Killing Streams: How digital music streaming hangs creators out to dry
Photo by Adrian Korte on Unsplash
“So it is that the UN’s recent determination that “streaming is killing music” is to be welcomed and taken seriously. Having conducted dogged, unhysterical research into the matter, the world body has concluded what is manifestly apparent but has been slipped past all those who genuinely adore music and care about its future. ”
by Jay Savage
Remember when public protest was a real thing? When people who believed passionately in something got together en masse to express their rejection of or support for it in a meaningful way, And by meaningful we should understand that a result was achieved, that change occurred or an impact was felt.
Amidst the docile acceptance in this era of whatever is thrust upon society at large there has been one significant example in 2021 of people spontaneously banding and bonding together to voice resistance, rejection and opposition to a single issue in a unified voice – and getting a result.
It wasn’t in politics - where acquiescence, indifference and silent consensus has been exploited by the powers that be to protect and promote the interests of the few; it certainly wasn’t in or against religious dogmatism, or climate breakdown or corporate domination or the tyranny of social media. Oddly enough it was in football. It was the game of soccer that prompted a near universal voice of outrage and condemnation of a scheme that the fans, the loyal supporters of the “beautiful game”, came together to make themselves heard.
When the plans for a football “Super League” were announced in April this year, the community of fans saw it for what it was. Straight away they smelled a rat.
The distaste for so transparent a power-play - transparent in its self-serving greed and its naked corrupt, muscle flexing exploitation of the players, the clubs, the fans and for the heart and soul of a game that was already almost obscenely commercialised - was more than the football world could bear. In harmonious and unambiguous rejection, that world came together, said "No Fucking Way..!” and within a week the whole sorry scuzzy idea was dead, buried and its architects were putting as much distance between themselves and the rotten enterprise as possible.
People cared. And it was a reminder - a very necessary one - of the power of a unified voice, a reminder that there is power in union when it comes to a single issue that moves the passions of individuals in an unambiguous way.
It is an example that music lovers and music creators could and, in a less docile, more involved and involving world, should take a lesson from. The current set-up in music - its cheapening, its defiling by streaming services and new corporate controllers - is founded upon and driven by the unwitting complicity of consumers and artists. The environment in which the DSPs operate is - in essence - that of a Super League. The spoils are shared unfairly among the biggest players who, every year permit a handful of new, approved - steadily groomed - members into the echelons of high reward.
Having succeeded in propagating and perpetuating certain falsehoods and myths, the streaming services - more craven than the worst record labels of the past who at least, to some limited degree, invested in, recorded, marketed and distributed music (and counted on a return on that investment) - wear the mask of ‘accessibility’. Accessibility by and to the consumers and the artists - the latter having the ‘freedom’ to record, publicise, market and make their music available to the fans who pay for it but not in the way that benefits their favourite artists but rather the platforms and their giant fiscal allies. More and more music fans are asking why they are paying for music they don’t listen to or even like.
One stark example of this is Apple’s current Airpods business which is generating more revenue than Apple Music, Spotify, The Orchard and Tidal combined (reportedly over 23 billion dollars in 2020) but whose growth is propelled by consumers listening to the music being streamed on those platforms.
Creators and listeners are enslaved to tech – and the genius of this is fostered by an array of mythologies, one being that “everything” is available, on demand, all the time, everywhere. Another being the mistaken pride which each artist after artist after bedroom Beethoven declares with undisguised, unabashed and dangerously uninformed pride - as though they’d just been awarded a lucrative record deal - that their “latest release is out on Spotify…” In the first year of the epidemic - as musicians’ livelihoods were taken away by the void of earning from playing live - so Spotify tripled(!) its valuation to $69-billion; in the same period it paid out royalties in the neighbourhood of $5-billion. And with streams being valued at 0,003 cents, the pressure is on to raise this to the still paltry figure of 1 cent ($ or Euro) per stream.
The access to, and availability of, music is a wonderful thing - democratic even, if not genuinely liberating - but its cost is carried by its creators. No doubt many will consider it romantically naive to think that its pillaging should be denounced or that passions similar to those who joined the football Anti Super League chorus, could be aroused by fans of music. But still. Music is kind of important and nourishing and not merely background.
So it is that the UN’s recent determination that “streaming is killing music” is to be welcomed and taken seriously. Having conducted dogged, unhysterical research into the matter, the world body has concluded what is manifestly apparent but has been slipped past all those who genuinely adore music and care about its future. It’s not about nostalgia or returning to a “better” time. It’s not about the stars - just like it wasn’t about Chelsea or Manchester City or Arsenal or Barcelona or any of the other FCs who nearly got bamboozled by big bucks into the Super League. It’s about the fresh new talent, the up-and -coming talent that needs nurturing, the new and old fans, and protecting the health of the “ beautiful noise”, for now and forever.