Here in the digital age, streaming has become quite the
norm. In fact, YouTube receives more
than 1 billion unique visitors each month and over 6 billion hours of video are
watched each month (https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html). It’s safe to say that this statistic is quite
amazing and many people in the younger generations take this amazing tool for
granted. The question that has been
widely debated regarding streaming though is if it is a force for good or a
force for evil! Since I, myself am an
artist as well as an avid music consumer, I will look at both sides of this
argument.
First of all Rosanne Cash who is the daughter of the famous
Johnny Cash voiced a very strong opinion on streaming on Facebook recently that
essentially stated that if you aren’t buying a download or buying a physical
CD, you are essentially stealing. This
makes sense to a certain extent because yes, there are cases such as leaked
albums or “ripped” songs that aren’t supposed to be heard unless you buy an
album that make their way onto YouTube for the whole world to see. This seems to be inevitable as it just
recently happened with Beyonce’s upcoming release and is not a great thing to
hear because it is out of the artist’s control and is unwanted. But the other side that I don’t think that
Rosanne is considering is that although she is partially correct, times have
completely changed. We are in the
digital age and it is ridiculous to even attempt to envision a time where you
can’t stream or even illegally download.
Because of this, artists are using the amazing tools available to them
such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud and more in order to market
their music, enhance their music sales, and to get more people to shows. Getting people to shows is becoming an
increasingly important thing as of recently as this is the only facet of the
industry that isn’t quickly leaking money.
If the music is going to be put on the internet for everyone to see
despite your best efforts, you might as well go with it, market it, and spread
it because this type of sharing isn’t going anywhere. As stated in the “music
industry blog”, although streaming may have hurt music sale revenue, it has
made up for it with live revenues (http://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/windowing-shake-it-off/). The live industry is thriving right now and
one could draw a correlation between this and the vast increase in streaming
and social media use. You have the
possibility to reach an astronomical amount of people via streaming on YouTube
so why not use this promotional tour to get your name out there and to bring
more people to shows.
On the other hand, the point where I definitely do agree
with Rosanne on is where she states “I’m IN this business and I see young
musicians give up their missions and dreams all the time because they can’t
make a living.” This is very true and is
a sad sight to see. Streaming sites like
YouTube and Spotify are now the norm as there has been a dramatic shift in
music consumption, but these resources only pay the artists micropennies for
their hard earned work. The artist may
have put hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars in the studio, sleepless
nights, and days filled with anxiety in order to create a piece of art that can
be enjoyed by other people but then 5 people buy a CD and 1,000 people stream
it paying 50 cents to the artist. Times
aren’t like they used to be where you would either have to buy a ticket to the
show to listen to an artist or to buy a physical album so sales have definitely
taken a turn for the worst. Unless the
artist is a mega star like Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift, artists can’t exactly
depend on a revenue stream coming from streaming and live music alone making it
hard to keep recording new music, touring, or just paying the rent. I think that if we hope to have new and
exciting artists who make original work in the future we need a better model
for pay outs on streaming services since the music consumption model has
changed to streaming being at the pinnacle.
Currently, the wealth is distributed so that the small amount of artists
already doing amazing receive over 90% of the pay while the hundreds of
thousands of other artists split the leftovers. This doesn’t sound right to me.
As you can see, there are two sides of every story which is
especially evident in the debate that I have discussed. The bottom line is that it is for the
consumer to decide what is right and wrong in this situation. They have the control ultimately over how
money is distributed as they have the choice to buy the album, download it,
pirate it, or stream it. Either way, as
an artist or as a consumer, keep yourself informed on which side you are
supporting and how it affects the industry and the artists who make the music
you enjoy!
