isn't possible with bandcamp ads or a spotify sub so... yeah. Shit's fucked.

Completely agreed. To the rest of your post - I've still got treasured albums I bought imported just as the dam broke - £25 for a Sonata Arctica CD ! - and I've got ancient rips downloaded from (I imagine) the same blogs. With the internet as user-friendly as it is now, and online commerce so mature, there's no good reason for something like Spotify, and agreed again, no reason for dodgy blogs with terrible fonts and an entertaining mixture of languages

A lot of the comments in this thread matched my view, https://forum.metal-archives.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=127854&hilit=spotify, which I'll just quote as it hasn't changed in 9 months -

Spotify could probably pay a little more. This may be harsh, but I think the musicians crying for a lot more from it are deluded. The playing field is levelled. In the past, mid-tier artists/bands got lucky and landed a record deal when 999 other bands did not. Now those mid-tier artists complain that they get less than $1000 for hundreds of thousands of plays, but they're competing against not only those 999 other bands who self-release, but many, many more given it's easier than ever to do professional quality recording independently and the quantity of music in existence grows at a staggering rate. There's a petition going round saying it should be 1 cent per stream. That's the equivalent of asking for $200 per play on a traditional radio station reaching 20,000 listeners. I'd be surprised if any countries ever paid out anything like that much for radio plays.

Agreed on the walk back issue, but where things are at now was probably inevitable. If Spotify charged more, they'd get other streaming services undercutting them, similar to what Netflix experiences at times. If casual listeners were pressed to pay more, they'd probably just go back to listening to traditional radio for free, and certainly not the inconvenience of CDs.

Having said all that, I'm pleased that I much prefer downloads and can give bands a reasonable amount via Bandcamp etc. when deserved. I can also imagine a streaming service that does pay musicians much more fairly. Maybe it could let listeners choose to pay extra per stream, donate freely, or hear more ads, perhaps even showing how much they've contributed to each artist. Maybe it could be decentralised and cut out the corporate greed. Hopefully it would cut out bloody PayPal.

Regardless of your thoughts on where music is today, Lars saw the direction music was happening 20 years ago. The whole fight around Napster had very little to do with Metallica, and their income, and much more about the industry as a whole.

Spotify fucking sucks. It has a decent amount of music on it, and for the casual music fan - which about 90% of people actually are - it is perfect. But for anyone who is into a genre of music, it is rather basic. For example, so much NWOBHM is missing from Spotify, and it will almost certainly never find its way onto the platform. Even established bands like Manowar and Manilla Road are missing huge records from the platform. Even albums that are complete are kinda fucked. Anathema's Crestfallen has a bizarre demo version of the title track for some reason that I don't understand.

Artist funding is another issue. Tidal has already provided that nobody really gives a fuck about artist earnings. If we did, we would use that platform over Spotify. Spotify can pay the artists more, but it will come out of our pockets, not Spotifys.

It is a decent platform to get acquainted with new music in the same way the radio used to be, but it will never be a great streaming service.

^ I can see you're clearly upset about the way artists are treated on Spotify which is fair, but saying it has a "decent" amount of music on it isn't being very truthful, imo. I know there are things missing, but usually the music that is missing is music I can go over to Bandcamp and support if I really want to.

Spotify has most band's entire catalogues and new albums are instantly added on the release date.

I guess I'm arguing that it is a great streaming service as far as the wealth of music on there vs what I pay for it.

COVID has really kicked this topic into the mainstream here, which is nice to see - to the point that the government has put in place a review to look at the business model and how it could be improved for everyone's benefit.

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/378/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/120055/dcms-committee-examine-impact-of-streaming-on-future-of-the-music-industry/

https://www.kerrang.com/features/where-does-the-money-go-the-real-cost-of-music-streaming/

It's missing Sodom - Agent Orange, though.

Fuck Spotify with a sandpaper dildo.