评论
打印
Don’t tell people what you do,” Per Sundin’s wife insisted as they went to a dinner party several years ago. Sundin wasn’t a banker, used-car salesman or weapons producer, but the head of a record label in Sweden. Back then, being a music industry boss in the Nordic country was a miserable job. Sales had more than halved between 2000 and 2008 as illegal downloading took over. Sundin, who has headed a record label since 1998, was known by international colleagues as the expert on The Pirate Bay, an infamous Swedish website used to illegally download the latest music and films.
几年前，佩尔•松丁(Per Sundin)与妻子参加晚宴时，妻子叮嘱他：“别跟别人说你是做什么工作的。”松丁既非银行家、二手车销售员，也非军火商，而是瑞典一家唱片公司的主管。那时在这个北欧国家，音乐产业高管的日子可不好过。由于非法下载猖獗，销售额在2000至2008年间锐减过半。从1998年起便开始担任唱片公司主管的松丁，是各国同事们眼中的“海盗湾”(The Pirate Bay)问题专家。海盗湾是一家臭名昭著的瑞典网站，人们通过它非法下载最新的音乐和电影。
Today Sundin, now head of Universal Music in Sweden, is that rarest of things: a happy music executive. No longer shunned by colleagues, he is the company expert on something more attractive: Spotify. “Sweden has gone from being worst in the class to the best in five years. We were so down the drain when Spotify came and presented their idea. Today, Spotify is the majority of the success we have,” he says.
但如今，担任环球唱片(Universal Music)瑞典分公司总裁的松丁成了稀有物：一位开心的音乐公司高管。同事们不再回避他，相反，他是公司里的Spotify专家——而Spotify可比海盗湾更吸引人。松丁表示：“瑞典在五年时间里从差生变成了优等生。当Spotify来介绍他们理念的时候，我们简直是一团糟。现在，我们的成功主要归功于Spotify。”
Sundin’s happiness is mirrored by much of the music industry in Sweden. Music sales have increased by more than a quarter from their nadir in 2008 and Sweden has become one of the first countries in the world where streaming services – listening to music over the internet without owning it – make more money for the industry than CDs or downloads. Almost three-quarters of the SKr990m (￡86m) made last year came from streaming.
瑞典音乐产业的诸多从业者也体会到松丁的这种幸福。音乐销售额比2008年谷底时高出逾四分之一，瑞典也成为世界上首批流媒体音乐服务（即用户在互联网上听音乐，但无音乐所有权）收入超过CD或下载服务收入的国家之一。瑞典音乐产业去年收入9.9亿瑞典克朗（合8600万英镑），其中近四分之三来自流媒体服务。
Launched in Stockholm in 2008, Spotify has a library of more than 20 million songs that people can choose from. They either pay for the premium service to stream music without interruption or they listen for free but with adverts between songs. Sundin insists that Spotify – in which Universal and other big record labels have minority stakes – has saved the music industry, although the company itself remains lossmaking.
Spotify于2008年在斯德哥尔摩创办，如今拥有2000多万首歌曲供用户选择。用户可以选择付费高级服务，不间断收听流媒体音乐，也可以选择免费收听，但曲目之间会插播广告。松丁坚信Spotify拯救了音乐产业，尽管它还在亏损。环球唱片等大牌唱片公司持有Spotify的少数股份。
His office is strewn with memorabilia, from a picture of a “Born to Run”-era Bruce Springsteen to gold records of his latest star, the DJ Avicii. Sundin is dressed simply in a black sweater and jeans, his completely bald head glistening under the lights. “It was devastating,” he says, thinking back to those years. “People thought it was OK to steal with The Pirate Bay. It wasn’t nice going to international meetings. Was it close to killing the industry? Yes. Then Spotify came and it was better than illegal downloading. It was super-fast, almost everything was on it, and it was free.”
松丁的办公室摆满了纪念物，从《Born to Run》风靡之时布鲁斯•斯普林斯汀(Bruce Springsteen)的照片，到他旗下新晋明星DJ艾维奇(Avicii)的金唱片，不一而足。松丁衣着休闲，一身黑毛衣配牛仔裤，光头在灯光下闪闪发亮。回忆起难熬的那几年，他说道：“那是毁灭性的。人们觉得从海盗湾下载盗版内容没什么问题。参加国际会议的经历很狼狈。海盗湾是不是差点毁了音乐产业？是的。后来Spotify出现了，它比非法下载要好。它速度极快，几乎无所不有，而且免费。”
Spotify’s reach goes beyond its home base. It has more than 10 million paying subscribers and a total of 40 million active users in 58 countries. Many executives hope that streaming – including other services such as Deezer or Pandora’s internet radio – can demonstrate that record labels can still make money in the digital age. Apple seems to be making the same bet with its $3bn acquisition in May of Beats, a smaller streaming service and maker of headphones.
Spotify走出了国门。它拥有1000多万名付费用户，而活跃用户总计达4000万，分布在58个国家。许多高管希望流媒体服务——包括Deezer和Pandora互联网电台等其他服务——可以证明，唱片公司在数字时代仍能赚钱。苹果(Apple)似乎也在下同样的赌注，它在5月份斥资30亿美元收购了较小的流媒体服务商Beats。
Jonathan Forster, Spotify’s managing director for the Nordics, argues: “We find ourselves being in this position where Sweden is a crystal ball for the new music industry. And that’s as relevant for what might happen next in the UK or US as it is here in Sweden.” But could this country of just 10 million inhabitants really offer a blueprint for the future of music?
Spotify北欧区执行董事乔纳森•福斯特(Jonathan Forster)表示：“我们所处的情况是，瑞典成为了预知新音乐产业趋势的水晶球。瑞典即将发生的事情，对于英国或美国同样相关。”但这个只有1000万居民的国家，是否真能呈现音乐产业的未来蓝图？
If it does, people like Ash Pournouri will be the winners. The 32-year-old is manager and producer of Avicii, whose track “Wake Me Up” is the most streamed song yet on Spotify, with more than 200 million listens. His At Night Management company is based at one of Stockholm’s most prestigious waterfront addresses. The first-floor office is home to four recording studios of various sizes and a cinema room with an enormous screen. At its heart is a boardroom pimped out by Ralph Lauren almost entirely in black, from the wallpaper to the mixing bar. “I want to show people how successful we are. There is still life in the business, and still a lot of potential for people to make it,” says Pournouri, clad in a black jacket, denim shirt and skinny tie.
如果真是如此，那么像阿什•普尔努里(Ash Pournouri)这样的人将成为赢家。32岁的普尔努里是艾维奇的经纪人兼制作人，艾维奇的曲目《Wake Me Up》已是Spotify上迄今播放次数最多的歌曲，收听量达200多万次。普尔努里的At Night Management公司总部坐落于斯德哥尔摩最有名的海滨地带，办公楼一层设有四个不同大小的录音棚，以及一间配有巨屏的放映室。该层的中心是一间会议室，它由拉尔夫•劳伦(Ralph Lauren)设计，从墙纸到调音台几乎完全采用黑色色调。“我希望向人们展示我们有多成功。音乐产业仍有活力，对于投身这一产业的人们仍充满潜力，”身穿黑夹克和牛仔衬衫、打着细领带的普尔努里表示。
Pournouri is a fervent believer in Spotify. “I always thought it was the next thing,” he says while sipping a latte. “How do consumers want to consume music? If you mimic the behaviour as much as possible of illegal downloading and make it even easier and for a small payment, then you have the solution.”
普尔努里是Spotify的狂热信徒。“我一直觉得它是下一个大热门，”他边啜着拿铁边说，“消费者希望如何消费音乐？如果你尽可能模仿非法下载的模式，让整个体验变得更轻松，收取一小笔费用，那你就有了解决问题的出路。”
Perhaps most appealing for him is what he calls Spotify’s “democratic” side. The more a song is streamed, the more an artist is paid. “Not only do you have a platform where you can reach the whole world but you have a way that you can be listened to a lot. It hasn’t been democratic before in any sense. People buy a CD even if they only like three songs. With iTunes you might like it this week but not next week. Spotify is more democratic – people listen to a good song over and over again,” he says.
或许最吸引普尔努里的，是他所称的Spotify“民主”的一面。一首歌播放的次数越多，艺人的报酬就越高。他表示：“艺人不仅获得了接触全世界的平台，还有办法让自己的作品得到大量收听。以往的音乐产业从来没有这么民主过。人们就算只喜欢一张专辑中的两三首歌，也得买下整张专辑。至于iTunes，你或许这周还喜欢一首歌，但下周就不喜欢了。Spotify更民主——人们会反复听一首好歌。”
Some artists, however, are less glowing. Thom Yorke, the singer of Radiohead, told a Mexican website that Spotify was “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse”. He added: “I feel like as musicians we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what’s happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry.”
但有些艺人的反响没有这么热烈。电台司令(Radiohead)主唱汤姆•约克(Thom Yorke)向墨西哥一家网站表示，Spotify是“濒死之人放的最后一个绝望的屁”。他补充道：“我认为作为音乐人，我们需要反抗Spotify这类东西。我觉得从某种程度上，主流世界发生的事情是旧音乐产业的垂死挣扎。”
Spotify has responded to growing criticism by detailing how artists get paid. It pays out about 70 per cent of its revenues to record labels, who share the pot depending on how often their artists’ songs have been played. On average, that works out to between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream. Or to put it another way: one million streams would give a label $6,000-$8,400.
面对着越来越多的指责，Spotify的对策是详细说明其补偿艺人的方式。它将自己约70%的收入支付给唱片公司，而唱片公司能分到多少，取决于旗下艺人曲目的播放频度。平均而言，每次播放可以带来0.006至0.0084美元的报酬。换句话说，100万次播放可以为唱片公司带来6000至8400美元。
But Spotify argues that to concentrate on the “per stream” maths is the wrong way of looking at things. In total, it has paid out $1bn in royalties to labels including $500m alone last year. It has also persuaded 10 million people to pay $120 a year for music. And it contrasts its fees with others: a “video-streaming service” (presumably YouTube) would pay out just $3,000 for one million listens while US terrestrial radio would hand over $41. Spotify has had some success – notable holdouts such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Metallica have all signed up recently, leaving The Beatles as the main exception. But other bands, such as the Black Keys, refuse to release new music on to Spotify straightaway.
但Spotify辩称，专注于每次播放的酬金是错误的解读方式。它总共向唱片公司支付了10亿美元的版税，去年一年就支付了5亿美元。它还说服1000万人每年为听音乐支付120美元。这与其他服务商的费用形成了对比：某一家“视频流媒体服务”（想必是指YouTube）只为每100万次收听支付3000美元，而美国的地面无线电台只支付41美元。Spotify取得了一些成功——齐柏林飞船(Led Zeppelin)、平克•弗洛伊德(Pink Floyd)和金属乐队(Metallica)等知名的不合作者最近均与它签署了协议，使得主要的“钉子户”只剩下披头士乐队(The Beatles)。但Black Keys等乐队仍拒绝直接在Spotify上发布新曲。
Per Herrey has known the heights of pop success, winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1984 with “Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley”. He is now a lawyer for the Swedish musicians’ union and is preparing to sue several record labels over the royalties they pay from Spotify. He says the labels, not Spotify, are the villains. “They have stolen the rights of artists. It is betrayal from the record companies. They have snatched the rights and paid nothing to the artists. It’s ridiculous,” he says.
佩尔•赫雷(Per Herrey)经历过流行音乐成功的巅峰，他在1984年凭借一首《Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley》赢得欧洲歌唱大赛(Eurovision Song Contest)冠军。他如今是瑞典音乐人联盟的律师，正准备起诉数家唱片公司，称它们拖欠向音乐人支付来自Spotify的版税。他表示，Spotify不是坏蛋，唱片公司才是。“它们窃取了艺人的权利。这是唱片公司的背叛。它们拿走了版权，却不分一点给艺人。这很荒唐，”他说。
Herrey says the problem is that the artists do not even get the $0.006-$0.0084 per stream; instead they get between 6 and 10 per cent of that small sum. The rest goes to the record label in what he calls a hangover of the days when the label had to recoup the costs of distribution and pressing. Now those costs no longer exist, Herrey argues that labels should give artists a similar deal to radio, where royalties are split 50-50.
赫雷表示，问题是艺人连每次播放0.006至0.0084美元的酬金都拿不到，只能获得这一小笔钱的6%至10%，其余都被唱片公司收入囊中。赫雷称这种分配方式是旧时代的遗留物——以前，唱片公司要收回发行和压制唱片的成本。如今这些成本已经不复存在，赫雷主张，唱片公司应当像电台那样对待艺人，与他们平分版税。
Herrey says artists are afraid of speaking out. “I can’t even begin to tell you how many artists I’ve talked to. They are too scared. Sweden is a small market and they are afraid of burning their bridges. Artists are also extremely sensitive to not show their fans they are interested only in money. The winners therefore are the big companies.” He adds that he believes the major record labels offered their back catalogue to Spotify at a reduced rate in return for their shareholdings in the company. Spotify refuses to say how much the labels own but people close to the company say it is less than the 17 per cent or so they were reported to have five years ago.
赫雷称，艺人不敢大声抗议。“我都没法跟你说我同多少艺人谈过。他们太害怕了。瑞典市场小，他们不敢断了自己的后路。艺人也极为敏感，不想向歌迷们表现出自己只对钱感兴趣。结果，大公司成了赢家。”他补充称，据他所知，大型唱片公司以折价向Spotify提供旧曲目，以换取Spotify的股份。Spotify拒绝公布唱片公司持有的股份，但接近该公司的人表示，这部分持股不到五年前报道的17%上下。
What is certain is that Spotify is changing the economics of music. Ludvig Werner, the head in Sweden of IFPI, an organisation representing the record industry globally, says: “The music industry has never been so different from one country to another. For instance, 10,000 CD sales in Poland can make more money than being number one in Sweden.” He adds: “Under the old business model, you pre-paid for eternal listening. The downside was if you didn’t like it, if you damaged it. For 90 years, we didn’t know as a business how you listened to a song: was it 10 times or 10,000?”
可以肯定的是，Spotify正在改变音乐的商业模式。国际唱片业协会(IFPI)是代表全球唱片行业的机构，其瑞典分会主席路德维希•维尔纳(Ludwig Werner)表示：“各国音乐行业从未有过如此大的差异。例如在波兰卖出1万张CD，可能比瑞典的排行榜第一名赚得还多。”他补充道：“在旧有的商业模式下，你预付一笔钱，获得永久的收听权。坏处是你可能不喜欢，你可能把CD损坏。在整整90年期间，音乐行业不知道你怎么听某一首歌：听了10次还是1万次？”
Per Sundin now has the answer in his hands. He flips open his MacBook Air and logs on to a website, Spotify Analytics. Within seconds, he has dialled up information on Avicii. The 24-year-old DJ has been played 129,694,407 times in the past 59 days. That works out at 2.2 million streams a day by 1.16 million different listeners. Sundin calls up some more statistics. A fifth of Avicii’s listeners were in the US, with 17 per cent in Sweden. Males accounted for 60 per cent and Sundin can also see a breakdown by age. “When I wake up every morning I log into this and see what happened yesterday. This is addictive. And this is money,” he says.
如今，佩尔•松丁随时能够掌握答案。他麻利地打开自己的MacBook Air，登录一个名叫Spotify Analytics的网站。区区数秒间，他便已经查到关于艾维奇的信息。这位24岁DJ的曲目在过去59天内被播放129,694,407次，日均播放220万次，听众数量达到116万。松丁调出一些更具体的数据。艾维奇五分之一的听众位于美国，17%的听众位于瑞典。男性占60%。松丁还能看到用户的年龄构成。“我每天早晨醒来都会登录这个网站，看看昨天发生了什么。这让人上瘾，这也是实实在在的业务。”
The power of the data has other effects as well. “The industry gets excited when you talk to them about this. We have an incredible amount of data about what is being played by whom and when,” says Spotify’s Jonathan Forster. Artists can plan tours by targeting cities where they have fans or see where they need to boost marketing. The company is already adding other services such as allowing artists to sell merchandise or concert tickets via Spotify or even send an email when a new song is out.
数据的力量还有其他影响。“跟行业人士谈到这些数据时，他们就会兴奋起来。我们拥有令人难以置信的海量数据，能够展示谁在何时收听了什么曲目，”Spotify的乔纳森•福斯特表示。艺人在策划巡演时可以选择那些他们拥有大量歌迷的城市，他们也可以看出自己在哪些市场需要加强市场宣传。Spotify已经加入了其他服务，如允许艺人通过Spotify出售商品或演唱会门票，甚至是在新歌发布时发送一封邮件。
. . .
. . .
The company that is supposedly the future of the music industry is housed in a nondescript tower block north of Stockholm’s city centre. Get past Spotify’s reception and the offices finally begin to look like a typical start-up. Fridges stocked high with soft drinks, milk and even beer are dotted around, as are big comfortable chairs.
这家被视为音乐产业未来的公司，坐落于斯德哥尔摩市中心以北一座不起眼的高楼里。走过Spotify的前台，办公室终于开始有了典型创业公司的模样。散布各处的冰箱堆满了软饮料、牛奶乃至啤酒，舒适的大椅子随处可见。
