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Here's an off-the-cuff solution to the boom-or-bust problems of the music industry that I just came up with. Streamers could reward emerging/smaller artists by paying out a small lump sum every time a track hits a certain number of total plays.
E.g., £10 for 1,000 plays. £100 for 10,000. £1,000 for 100,000. £10,000 for a million. Direct to artist, not to label. Maybe a 50-50 split between artist and songwriters. But nothing after a million. This is in addition to direct royalties.
Only problem I can see with this (other than that the major labels that seem to ultimately control the whole shebang have no reason to put it into practise) is it incentivises releasing a buttload of tracks in the hope one of them will strike it lucky. (That's happening anyway)
(There's probably some incredibly obvious reason this wouldn't work in which case I'll delete this thread and retire in shame).
Basically the idea is to take money out of the pot and and put it directly in the pocket of artists. But you can't game the system by just making up a million spotify "artists" - you have to actually get people to listen to your music.
Oh, I suppose bot farms would really be an even bigger problem than they are now.
