The Music Industry is constantly changing in sync with society. As technology becomes more advanced the industry tries to incorporate the music to please the consumers to accrue more revenue. One big issue with this is that it makes music files easily available to the general public to a point where they are able to illegally obtain these files for free without getting direct permissions to do so from the artist or record label causing the artist to lose money. Although it is widely believed by the general public that recording artists are instant millionaires, statistics reveal that it is actually quite the opposite. Artists’ royalties have been, and are continuing to be increasingly diminished due to copyright infringement, music streaming/peer-to-peer
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The industry has suffered great hits through the years, but this without a doubt, is one of the biggest obstacles the industry as a whole has ever had to attempt to get past. Recording artists and musicians’ careers are suffering to the point where they are having to live from paycheck to paycheck and sometimes even have to pick up an alternative job instead of focusing on what it is that really matters to them, making music. If this pattern continues the way it has been, artists will no longer be able to associate their career music, but have to refer to it as a hobby (Zimmerman). A large portion of artists’ royalties are absorbed by record labels and publishers, also known as middlemen. Not only does the revenue received from streaming sites go to compensate the record labels, but also to pay songwriters. This is different from sale royalties because they occur every time a subscriber clicks on the link to a song year after year (Sisaro). Spotify says that 70% of revenue goes to music rights holders, but they have estimated that based on statistics that artists are given approximately 0.7 of a cent every time their song is played, sometimes even less. Well-known artists with a large fan base can draw the greatest payout from these services. In the last four quarters, Pandora reportedly transferred $202 million in "acquisition costs" licensing fees included, whereas Spotify has paid $500 million in royalties since its launch. Downloads had $2.6 billion in sales in 2011 according to RIAA. artist Taylor swift recently withdrew all of her material from Spotify and when asked to explain her reason for doing so she responded to tabloids with: “I’m not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music," Swift said to Yahoo Music last week after pulling her songs from Spotify. "And I just don't
The industry has suffered great hits through the years, but this without a doubt, is one of the biggest obstacles the industry as a whole has ever had to attempt to get past. Recording artists and musicians’ careers are suffering to the point where they are having to live from paycheck to paycheck and sometimes even have to pick up an alternative job instead of focusing on what it is that really matters to them, making music. If this pattern continues the way it has been, artists will no longer be able to associate their career music, but have to refer to it as a hobby (Zimmerman). A large portion of artists’ royalties are absorbed by record labels and publishers, also known as middlemen. Not only does the revenue received from streaming sites go to compensate the record labels, but also to pay songwriters. This is different from sale royalties because they occur every time a subscriber clicks on the link to a song year after year (Sisaro). Spotify says that 70% of revenue goes to music rights holders, but they have estimated that based on statistics that artists are given approximately 0.7 of a cent every time their song is played, sometimes even less. Well-known artists with a large fan base can draw the greatest payout from these services. In the last four quarters, Pandora reportedly transferred $202 million in "acquisition costs" licensing fees included, whereas Spotify has paid $500 million in royalties since its launch. Downloads had $2.6 billion in sales in 2011 according to RIAA. artist Taylor swift recently withdrew all of her material from Spotify and when asked to explain her reason for doing so she responded to tabloids with: “I’m not willing to contribute my life's work to an experiment that I don't feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists and creators of this music," Swift said to Yahoo Music last week after pulling her songs from Spotify. "And I just don't