For a couple of years now I’ve been an advocate of music streaming. I’m a realist, you see, and I figure that once people figured out that they could get digital music for free without feeling remorse, there was no going back. For me, services such as Spotify, Rdio and Grooveshark offer a solution of sorts that is almost fair to the artist, and encourages some level of responsibility on the part of the consumer.
I’ve watched with interest for a couple of years now as these streaming services have become more engrained in the psyche of Australian music consumers, and also watched my royalty statements to see whether streaming services are earning songwriters like me any cash (the answer is yes, but not much). Statistically speaking it seems that, whilst people are using streaming services regularly, few are paying subscriptions to make the services ‘ad-free’ – and this possibly explains the lack of revenue being generated and passed on to the artists.
Enter Google Play Music All Access – the music platform recently developed by the giant web entity.
I signed up for Music All Access recently. I had to sign up to try it – for like Spotify and several of the other major players, Music All Access actually require the user to sign up. Unlike Spotify, Google also requires the user to pay. Now of course I didn’t have to actually pay straight away – I won’t be charged until after I’ve enjoyed my thirty-day free trial. I also didn’t have to enter my card details because somehow Google already had them (possibly because I have gmail, Google-drive, YouTube, Google calendar and Google docs accounts linked to each other – or maybe just because Google knows everything).
Whilst I might normally be a little put off by the idea of having to go through a registration process to use an online service that might not be any good, I have to admit that the fact that I’m already so connected to Google made it less painful. Presumably, a lot of people will forget to cancel after the trial and will become paying subscribers to Music All Access (ok I admit I’ll probably be one of these people) – and whilst this is a little ethically dubious at least it means that the service might end up with a larger community of paying subscribers, and artists might benefit from this financially a little more than they do from Spotify’s largely unsubscribed, non-paying, free-listening community.
Of course, that all depends upon whether or not the experience is good enough to keep people playing (and paying). With that in mind, it’s worth taking a look at the user experience.
Music All Access doesn’t have a desktop application for Mac or PC. Instead, the user has to have a browser window open to play music – not really a big deal, but it does mean that accidentally closing out of the window can cause frustration. On the positive side, google have created excellent apps for both iPhone and Android, allowing subscribers to have access to the service from pretty much any device that has an internet connection. Better still, you can upload all of your own music (from your iTunes library, for example), allowing you full access to all the music you own and most of the music you don’t at practically any time from almost any location. In a way google are making a pitch here to become your music library of choice, as well as your streaming service of choice – and it’s not a bad idea. After all, gmail has made a pretty good fist of competing with (and in may ways beating out) Microsoft’s Outlook and Apple’s Mail as the preferred email platform, despite being browser based.
Visually, Music All Access is nicely streamlined and looks like, well…google. If you’ve gotten comfortable with gmail or YouTube or Google Calendar you’ll find Music All Access looks nice and familiar. Content-wise, Music All Access is…getting there. I don’t believe the catalogue to be as extensive as Spotify, Grooveshark or Rdio, but it’s not difficult to imagine that this will improve, particularly as users can upload their own music and have it added to the collection, subsequently filling in the gaps. Music All Access also has strong playlist functionality – it’s well organised and more reminiscent of iTunes than Spotify – sure to impress those with large music catalogues or wide-ranging musical taste.
In short, there’s no reason to think that Music All Access won’t attract a decent share of the streaming market – particularly given Google’s ability to sneak up on us and integrate itself in all aspects of our online lives.
But what about us artists? How will we get paid by google – and, more importantly, how much? Well, in this regard, they’ve chosen to be reasonably transparent. Artists (and the owners of their master recordings) are paid proportionally, with approximately 70% of Music All Access’ total revenue distributed to the rights holders (artists, songwriters and record labels). If you are an independent artist, there is a chance that you are the sole rights owner, but regardless, you will be paid based upon how frequently your songs are streamed (see Google’s explanation here).
Google are a little vague about what actually constitutes a stream (ie. does the listener have to play the whole song or just a few seconds of it?) and also don’t explain whether songs of shorter or longer durations affect the payment. Master owners’ royalties will turn up directly in either yours or your record label’s bank account whilst songwriter royalties will turn up in your quarterly PRO (APRA, for us Aussies) payment. Spotify pay the same way, but have come under fire for not paying enough and providing inadequate reporting. Google claim they’ll be fair, and that they have the reporting covered too.
For most of us, this won’t amount to very much money – but it’s better than nothing. However, if Google, thanks to its reputation and overall interconnectedness, is able to get more users to sign up and pay subscriptions – chances are us artists will get paid ‘a little bit more’ thanks to Google’s presence in the streaming marketplace.
As always, the best policy for artists is simply to make great music, do it as cheap as possible, market it brilliantly and make it available everywhere. Multiple streams (or perhaps trickles) of income are the key. And for the users? Well I just think the best advice is to discover as much great music as you can, do it responsibly, and support the artists if and when they play live. That way the music wins, no matter what.
