"[W]e've made a standalone audiobook out of chapter 12 of Chokepoint Capitalism. Entitled “Transparency Rights,” which explains how Audible has shifted power and wages from creative workers to Amazon, and goes into a lot of detail about #Audiblegate, a scandal involving allegations of rampant wage-theft on ACX, Audible’s self-serve platform for independent creators.
We asked Colleen Cross, a former forensic accountant turned writer of financial fraud thrillers, how much money she estimated Audible had drained away from authors. Her answer: “Hundreds of millions of dollars for the last couple of years on the returns alone—that’s the conservative estimate.” The chapter also tells the story of a campaign led by indie writer Susan May to demand greater transparency over Audible’s accounting, and, the inspiring, real change she and her army of furious independent authors have managed to collectively achieve."
"People ask why musicians keep using Spotify as іf we have a choice. Nо record label оr distributor will agree tо NOT put an artist's music оn Spotify. Their goal іs tо recoup the finances invested, sо why would they limit themselves by staying off the number one streaming platform? Furthermore, indie artists like me can't afford tо ignore and abandon Spotify, nо matter how much we despise it. If I want tо book a live gig, a promoter will check my streams first. If I want tо get label interest, A&R will glance at my numbers before deciding іf I'm relevant enough tо even respond to."
These are interesting cases. Here are a few thoughts…
There’s not much to be done about the superstar distribution: the wider the reach of recordings or broadcasts, or even the size of live venues, and the preferences of consumers, means there is no getting away from it.
So then we come to the question of the distribution between artists and producers / publishers / platforms. Anderson’s error was to think the internet would allow artists to bypass these, and connect directly with audiences, no middleman. And while the technology exists to do that, the market doesn’t - gatekeepers and platforms provide something useful such that audiences tend to rely on them rather than searching out the niche self-published / self-marketed.
Do the gatekeepers and platforms exploit their market power? On that I’m not sure: musicians might not be awfully pleased about Spotify, but Spotify’s market power is sharply limited by the availability of digital recordings and file-sharing - complain as we might about great big firms, the bulk of the “surplus” in music is being captured by consumers.
I completely agree with your first three paragraphs; I have some questions about your final paragraph.
Do gatekeepers and platforms exploit their market power? Of course they do -- I'm not an expert, but there are too many examples to say that the process Doctorow & Giblin describe is never accurate ( https://chokepointcapitalism.com/ ). But, the second part of the paragraph appears to ask the question, "how much does that distort the market?" Even if there are cases where users or artists are locked into using platforms that profit at their expense; how large is that cost?
I don't know the answer to that, but given the fact that there are far more consumers than creators, it's possible for "the bulk of the “surplus” in music [to be] captured by consumers" and it could still make a big difference to artists whether it looks like (numbers completely made up for demonstration purposes).
80% of surplus value goes to consumer
12% goes to platforms
8% goes to artists
vs
80% of surplus value goes to consumer
8% goes to platforms
12% goes to artists
There would be a lot of people for whom the difference between the first and the second is the difference between being able to make a living or not.
I think that part of the situation is inevitable, for the reasons that you describe, but I just started Cory Doctorow's _Chokepoint Capitalism_ and I think it makes a good argument that artists are often forced to deal with monopsony situations in which they are forced to deal with a small number of buyers. I think there is room for real improvement in that regard. For example: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/cory-doctorow/article/90282-we-wrote-a-book-about-why-audible-won-t-sell-our-book-and-snuck-it-onto-audible.html
"[W]e've made a standalone audiobook out of chapter 12 of Chokepoint Capitalism. Entitled “Transparency Rights,” which explains how Audible has shifted power and wages from creative workers to Amazon, and goes into a lot of detail about #Audiblegate, a scandal involving allegations of rampant wage-theft on ACX, Audible’s self-serve platform for independent creators.
We asked Colleen Cross, a former forensic accountant turned writer of financial fraud thrillers, how much money she estimated Audible had drained away from authors. Her answer: “Hundreds of millions of dollars for the last couple of years on the returns alone—that’s the conservative estimate.” The chapter also tells the story of a campaign led by indie writer Susan May to demand greater transparency over Audible’s accounting, and, the inspiring, real change she and her army of furious independent authors have managed to collectively achieve."
Or see Queen Kwong's post about spotify: https://queenkwong.substack.com/p/why-quitting-spotify-wont-help-indie
"People ask why musicians keep using Spotify as іf we have a choice. Nо record label оr distributor will agree tо NOT put an artist's music оn Spotify. Their goal іs tо recoup the finances invested, sо why would they limit themselves by staying off the number one streaming platform? Furthermore, indie artists like me can't afford tо ignore and abandon Spotify, nо matter how much we despise it. If I want tо book a live gig, a promoter will check my streams first. If I want tо get label interest, A&R will glance at my numbers before deciding іf I'm relevant enough tо even respond to."
These are interesting cases. Here are a few thoughts…
There’s not much to be done about the superstar distribution: the wider the reach of recordings or broadcasts, or even the size of live venues, and the preferences of consumers, means there is no getting away from it.
So then we come to the question of the distribution between artists and producers / publishers / platforms. Anderson’s error was to think the internet would allow artists to bypass these, and connect directly with audiences, no middleman. And while the technology exists to do that, the market doesn’t - gatekeepers and platforms provide something useful such that audiences tend to rely on them rather than searching out the niche self-published / self-marketed.
Do the gatekeepers and platforms exploit their market power? On that I’m not sure: musicians might not be awfully pleased about Spotify, but Spotify’s market power is sharply limited by the availability of digital recordings and file-sharing - complain as we might about great big firms, the bulk of the “surplus” in music is being captured by consumers.
I completely agree with your first three paragraphs; I have some questions about your final paragraph.
Do gatekeepers and platforms exploit their market power? Of course they do -- I'm not an expert, but there are too many examples to say that the process Doctorow & Giblin describe is never accurate ( https://chokepointcapitalism.com/ ). But, the second part of the paragraph appears to ask the question, "how much does that distort the market?" Even if there are cases where users or artists are locked into using platforms that profit at their expense; how large is that cost?
I don't know the answer to that, but given the fact that there are far more consumers than creators, it's possible for "the bulk of the “surplus” in music [to be] captured by consumers" and it could still make a big difference to artists whether it looks like (numbers completely made up for demonstration purposes).
80% of surplus value goes to consumer
12% goes to platforms
8% goes to artists
vs
80% of surplus value goes to consumer
8% goes to platforms
12% goes to artists
There would be a lot of people for whom the difference between the first and the second is the difference between being able to make a living or not.