How Has Music Streaming Affected Artists?
Informative Speech
Brennan Renz
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There is no debating that pursuing a career in music has always been risky. However, in the past, artists would be signed for a four or five record deal, promising a more stable lifestyle for at least a while. Today, in the age of music streaming, such deals are rare and, instead, artists are paid -without taking fraud and piracy into consideration- 0.00084 cents per play, an amount so infinitesimally small it seems nonexistent to the average person (“Everyone Loves Streaming”). Music streaming has fundamentally altered the manner in which people consume music in both positive and negative ways. The confusion in the music industry preceding streaming, the increase in fraud, and the under-compensation of artists are all key issues in understanding a service that the majority of us use daily.
Prior to the popularity of music streaming that is seen today, the music industry was very much in a state of confusion, with the most befuddling aspect being the best way to get music to the consumer at a price point that made profit but didn’t drive listeners to piracy. The confusion took root in the technological twilight zone between CDs and digital services like iTunes. In the article, "Everyone Loves Streaming - Except Beyoncé, and Every Other Musician," “recorded music sales plummeted between 2003 and 2014. If I couldn't figure out how to listen to music, the industry also couldn't figure out how to sell it to me,” meaning it seemed as though the music industry had lost its ability to efficiently and effectively cater to its consumers, who, in turn, had no clue how to listen to music in the present day. CD’s were expensive and rapidly falling out of favor, and digital services were, at best, clunky and unrefined. Music streaming cut through this murkiness like a hot knife through butter, offering a convenient, affordable way to consume music that everyone could get behind, and its steady rise in popularity since has done nothing but affirm its merits.
One of the unfortunate aspects of music becoming more digitized is that fraud has become far easier than ever before, and this has a very tangible and negative effect on artists. Cherie Hu outlines the three main types of fraud as algorithm manipulation, paying for a service to use metadata and the algorithm of a site to promote one’s own music over other artists’; advertisement fraud, using a service with a form of AdBlock on or otherwise avoiding advertisements; and streaming fraud, using fake accounts to constantly stream one’s own music to increase one’s own plays (Hu). The role of fraud should absolutely not be discounted, as even small infractions add up on hit songs and albums that are streamed millions of times. For instance, Cherie Hu states that, “as recently as May, Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næ ringsliv and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) accused the Jay-Z-owned service of falsifying tens of millions of streams for Beyoncé's ‘Lemonade’ and Kanye West's ‘The Life of Pablo’ album” (Hu). This could mean millions of fraudulent dollars in profit.
Music streaming has changed relatively little for the large players in the industry - the Drake’s, Ariana Grande’s, and Beyoncé’s of the world, but for the mid to low level artists, it has changed everything. A positive change is that music can now be a realistic source of extra income for many. With an internet connection, a microphone, and some free software, anyone can create music and release it into the world. The massive negative change is that artists who are trying to “make it” - become famous and successful on music alone- have a more difficult road ahead of them today. “How Streaming is Saving the Music Business” states that “...concern continues in the music industry over those whom we'll call the music 99 percent being able to earn a fair amount from streaming dollars. On YouTube, for example, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimated in a 2017 report that the annual revenue for the music industry per user is less than $1” (“How Streaming is Saving the Music Business”). This dollar belongs more to the Drake’s than any aspiring artist. What can one dollar a year truly do? Not very much, even with millions of users. 0.00084 cents per play is a perfectly fine rate if one is an established artist, as your music garners attention and clicks on name recognition alone, but very few artists have achieved that status and those who have not are suffering financially (“Everyone Loves Streaming”).
Music streaming is indisputably popular and successful, and has done excellent things for music, even lifting the music industry out of a death spiral, but it is not without its drawbacks. Issues like fraud still plague the format, inventive and malicious exploitations of the system to further one’s own ends at the expense of others, and the broad undercompensation of artists undercuts the larger amount of freedom afforded to them in the new medium.
Annotated Bibliography
"Everyone Loves Streaming - Except Beyonce, and Every Other Musician." Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, Globe & Mail [Toronto], 26 Apr. 2019, p. A13, www.link.gale.com/apps/doc/A583603746/OVIC?u=va_p_wakef_s&sid=OVIC&xid=57036e26.
The context surrounding music streaming and the state of the industry prior to its rise in popularity are essential to this piece, and this sources addresses that topic very well, as well as outlining the discontent among artists around the issue of undercompensation.
"How Streaming is Saving the Music Business." Christian Science Monitor, 3 July 2018, Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, www.link.gale.com/apps/doc/A545270628/OVIC?u=va_p_wakef_s&sid=OVIC&xid=01a384b6.
The discontent among artists is covered in great detail in this source, and it also provides useful statistics for understanding both that specific issue and music streaming as a whole. It also addresses the positive and negative aspects of streaming in a clear and balanced manner.
Hu, Cherie. "Fraud has Become Latest Hurdle for Music Streaming". Variety, vol. 341, no. 4, 14 Aug 2018, pp. 22, elibrary, www.explore.proquest.com/e library/document/20998450 08?accountid=338.
This source examines the role of fraud in the music industry perfectly, going into detail on specific practices and addressing the consequences of fraud both now and in the future.
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