Two articles popped onto my radar today, both with a similar bent – how do artists get paid these days for their music (and, most specifically, their performances)? This seems especially timely considering I have just spent the past 9 days in an excellent songwriting workshop at NYU, with my intentions set on pursuing this line of work.
While the Internet and Web technology allows us to be so much more globalized and connected, and potentially get our music into the ears of listeners we never had access to before, there is definitely a dark side – that so much of this technology is also “free”, meaning that it doesn’t encourage the listener to reward what they love with actually PURCHASING music. Why buy the CD when you can just listen on Spotify? That sort of attitude is what is devaluing the art that we make.
Anyway, to the heart of the matter, I present to you:
Article #1: Pandora Users Played David Lowery’s Song a Million Times and All He Got Was $16.89 – from SPIN Magazine
Article #2: Why Buy Music When You Can Stream It? – from CNET’s The Audiophiliac blog