 Spotify has finally come clean and revealed the exact number of streams that you need to have if you want to get paid because if you don't have this amount of streams you're not getting paid but also if you do decide to continue to use Spotify and not boycott then you're going to have to change your strategy. So we're going to talk about what your strategy needs to look like or how you need to measure up your numbers if you want to get paid that's going to have a massive impact. Two if you do decide to be one of those people to say hey we don't need to be on Spotify anymore. We're going to talk about what that would look like as well and how that impacts Spotify on this episode of No Labels Necessary. Check it out. All right let's get to it. Spotify said you need to have 1000 streams if the fans can't see how many streams and plays you have you don't get paid. Oh no 1000 streams is so much worse than we thought it would be. Don't get that less than symbol or you aren't getting paid period. But there's some specifics to this for real. So music business worldwide out here breaking news yet again all right as confirmed 1000 streams but this is 1000 streams per song in a year's time. These specifics all mean something so we're going to talk about these specifics because people will miss a lot of them right in the nuances. One 1000 streams on a specific song per year that per year means it doesn't roll over all right. I don't know if you ever like in the cell phone plan had roll over minutes or not had roll over minutes. I remember back in like singular days like having roll over minutes was like a big thing singular wireless ain't not even around no more but don't age me like that. Key that to yourself. But if you get 1000 streams on your track you will get paid that's around six dollars and everything after that right. But if you go the next year and that same track doesn't get 1000 streams you will not get paid that money. So it's not just about hitting 1000 streams one time you have to do it year over year over year as an incentive right. It's almost like a commission based or award system you need to hit that minimum barrier right that quota. That's what it's a better way to say all that stuff. Y'all got quotas now on Spotify. Yeah. What's the other side of that though other side of it again is per year and per track. Well if I got a 10 song album right and I got 10 songs that have 900 streams each. I have 9000 streams but no individual song has 1000 streams. I didn't think about that. So since it's per track you still won't get paid. And now we're going from six to fifty four dollars that I'm not getting. I ain't think about that. That's so interesting man because it's like because we talked about this. I don't mean if it was off camera on the other episode but I was saying it feels like Spotify is trying to disincentivize the like mass song drop strategy that's kind of been really popular over the last couple of years and they are forcing you to be more intentional with your releases right. Like hey make sure either you are very confident of this shit gonna go you know relative to this number or if you plan to put a little spin into it you know get the juices flowing before you put this shit out. Because if not you just wasted you know I don't know if this episode will come out before after the money long episode but it's like nah you just wasted you know that that whole number that missed money long you know what I'm saying gave us like you just wasted your budget. So that's that's crazy because if it feels like you would think they would want to incentivize that in a way I guess not. Nah yeah I wouldn't. I don't think that. Yeah exactly. I want to say before we move on to this should actually help artists understand why labels use bots. Okay now what I mean by that and this is not a PSA telling you to use bots if anything it's a PSA not to use bots in addition to especially everything that Spotify is about to do. But again I'm just explaining to you why it's a relevant thing to do right because now artists are in this situation except you know it's not the exact same smaller numbers and everything. Imagine you have 900 streams on a track and you can't get paid. All right so you say you know what what if I could just bot 100 streams until I unlock everything else I now can get money. Most of these are real but I just need this little this little nudge over the ceiling you know what I mean and now I can get my payout that I well deserved. Why would I stop the goal post I'm on a one yard line and bro you're not letting me get this touchdown this is crazy. Labels a lot of times people who are in labels and I'll re-explain this for people who haven't heard us had those discussions you'll have budgets that artists cannot get and sometimes the label strategy will suck. I don't think that we even touched on that side a label strategy can suck and they say hey start with this song or do this strategy and a part of the reason that your song isn't performing to where it is or should be in a certain period of time because that's what labels want to see before they clear out the rest of the budget right it's because of some of the stuff that the label's done or factors you can't control. So you're like all right man they're about to kill the rest of my project right if I don't get these extra 10,000 streams in this period of time let me go ahead and you know run that up just so I can open up the rest of it and live another day all right I digress but I wanted to make that clear because all of these conversations we're having around the business and the way different characters and stakeholders move into business sometimes you can't relate so it just seems weird or odd or you don't get it I feel like more artists will get it now when they're at 990 streams now they might not care because only six dollars some of them might not care but even off of the principle you're like bruh like I can't get paid just because I don't have 10 streams it's like when you get a 99 on a on a test and you're like for real like you couldn't just give me that one point. Yeah bruh like when you overdraft your car because you're like a dollar short or something like man you can kind of let that slide man it's crazy. No we can't let that slide. So those are just a couple of things but like the strategically you know we had to look at things from Spotify's view as well all right and we kind of just went through some of a conversation about well who does Spotify want on the platform and who doesn't Spotify want on the platform all right and does it matter if your presence is on the platform or Spotify or not all right we talked about boycotting like some people are like oh I don't want to be on a platform and you earlier touched on well hey Spotify in many cases might be like please yes please please go please go please get off get on because you've been taking extra energy away from me that's how they could look at it right when you look at the technical aspect of the transaction fees um and just the management of so much music coming out to the platform in of itself and a weird thing about Spotify is not the clean tech where it's just the programming energy that goes into it that then allows people to use it because it's music there's these personal account managers and relationships and it's not for the same and it's not for a lot of money all right saying well y'all are complaining about money Spotify complaining about money too yeah like you're talking about companies that's losing money many years of its existence all right more than not so it's something to think about but I think what artists need to hear more than anything just to be aware of is the fan energy that's coming from this because I think it's not kind of surprising but we're actually starting our last video trust the plus in the comments said I'm okay with this change before they even knew what this number was by the way I'm okay with this and this is coming from somebody who will get iced by this meaning he's somebody who is not going to get paid because of this change but what did he add he said it's time people who do music to make a choice get serious or move on besides Spotify is not the only streaming platform if you are reliant upon making money from one stream source you are missing the bag man bro the spirit that's an interesting take from an artist yeah especially for somebody who's not included right in this batch yeah but he sounds like an artist that you know pays attention when he listens to us and he makes a great point there are dozens of streaming platforms people should put so much stock in the Spotify because the higher level of the industry puts so much stock in the Spotify and you say this all the time man like you essentially are abiding by the rules of a losing game you understand like you're playing by the rules of a game you are not designed to win versus all these other games that you can go play and you have a better chance of playing of winning not only because the rules are different but because less people even though they can play the game or desire to play the game right exactly everybody wants to play in the NBA you know what I'm saying but not too many people want to go cash out and I'm like the international leagues and shit you know what I'm saying you can make money either way you ain't got to be in the NBA but it's true for whatever reason you don't want to go over to go to Italy and make your bed you know that's how you know because it doesn't come with the glitz and glam and the initial dream that you had and maybe right that dream is not what you thought it was so you have to have the ability to move on right and live if you care so much about the art and want to live that existence finding a different platform is just fine I remember before I was even in music I read a quote about Miguel and he said something about it was Miguel like the artist Miguel he was talking about when you have that dream and you know you want to be this artist the industry life that has ways of weeding out the people who don't really want it right like there are going to be things that occur and it's going to be hard regardless and this is still like pre-spotify error when I think about him saying these things you know so if six dollars is standing in a way of your music career come on right thousand streams a thousand streams crazy I understand I understand like maybe if you are offended on the principal aspect of things cool that's something to argue and debate about but if it in any way is going to deter you from using a platform cool if you want to go again go off a principle but if it more than it urges you but discourages you because I've seen people say well think about what the message that's sending the indie artists or the small artists bro if you're sad and you're going to stop creating music or you're like I'm not going to pursue my career because they created a barrier like come on and you didn't want it and at least this is a barrier you can see because you're going to run through some barriers that you don't even understand like you're going to start feeling like a mom like damn it's a wall here but I don't really I don't really understand what this this wall is then the crazy part about it is I learned this when I first worked my first official official job at Pisa Hut and I talked to you about this when you have your manager right I was there and I like the manager or whatever but everybody else was there a lot longer they love the manager and soon after I was there another manager came and everybody who was there before they were in uproar they didn't mess with the new system and people did leave me I was you know I just met the person so I didn't miss them that much and the new system wasn't a shock for me but after I had that manager for about six eight months and then that manager left I kind of felt like those other people's like dang man it's new person and I don't know the system ain't like it's not hitting like it used to so people are always going to complain with change regardless if you have enough time to get used to it but if Spotify came out the gate with this people just wouldn't have thought about it at all because we've already talked about how natural it is for many of the like the people who pay out per stream view etc have some level of quota that you get before you can monetize oh yeah yeah we gotta talk about that because you know before the number came out you know we were going to speculate and I was telling Sean you know I think that it's going to be a hundred dollar payout because I was like you know Instagram has a hundred dollar payout um YouTube's minimum payout you gotta hit a hundred I think TikTok might be around there I could be wrong y'all let me know so I started doing the math and I was like oh a hundred dollars from Spotify is 25,000 to 30,000 streams you know what I'm saying if it was up to me I think that's a that's a fair number to hit hey I don't want to deal with these processing fees until you make at least a hundred dollars you know what I'm saying so you get 25 to 30k streams then Spotify is being nice enough to say like hey it's a thousand right which you brought the point at the beginning of the podcast you don't even get rid of that little I don't know what's the sign the ampersand sign whatever I feel like it's wrong but the whatever sign until you get a thousand and one streams which for a very long time perception wise has been like when you've hit the race right like finally when your numbers finally show up on Spotify already you know what I'm saying now you're now you're in the game you know what I'm saying no matter how big or small you are all Spotify did was put it in ink what we were all thinking anyway you know what I'm saying because if you look at the artist they have that less than a thousand sign you don't respect their artist you know what I'm saying or maybe you respect the creativity but you like hey bro you got some work to do you got a grime man you got to learn about some marketing and branding and content all Spotify did was go hey you're right we just not also are not going to pay for that you're going to have the social stigma that comes with that less than a thousand stream mark on your profile and you're not getting your six dollars or less than six dollars your forty cents whatever it is so I don't know man I feel like the barrier could have definitely been higher I personally would not have been mad at Spotify that made like five thousand or ten thousand I would have understood like you know looking at the comments you would have thought motherfuckers thought that was about to make this shit like a million streams of some shit you know what I'm saying the way like I don't know man I seen some comments on our YouTube video and our Instagram video I was like bro these niggas about to jump off the ledge and you know what the number is just shit crazy exactly but this to me says that Spotify still has a heart I don't know about that don't say that to me a heart yeah I don't think the heart matter okay they got they got a little bit of sympathy I think they just understand the business and how we have to weigh things in this scenario that thing is just that simple for them heart done left at the moment you had all them investors come in like the investors don't care about the heart we got to do with the bottom line it might have been rooted in heart but when they end up in beginning that damn it care but but to be specific for y'all who still don't get it let's talk about the fact that most artists fail to understand that it doesn't take forever to monetize your audience we had an artist literally begin to take off and make twenty thousand dollars from his brand new audience in the same month but how is that possible it's because we're in a new era baby yes you want to continue to build a relationship over time but the first time you make money from your audience can happen today if you understand the new age music marketing funnel for artists so if you want to hear about this approach and how you can apply it to yourself I made a completely free video to watch at www.nolabelsnecessary.com slash monetize you got to make sure you put the www or if you're on youtube you can find the link in the description and check out how we help monetize artists for completely free I promise it'll completely change how you see things they say this is designed to demonetize a population of tracks that today on average earn less than five cents per month crazy so it's more targeted at that than anything else so this is something that they probably see that we can't see you might think well on my journey to a thousand streams five cents that's a lie because if I can make six dollars at a thousand streams but you're saying is really people who make five cents a month right five times six times 12 what's that so yes 60 cents will be 60 cents so 10 streams will be six cents so this sounds like a year yeah that's what I'm saying you're talking about 60 cents a year so you're like there's a gap between 60 cents and six dollars like you're also demonetizing all the tracks between 60 cents and six dollars right that's what you could say but likely right if we give them a benefit of doubt you probably see some data where a massive percentage of songs that go beyond that probably hit a thousand yeah but you know what I mean it's like 80 percent of the tracks that get over you know 20 streams per month go on to get a thousand per per year right but the songs who only get five streams a month like we're lucky and they go down from there they probably have some type of data like that um that they always you know you know keep some extra data in the tuck just in case things get too hot because hey trust me there's always more man like there's rollouts and they did test the temperature and then we come out with this but I guarantee you so there's two perspectives you got the rollout perspective of Spotify a let me test the temperature and just give out certain information and then we'll let them know a thousand mom streams all right so we can let them know later that's one perspective and that would have been true if they released later I don't think that's true in terms of what's happened here you know I think this is this is journalists controlling the story and they wanted to get double views they agree with the views I'm telling you right happens in sports it happens everywhere where the journalists will already have the information and they'll milk that thing just so they can get the views and now we're at a high let's double back and go ahead and drop another article bomb so now we get those views instead and respect to y'all for doing so I get the game and that's how y'all get paid I just don't get why they would you know bomb our Sunday like this like why not just you know kick the week off strong and hit Monday less happening man that's fair we give you the tension and you write expression the office is a it's a morning water cooler conversation for those who still you know venture into buildings when they wake up that's a good point man you know all the labels gonna walk in Monday morning you know pull it up spit they coffee up oh my god we gotta meet about this one right man you seen that excellent you see seen that article yeah man I thought that was crazy start to see the post in fact the spiritual word posted it so quickly it's still wild to me oh yeah that should move in there man that was the first I seen break out I've seen it on like two other pages since then you know and hopefully we the fourth in terms of the internet spirit with some tiktok are gonna beat us to it I promise I already know but they're gonna they're gonna be just there but I don't know man this is just like I said one I just it's not as bad as I thought it was gonna be um it feels very anticlimactic to your point the journalism thing makes a lot more sense because of how anticlimactic it is it's just like damn I was I was waiting for a gut punch number bro 10k 20k something crazy bro something that we could people could ride over you know what I'm saying but you're riding over a thousand streams man you know you got yeah you got big issues worried about all as well that ends well for some people but what we're about to see is you know part of why artists you know struggle because they don't have unions they don't have togetherness and we will see the tidbit of classism classism ain't bad when you on the right side of it at the right time yeah bro you make long times on both sides by the way but you know it's not bad I'm saying brother this situation man you're making seven 20 a month or more bro you're chilling you know you're making 601 a month or more you're chilling um you know it's hard for me to envision the artists that I see that I feel like take it seriously and then of course the artists that obviously take it seriously to your point being bothered by this you know like a lot of artists I had conversations because my artist circle at this point is all artists who take it very seriously either they're doing you know millions of streams or at least doing a couple thousand months you know if I talk about like my my underground artist friends and like they really didn't care you know that's what I'm saying you will see and that's what I mean about the classism statement and I know that look in my future 20 years from now that'll probably be try to snipped up and use against me you know what I mean when I'm running from office and a month or so before I decided to track that because I'm like dang y'all that snipped up all the pie clips and got me looking crazy but repurpose this shit but no but really like so many artists will realize oh I'm not affected by this and almost buy into the idea of why this is justified and things to move on yes it was an uproar yes media outlets you know got y'all in the frenzy just like music business worldwide the main publications that sold the the article version of it got your attention got your eyes and views the youtube videos the influencers and all the pages that posted and attributed to the scare got your views and attention as well and this is why I say artists you know what I mean like don't buy into all this evil evil evil because you think people people selling you this just because they agree with you but have time people also pushing that agenda just because they know that's going to get your attention but it's putting you to a detriment we are we're moving on from this a thousand streams per track one zero there are some things to argue about it or not if y'all have a solid debate of why you think that that should change I would love to know what that is or a better business model we do have some other business models that could work better potentially but I wouldn't like to know what y'all think in terms of different business models that y'all feel like will be fair uh bot friendly in terms of stopping bots and then also um put the money where it's supposed to go other than that this is yet another episode of no labels necessary if you could so kindly not only subscribe but view the next video because we got a gym for you floating somewhere above me or Corey's head check it out as we go deeper into this conversation and more peace