Dear @Spotify, @Google, @Amazonmusic, @Applemusic & co,
as of today I have cancelled any and all of my premium membership any and all of your services after learning from a musician friend of mine that for 25,000 streams @spotify paid them a measly £4 for the streams....£4/3 band members = £1.33 for each band member!
That is just ludicrous! It won't even buy a coffee in most places!
You lot sitting at the top do realize that these musicians and artists also have overheads to pay both in their personal everyday lives (rent, food, council tax, clothes etc.) and as professionals (studio rent, equipment, travel, merch manufacturing, graphics, etc.), most of whom had a fighting chance before all the covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions came into force, which is not their or anyone else's fault. Using these platforms to gain views and build a fan base before Covid-19 restrictions may have been okay, whilst artists could still tour and sell merch, but now they can't, the governments say they can't and online shows are not the same nor do the artists earn anywhere near as much from them and with out earnings from streaming services they are losing on all sides.
Therefore your services (and all others) now have a responsibility to support the very industry that your services are based on, since without them, you don't have a business after all.
You have no excuse when you are running ads which you get paid for and various other revenue streams such as premium subscriptions, merch sale commissions etc. Your businesses are largely digital which limits overheads substantially and you either own your own servers or are renting space on them from the likes of Amazon aka @JeffBezos & chums etc, none of which are exactly short of a few buck now are they, and I bet all your directors and top staff are also sitting pretty kushty too. We all know already how the tech giants have gained much in economic gains during lockdown. be that in assets or revenue, matters not, those are substantial growths to income that are way beyond anyone's needs to live comfortably...it's just plain GREED....especially when all of you are paying huge amounts for copyright ownership yourselves, streaming the vast majority of the income straight back to your own pockets.
Whilst our native artists around the world are sitting in dire straights depending on government help (if they are even entitled to any), many are not & the artists are trying to keep their industry alive in a 'global pandemic' that has devastated any activity that relies on close human to human contact.
Except music and the arts are more than just listening and watching with your mates aren't they, they are emotions reflected in the stories the artists tell us, they resonate with our own lives and make us feel connected, the shear importance of the arts sector can be see through out history as well with some of our greatest putting themselves on the firing line to spread their messages (politically, legally, mentally and even literally in some cases), they are an important part of our society and of our cultures.
What else has the power to unite people around the world, bring both tears and hope to the masses, helps us all through hard times and even has the power to align the heartbeats of a crowd of thousands? #music is #culture, don't kill it.
Musicians are currently paid by a pro rata system currently which means that all the assigned revenue payable to rights holders, which is identical in mathematics to the way dividends are shared out amongst shareholders. The more shares you have the bigger your share, except what we see is the big boy monopoly with recommended playlists, 'up next' and 'similar artist' features that typically play well known record charting artists with millions of followers and not your 'band next door' who are lucky if they are in the 10's of thousands. Even the top artists have to get their share after all the labels, distributors, publishers and copyright collection societies have taken their cuts.
Even Ted Giola commented on The Guardian's recent article regarding the claims made by Youtube that increasing payments for streams would make artists worse off & it is just nonsense with no foundations. Pitchfork also covered an article involving higher profile artists who are also losing out to this systematic wrong. Even Taylor swift has boycotted streaming services over the years and fought over copyrights, she is one of the few artists with the clout to do so though.
This system needs to be changed and one thing the pandemic is highlighting is the corporation monopoly being held upon the world, Do you really desire that much power and money?
Why can we not pay the artists we listen to fairly? there is no reason really. Please solve this issue.
Your Sincerely,
Expansive Thinker
For all readers who are not providing streaming services please read on:
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| Sanitize the corporation stronghold |
Part of this blame does lie with all of us (including the musicians and corporation directors themselves) as consumers, especially in the age of the internet where we can illegally download and/or listen for free or very cheaply to a whole world catalogue of music and other arts whilst we are not seeing the true nature of the industry from the business side. We all use Youtube, Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, Amazon Music etc these days as these are the most accessible and convenient ways to listen to music anywhere and typically all on one device, your mobile phone. It also means we as people have the power to choose, don't let the corps forget that. How did we get here?
Radio to record to 8track to cassette to CD, to MP3/4 & now streaming.
All of those mentioned before required you to carry a separate device to listen to music and they certainly weren't mini computers in your pocket like todays smart phone, therefore it has been convenience that has led us here as it has in many other issues that we face today and due to the monopolization of the internet, certainly in the earlier days, and by other industry corporations, it is still these few people pulling the strings at the far end of society and quite frankly being down right greedy that have caused most of the issues in the world today.
How can we solve it?
There's a few ways since we have discussed above how the money paid for streams is greatly swallowed up by record labels, publishers, copyrights and distributors instead of going to the artists themselves and since the artists are getting next to nothing, a boycott on labels won't harm them too much. we could boycott the industry by returning to mp3/4 players and illegally downloading music especially since most of us would be downloading the most popular of artists, whom are all living in big mansions with slick cars, the lifestyle of the rich & famous (unfortunately, Greenday you joined them) and we can buy direct from our local bands omitting these big wig services their revenues almost completely...but this may get us all into trouble with the police since there are laws against piracy and most broadband services now monitor for the illegals as the broadband services also gain revenue (They're all buddies at the top, investing in each other's businesses).
or the more civil manner would be to simply stop using or subscribing to these services (I know the idea of not having music at your fingertips is really not a thought I want to consider either...but if needs must) until the industry changes its way and pays artists by the user centric model, which basically means you pay the artists you listen to (probably as you naïvely think you are doing already, which includes myself until recently).
Either of these 2 options would make the industry sit up and listen, The system is wrong it needs to change and we need to change it together. So here is a list I pinched off Ted Gioia's twitter that shows you exactly how little artists are getting paid per stream.
After all if all their artists are force to retrain, as the government here in the UK are advising, then the streaming services won't have any music or arts to earn from in any manner. We need to get artists, especially our small local artists back to earning or we'll lose their voices and their message, then we truly will have the sound of silence.
Xpansive Thinker
EU! I voted to remain, can I retain my privacy rights please after all I don't want my blog and other platforms to mysteriously disappear...and as you can see I do not earn from ads nor any other commercial stream.
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