Spotify Meets Beatport - Looking for Beta Testers
Spotify Meets Beatport - Looking for Beta Testers Posted on: 31.08.2012 by Luna Sopcak Hi all. The company I work for, Pulselocker, is creating a music subscription system for DJs (believe spotify+beatport for DJs). The service lets you DJ tracks, online or offline, in serato/traktor/whatever. We are ready to start beta testing, and are looking for DJ's to try it out and give us some feedback. You can sign up at: http://launch.pulselocker.com/ | |
| Vania Odish 09.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by scamo
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| Ara Tima 07.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by ToOntown
I'm sure the system is great for people running the streaming services. I'd love to see a breakdown of how my $12 Spotify fee is distributed I get they're running a business with high bandwidth and system requirements but if the artist is getting 0.0002-0.04c per play (rumoured), where's the rest of the of the money going? All of these systems need waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more transparency. While I have doubts I'll get to see this system in Australia any time soon(it took Spotify years to make it here) I look forward to seeing you're pricing/what labels artists are on board. Like I've been saying all along, it's an amazing deal for the consumer. |
| Rey Holubar 06.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by digitalrebeluk
scamo |
| Shonda Soulier 06.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by shr3dder
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| Vania Odish 06.09.2012 | @scamo, why would you just want to hear it in the programme? i guess to see if its going to fit in the set, if im subscribing though, id want to be able to just stream directly into traktor or similar, i can go on beatport and listen to a track through a separate output on my soundcard otherwise |
| Vania Odish 06.09.2012 | I believe the main barrier to charging a lot for a streaming service is that people can just pirate music, you are basically just paying for the convenience of being able to stream any tune instantly as opposed to waiting for 2 minutes to download, and actually searching for it. The legality of it is something I doubt really comes into a lot of peoples minds, with the exception of those in the industry or who actually support the music industry. People won't pay |
| Ara Tima 06.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by ToOntown
I'm all for streaming media, my gripe is with how screwed artists get from systems like Spotify. Yes as a consumer it's great, ask most artists their thoughts and it's far from the saviour of music, sure a few cents in royalties is better then the nothing they get from illegal downloads but the streaming system at the moment is f*cked in terms of royalties. The more widespread it becomes and the more people that use services like this instead of "buying" mp3s. the less money artists are going to earn until these services get charged the fees they should be. If streaming is going to become the norm people should be paying a lot more then $10-20 a month. The guy that runs Spotify earns more money in a year then most of the UKs largest artists.... That's not right. I'm not criticizing your idea, it's a great idea and I hope it works, it's the laws as a whole I take issue with, like synthetic has said. |
| Rey Holubar 05.09.2012 | A general question. Do you have the GEMA in Germany in your bag of associations already? They are unfortunately a bit over the top, when it comes to "protection". Edit: Ok, flash101uk's blog got me going on how it probably will work. Stream the music to hear it in a "program". Something Beatport doesn't have. Then buy it to use it. Something missing on Spotify. scamo |
| Luna Sopcak 06.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by ToOntown
Great points, ToOntown. Pulselocker was founded by DJs and producers and we built the company (and our business model) with the artists' interests top of mind. While we cannot stop technology's financial impact on the music ecosystem, we are providing a new monetization opportunities to help soften the blow. PM me with the email you signed up with and I'll get you sorted. |
| Shonda Soulier 05.09.2012 | Spotify (and other streaming music services) are the future of music distribution. It's only a matter of time before cloud-based subscription services are "the way". I pay $10/month for Spotify...I would gladly pay $50 to have the ability to DJ those tracks. Personally, I believe it's the best case scenario for the music industry. Purchasing individual MP3s is not a sustainable model with bandwidth and cloud storage becoming cheaper by the month. All who pirate music will have no reason to once iTunes goes on-demand. I have a lifetime of music at my disposal, and I'm enjoying it without breaking the bank or the law. We're on the brink of having high speed internet available on every inch of American soil and with that will come major disruption for media services--the entertainment industry will not be the exception. edit: Also, I submitted my contact info and anxiously await your reply! |
| Corrin Penney 05.09.2012 | My thoughts on this new service if you fancy a read: http://howitzerdnb.wordpress.com/201...rvice-for-djs/ |
| Jonathan Chiuchiolo 05.09.2012 | There is legal and then there is moral... Legal is purely a justification for the rich getting richer while protecting their rights, while moral is doing what is right for everyone involved for their part in the process... Our "western" society is based on law with little to no emphases on morality. I bet not many people ever question who makes the laws, why they are made and who they ultimately serve, but will follow them because they are law and are afraid of a lawyer suing them or the government taking away their freedom for breaking them in extreme cases. I suppose it doesn't matter if you buy songs, use a service like this or torrents in the end, as the artist gets fuck all for their work either way. It seems facebook likes are the barometer to get noticed for larger gigs these days and more important than track sales figures. /rant |
| Janyce Henningson 05.09.2012 | I'm not sure what everyone is moaning about - they say they are doing it legally so what's the problem? |
| Carlee Pickard 05.09.2012 | Saw this, shot you an email! Would love to help you test it out. |
| Celine Surico 05.09.2012 | ...now, if this service had a function so any producers could sign up with their ISRC or other info and get the Internet royalties directly to them with no middle men. That would be neat. |
| Jonathan Chiuchiolo 05.09.2012 | I can't see how following the trend of chocking artists of money they earned with their time and skill that goes into their productions is a good thing for the artist. There is a lot of money in music but administration and distribution always takes the lions share of something they had no part in creating... That seems wrong to me.. for example my mate spent about 4 - 8 hours a day for 5 years infront of a computer teaching himself how to produce before releasing anything, then did a 2 year full time course in Music Production to further his skills, has spent thousands on software & thousands on hardware... At the end of the day he still needs to work to support himself despite selling thousands of copies of his tracks every release. He doesn't whine about it but to me it seems wrong that he doesn't receive the largest reward. Conversely any website producer only needs to spend about 1 - 2 years learning HTML, Javascript, SQL & PHP before they can produce a professional looking and highly functional website. |
| Giovanna Scaringe 05.09.2012 | No problem. I mean, we get it. We have kept the service under wraps until we knew we had enough tech and content to launch even a small service. Tell your Aussie EDM'ers to contact content @ pulselocker dot com and we'd be happy to work with them. We do work with some Aussie companies for sure. I believe there is an assumption that there is a well paying ecosystem for artists to make money from the recorded song -- there is not for many artists, esp. indies. Though we are representing far more than just EDM, EDM is largely supported by live performance, for example. There is a huge piracy problem, and that's what we tackle. DJs will still buy tunes with pulselocker, still buy vinyl for limited edition stuff. I know I will. And yes, we plan on going to as many territories as possible. |
| Ara Tima 05.09.2012 | Thanks for your responses, I'm quite aware of how royalties work, and how rights associations go about collecting them. Ok, so it's not related to Spotify then? I believe I misunderstood the opening post. Don't get me wrong, if it's done right I'm sure it's a great idea for consumers, I just find it hard to fathom that labels would be for this idea and I've already had a chat with a few fairly established Australian EDM artists this afternoon and none of them had heard of this.... It took Spotify months and months and months of negotiating to get into Australia, I mean they've done the ground work but it goes to show it's not easy.. That said any plans to extend beyond the US/Europe? |
| Giovanna Scaringe 05.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by shr3dder
1. We are a separate service. We do not work with spotify. You do not need a spotify account. We have our own licensing deals, and we work with all providers of relevant content, be it majors or indies. I can't, unfortunately, disclose the closed deals we have. 2. High quality = 320kbps aac/m4a with WAV coming soon. 3. We pay artists and collecting societies and have all the legitimate rights to offer the services we do. 4. We offer the ability to legally purchase the music on our network. If you are curious about rights/payments and how they work in a situation like this, there are a lot of resources online to look at. I agree, its a complex business, but we're not in any way fly-by-evening and nor are we in any business to take money from artists. (We are the artists.) If you're looking for those types, look straight at the ftps, filesharing services, and the 'download blogs' that feed into them. I welcome the debate on the service, as it will help us improve. |
| Ara Tima 04.09.2012 | I'm gonna join the pessimist camp here. In theory this seems great, I just have trouble getting my head around the legal aspects. Being in Australia I'm just going to assume you haven't secured licensing for that territory so I can't have a look for myself. Have you actually convinced major labels to get on board with this? Or just the smaller "dance" labels? Have you spoken to the actual rights associations in most of the countries? Surely you'd need their permission as well, otherwise how is an artist in Australia/NZ for example going to receive their "cut" of royalties? Or is it just going to be within the Spotify system still? Ie. One play on "Pulselocker" will equal one play on "Spotify" or will it only be releases in specific territories? Also obviously you'd need a premium account with Spotify? Is the music "high quality" or "standard"? Or does that depend on what you have enabled in the Spotify preferences? It just baffles me any major label would support something like this? Surely it's just going to cannibalise already small sales? It's a great idea for the consumer but absolutely terrible for the people that make and sell music.... Sorry for all the questions, I'm just quite curious from a law student perspective. |
| Candice Grossie 04.09.2012 | Hey Fred, just signed up for beta. Will shoot you an email shortly. |
| Luna Sopcak 04.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by digitalrebeluk
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| Luna Sopcak 04.09.2012 | It's true that there's not a lot of revenue from EDM. But we believe the way forward for artists is to pay for use of their content in discovery, DJ and buy modes. Through these channels we encourage royalty distribution by keeping everything 100% legal with all the appropriate rights in place. The idea behind Pulselocker is to promote the work of independent producers, while giving DJs access to the deepest catalog we can offer. |
| Luna Sopcak 04.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by synthet1c
Regarding our approach to DRM, our platform doesn't work in the same way that Grooveshark works. For obvious reasons, we can't go into many specifics on this community , but we can say that the technology behind our subscription model is 100% legal and has been approved for use by the labels and aggregators we work with. Stay tuned. Our site will be up soon and we'll be able to share more information then. Thanks! Fred |
| Erich Vallabhaneni 05.09.2012 | signed up for beta |
| Werner Bile 05.09.2012 | signed up for the beta [email protected] |
| Vania Odish 05.09.2012 | true, if it was a streaming service it would also save hard drive space, which was my main idea for it, although you would have to have a solid internet connection, maybe a kind of cloud storage style thing |
| Celine Surico 03.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by digitalrebeluk
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| Vania Odish 03.09.2012 | I love the idea and was contemplating something similar not long ago, i came across a few problems like getting the tracks into your software of choice, it would involve a download of some sort to get traktor to recognise it, unless NI were involved how would you get it to work? |
| Celine Surico 03.09.2012 | Very, very few EDM tracks generate any revenues beyond $50 excluding all the Guetta/Rhianna stuff which is backed by a huge marketing budget. So they are really mostly for promotion for the producer for more DJ gigs. Wish it was different but that's how it is nowadays. Just to get played is a victory. |
| Jonathan Chiuchiolo 04.09.2012 | My mate "chris dynasty" who produces hard techno and runs tranztek records told me so, he also said get's more from trackitdown but barely gets anything from beatport although sells more tracks there. He isn't a huge international act but is frequently in the top 10 of his genre and still has to work to survive when really he should be able to focus on producing full time and paying on the weekends. But the way it's set up now new talent isn't fostered. I don't have any proof as such but I believe him as we grew up, partied, worked & lived together. He has no reason to lie. |
| Rey Holubar 04.09.2012 | Interesting post. I would have thought it'd be the other way around, that Beatport gets the smaller cut, as its not their music they sell. It really doesn't cost all that much to host or run their platform either. Don't mean to be rude or pushy, but how do you know all this and can you back it up your points with some kind of proof? scamo |
| Jonathan Chiuchiolo 04.09.2012 | I am a pessimist, and to me it sounds like another nail in the coffin of the music industry... as it stands producers only get a small cut of beatports profits. Most goes to beatport for hosting the file, with the rest going to an agent who is required to get your tunes listed in the first place. The only reason spotify is legal is because they pay royalties from the advertising and most importantly it is DRM protected so at no time does the listener own the music. Grooveshark do the same thing with VDJ. Everything is DRM protected & when you are playing a "netsearch" track you cannot record. You do have an offline cache but must verify your subscription is valid every month to be able to play the music, when your subscription expires so too does your ability to play the music. Without extra measures to ensure DRM protection I can't see this being legal as effectively you are selling the music you don't own for virtually nothing, just like record pools which get shut down all the time, and the only excuse for their existence is they are for dj's only to promote the artists, but now that everyone is a bedroom dj that excuse doesn't fly anymore. |
| Chasidy Heckenbach 01.09.2012 | signed up and pinged u an email - sounds very interesting. |
| Luna Sopcak 01.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by scamo
Hey Scamo - Thanks for your comment. You're definitely not a pessimist - more of a pragmatist . Regarding our references to Spotify and Beatport, it's not an official message but an easy way for users to understand what we do. (Numerous companies have used this approach to help describe their start ups, like LinkedIn: Facebook for business, Vevo: YouTube for music videos, SocialCam: Instagram for video). We will have more info on artist/label relationships, once our website is up and running, which should happen in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned. fred |
| Rey Holubar 01.09.2012 |
Originally Posted by Orthminius
scamo |
| Racquel Dat 01.09.2012 | @scamo- Short answer: no, you can't. They're kept in Spotify's cache. Slightly longer: Yes you can, but it is completely illegal and you would have to break into Spotify's cache. |
| Kristin Tesfamichael 01.09.2012 | sounds great, just sent you an email |
| Rey Holubar 01.09.2012 | Sorry to go off track a bit, but I actually just signed up for Spotify too. (possibly also a result and mistake in mentioning the comparison), but does anyone have the premium Spotify? If yes, can you use the tracks you download (supposedly 320k MP3s) outside of Spotify? Like in Traktor? If it is the case you can't, then I could see the reasoning and the usefulness behind Pulselocker. scamo |
| robin loo 01.09.2012 | i signed up too. and already shot you an email for some further infos.. sounds interesting.. weltraumpapst[at]gmail.com |
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