“I used to be a starving artist, so I would never starve an artist.” Dr. Dre “Talking to my diary”
While relaxing in my hammock celebrating the Labor Day holiday, I thought of all the musicians laboring away and getting paychecks for one penny. I love to joke, smile and laugh, but this time I’m serious, although I wish it was all some elaborate hoax. It takes 150 streams of a song for an artist to earn one penny. Spotify reportedly made $1 billion dollars in 2013, but claimed net losses in the millions. So, where did the $1 billion go? Major record labels, publishers and distributors got the lions’ share. The scraps went to artists.
Even superstar artists complain about the small piece of the pie they’re getting. Taylor Swift explained in a TIME interview why she pulled her music off Spotify: “I’m always up for trying something. And I tried it and didn’t like the way it felt. I think there should be an inherent value placed on art. I didn’t see that happening, perception wise, when I put my music on Spotify. Everybody’s complaining about how music sales are shrinking, but nobody’s changing the way they’re doing things.”
The same unfair payment paradigm exists with Pandora, Apple Music, and all the other music streaming sites, so it’s not like I’m singling out Spotify. The issue is whether art has value in society. Should governments subsidize art? Will artists in the future receive a monthly check from their governments so that they can devote their energies to art on a full time basis? Will there be agencies set up to judge who is good enough to get the check or universal coverage to all artists regardless of their skills? Right now there is a split, even amongst artists, as to whether artists should get paid for creating art. Some do not believe in copyright or artists getting paid for what they create because it is a “labor of love.” Artists should work 2 jobs or live with family for free so that they can share their art with the world gratis. (I call them the “air pie and wind pudding” crowd.) Most people, though, support the idea that artists should receive fair compensation for their labor. Hopefully one day, someday, artists receiving checks for one penny will be as abhorrent as child labor. Before you dismiss me as a dreamer, remember prior to the labor reform movement, children in the USA worked 12 hours a day, six days a week in sweatshops and that was considered normal. Change is going to happen because it’s morally wrong to pay someone starvation wages.
One Love,
Aria