It should be noted that Mokoma owns their record label Sakara Records, which has also other bands on their roster.

Mokoma told that Sakara is the one that gets the 30cents for 100 album plays. However, they do not reveal how much the individual bands get and if that is included in the 30 cents or not.

[...] http://www.arcticstartup.com/2009/11/06/spotify-pays-30-cents-for-100-album-playbacks/ a few seconds ago from Gwibber [...]

[...] the recent post by Mokoma on FaceBook (via) on the amount they receive for a hundred album plays on Spotify clarified my stance. I’d [...]

[...] via Arctic Startup [...]

Antti, mate. You didn't catch the sarcasm??

They didn't that the payout model, they said it was sad...
http://bit.ly/BNU3k

Sami, I did. I guess I didn't put it across too well in the post. Should have been "thanked" instead of thanked then :)

Hahah, maybe I didn't get it then.

Another band that fails to understand how Spotify works. Why am I not surprised?

Some quick comments to the article:

1. Spotify is on-demand radio, not physical sales (even though you can buy tracks as well nowadays). 10.000 plays, in this case, seems to equal 3 €. Ask the band what they get for having their song played once on a small radio station for 10.000 fans. I can assure you it's a much smaller amount.

2. You wrote: "it seems that if the bands aren’t able to create a better source of revenue there won’t be much music to listen to in the future." Please list all the artists that make a living from just radio plays. Do such artists really exist?

JB - a radio with near CD-quality (= way better than FM-radio) music streamed on-demand is hardly "just radio play". Having a spotify version of the album for most consumers is as good as owning a copy of the album. And for most music enthusiasts, a spotify copy is as good as owning any sort of digital copy.. except it's legally better to listen to spotify than it is to listen to piratebay-versions of the same album.

Offline playlists to mobile clients (iPhone/iPod Touch, Android, and S60 incoming) is pretty much the same as having the digital copy into any sort of portable media player. Listening to the radio on the other hand is totally different.

Radio play hasn't been the same since clear channel etc. format radios started to pound the same 15 songs over and over again so a demand for something like this started to exist. But considering how big of an effect this has on actual record sales it is a hit to both the artist and the independent record company. Sleeve-art isn't what it used to be on the golden age of the LP and I have to admit, digital copies are so much easier to handle that my cd's are collecting dust in a box, I just converted them to digital before putting them in.

Again major labels have nothing to worry about as they're still raking in profit. Spotify is still under development but if it's a breakthrough thing I'm hardly believing that the payout model will improve. Especially after the owners became massive hordes of money-harvesting corporations without conscience.

Why on earth would they (Spotify & Major Labels) pay more to independent labels and artists? The less Spotify pays per listen to the artists (and labels, big and small) the more major labels earn. Artist profits are small cut from labels profits. If big profit goes to Spotify (owned by labels) and not back directly to labels, then only losers are artists (let's give music cheap to spotify, but take over the company - then our artists don't get a dime...)

Winners: Major labels
Winners in short term: Consumers
Losers: Artists
Losers in long term: Consumers

Is it 100 album listens or 100 listens? Not many people listen to the full album and if it's just 100 listens it's really not that much, playing a track in a bar for 100 people wouldn't generate much cash.

Comparing Spotify with radio station or better, internet radio station, is a more correct way to do than comparing it with buying records from record store. One might also compare the revenue stream from Spotify with the revenue stream from Pirate Bay. From the user point of view, Spotify and it's likes is a legal way to get music from internet. If Spotify did not exist, many of the listeners would change (back) to pirate music services.

Spotify can also be seen as a death for middlemen in music business, not death for the artists. In future it will be easier for the artists to interact directly with internet music sites and forget the record companies. When all music is in the net in digital form - not physical, shipping it and selling will not need any big record labels no more and the band can create their own small label and sell their music themselves - cutting the real bad boys away from the revenue stream.

"Offline playlists to mobile clients (iPhone/iPod Touch, Android, and S60 incoming) is pretty much the same as having the digital copy into any sort of portable media player. Listening to the radio on the other hand is totally different."

And in order to get the high quality bitrate, offline play and mobile versions you have to be a premium member (not free). A premium member naturally contributes a lot more to the overall revenue for an artist than a free member.

Also, don't forget that with Spotify the artists/labels do get paid as long as people listen to their music instead of just getting paid once for a physical copy or digital download.

It can also be worth to note that I've seen small artists mention that they actually get paid by Spotify, while that never happened with services such as last.fm.

Adam, according to the original source it is 100 full albums.

I have to say, "Death of middlemen" is a rather idealistic and debatable view here;

Sakara Records (Mokoma's label) exists because they wanted to cut out the middleman already. It is run by the guys themselves. So if a small-ish indie label itself gets paid near zilch, it's not looking very rosy for anyone else either - except the ones already lobbed by a major label already with millions of individual listens. And since Sakara has had a few number ones on Finnish album chart, they are an exception within indie labels by themselves.

One thing to note here is that most of Sakara's catalogue is in Finnish, and realistically thinking has a potential audience of 5M people. By default this puts small languages in a very different position. Streaming just doesn't seem that viable option for income anymore, especially when Spotify follows the long tail effect, spreading the plays on thousands of individual artists and songs.

Yes, Spotify does pay (probably) the same amount of money to the indie and mainstream artists. But when an individual payment isn't that much really, one can argue what good does it actually do for an indie artist.

Right now, the most important task for a major record label is marketing & advertising. More publicity (and money) equals more visibility in media, and more plays in streaming services. So... somehow I don't see middlemen cutting themselves off anytime soon here.