Recently as part of the Music Modernization Act (MMA), the Copyright Royalties Board (CRB) ruled that royalties from subscription streaming services would increase 44% over the next 5 years.
Sounds like a lot? Well, at the moment an artist gets around $0.006 per stream, this would increase to $0.008. Now does that still sound like a lot?
This would mark only the second royalty raise this centuary and the only royalty raise since music went digital.
Spotify, Google, Amazon and Pandora have all opposed this recent ruling by the CRB.
It’s basically theft of intellectual property at this point, big companies making major $$ from the works of other people, all while refusing to pay the fair market value.
Think about it this way, If grocery stores refused to pay a fair price to farmers for the foods they produce and, as a result, the farmers could no longer afford to keep growing food. What would happen? No food? No Farmers? No grocery stores? Poor quality foods? You get the idea, only we replace the farmers with artist/ songwriters and the food with songs. (Now I know there is a whole other world of issues surrounding the agricutural v retail industries but I wont even go there here).
• Average streams for an artist to make minimum wage, 400,000/per month. ($2,400/mo)
• Average wage for Spotify employee $5000+/mo. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/25/average-annual-salary-spotify-employee/
Without writers and artists creating the content for these streaming services what are they left with? A subscription service that provides nothing, these companies should really think about that…
#applemusic Is the ONLY streaming service so far that is in support of the recent royalty raise and the Music Modernization Act.
In my opinion the MMA still has a long way to go and writers and artist still deserve more from digital platforms. I think most honest people would agree. I encourage everyone to support the artists and music they like, small things can go a long way! Hopefully with more awareness and some public pressure we can set some of these big companies on a more moral course and see fair pay for the art we all love and enjoy!
gazbeaumont.com 