Have you considered the power imbalance when you describe them as voluntarily putting it on Spotify? What are your views on “paying people in exposure” or unpaid internships?
I would be open to hearing an argument as to why Spotify should pay no matter what. I could get behind that.
However, if you voluntarily put your music on spotify, and can remove it any time you want, and you are claiming spotify is committing theft against you. . .well, that just doesn’t hold any water. I mean, you hold all the power in this case: it’s your music that you fully control.
What are your views on “paying people in exposure” or unpaid internships?
I can see both being beneficial, but most of the time lame. The latter is something that benefits the wealthy, so I think it should be discouraged. But if you voluntarily did either of these things and then tried to claim theft, I would meet it with the same argument.
Spotify can’t tell big fish to go unpaid but they can target small creators as they’re likely the ones who most need to be paid for their work. “Work for me for free and maybe I’ll pay you in the future” is lame but consider the small print says “we may stop paying you in the future if you fall below a change in threshold in the future”.
People say “internet piracy” is theft and that doesn’t even deprive the person of a thing they had, merely a strongly assumed “lost sale”. We know the creators had a sale because Spotify do this to make money earned by the works.
If I said I will donate money you give me to charity but I instead keep the money did you give it to me “voluntarily”? Probably not because you were deceived.
they’re likely the ones who most need to be paid for their work
IIRC, we are talking about if you don’t break the 3-5 dollar threshold. If you’re banking on that money you’ve got way bigger problems than Spotify not buying you a cup of coffee.
People say “internet piracy” is theft and that doesn’t even deprive the person of a thing they had, merely a strongly assumed “lost sale”
The question is…do you think piracy is theft? If not, then I don’t see why you would even bring up this point.
If I said I will donate money you give me to charity but I instead keep the money did you give it to me “voluntarily”?
No, of course not, because you committed fraud by lying to me what the money would be used for.
If Spotify gave no warning and did it retroactively, then you have a point that it was deceptive and fraudulent, but this sounds like they have announced in advance that they are changing the policy. So this isn’t them saying one thing and then doing another.
