I am still one of the few people who actually buys music. CDs, iTunes downloads and even the odd vinyl record. I do this for a number of reasons. I like to own my music and I want the artists who make the music I buy to get paid for it. All very simple and, dare I say, old fashioned, for we live in a time when people want everything for free. Free news, free TV, free music. I can’t turn back time and uninvent streaming but I wish I could. As Loyd Grossman would say, “Let’s look at the evidence.”
When you stream a song on, say, Spotify (other legal piracy platforms are available), the songwriter who wrote it gets less than a penny, typically less than .0005 of a penny. 20 years ago, a songwriter would get something like 9.1% for every song sold. Given that others are creaming off the other 90.9%, that still enabled an artist to make a living and if they made a particularly great song a very good living. “The Times,” wrote his royal Bobness, Mr Dylan, “They Are A-Changin.”
Sadly – tragically in my view – songwriters often make very little from their art. Indeed, they are likely now to make more money from music played on the radio. It explains why everybody these days is out on tour.
It affects all types of musicians and genres, from the young musicians trying to make a career out of their chosen profession to veteran musicians who simply have to keep touring until they drop to put food on the table. Indeed, there are now many artists in their mid to late seventies who still have to board a tour bus every night.
To repeat, streaming is basically legal piracy. If an artist has put their heart and soul into a song and you pay them .0004 of a penny, aren’t you basically stealing that song?
