Examples Of Current
Music Industry Problems
1.
Streaming revenue not being passed on
- Independent and smaller artists advise receiving lower streaming rates than bigger, major labels/artists.
- While many streaming companies advise royalties increase with greater user levels, the reality according to critics such as Audiam cofounder Jeff Price is that per-stream royalties are actually declining. Which is the reason some mainstream artists such as Adele have opted not to license Spotify.
- Despite a surge in streaming, low per-stream royalty rates mean it’s not enough to compensate for the decline that artists are experiencing in the sale of CDs and paid downloads.
- Even with extremely high play counts some major label artists receive nothing from streaming.
According to her manager, Lady Gaga has received nothing from millions and millions of streams on platforms like Spotify.
2.
No centralized hub acting as default for music fans.
- Artists have more direct access to fans than ever before but so do millions of artists and so it’s harder than ever for a new artist to get noticed.
- The typical music fan is flooded with music which makes it extremely difficult to win and retain the attention of future fans.
Social media platform Facebook charges artists to reach their own fans – which it defends as necessary due to a massive increase in Timeline posts.
3.
Artists Fight for Survival
- Most artists are overwhelmed with tasks that go beyond making music such as; uploading content, interpreting data, Tweeting fans, updating Facebook pages, managing metadata and figuring out online sales strategies.
- The average musician is underemployed – the Future of Music Coalition (FMC) advises just 42% of musicians are working full-time in music.
- Younger people are generally not interested in working in the traditional music industry which means very little innovation is coming from inside the industry which is now dictated by non-industry players such as Facebook, Google, Apple and YouTube.
Music activist David Lowery advises artists are worse off now than they were in the analog era due to; lower payments, less control, less secure copyright protections and a shift in revenue towards tech companies.
4.
Duplicitous contract structures
- Leading streaming companies are accused of treating artists poorly with often duplicitous contract structures and low payments.
- Many are thought to be deliberately complicating payout structures to confuse artists and rights owners.
- Many streaming services offer very little guidance as to their payout structure giving artists little idea of what they’re actually getting paid and what they should be getting paid.
- Most artists have no idea what is fair payment for a stream.
While streaming is rapidly becoming the dominant form of music consumption, it’s now widely viewed as a cashless loss-leader for artists and songwriters.
5.
Company profits over artists interests
- With the majority of streaming services, priorities are towards acquisitions, IPOs, and other liquidation events and not the interests of content holders and artists.
- The interests of the major labels are aligned, which explains the massive percentage shares awarded to major labels by streaming services.
- Percentages are awarded to labels in exchange for content licensing, however, many artists have a built-in contractual stipulation excluding them from receiving any proceeds from acquisitions, IPOs, or other liquidation events.
Major labels have been shown to pay nothing to artists from their cash windfalls.
6.
Falling revenue from paid downloads and CD sales
- The sale of albums has collapsed, which has resulted in a downturn in revenue for artists.
- Paid downloads are plummeting, which is bad news given that download payouts are higher than for streaming.
- Artists can no longer depend on record sales and are experiencing serious problems monetising their audio releases.
There is downward technological progression and with each subsequent format, monetisation deteriorates – so streaming pays less than downloads and downloads pay less than CDs.
7.
Piracy and Copyright Infringement
- The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which was once considered a reasonable method for flagging and removing infringing content, has now become an unmanageable and dysfunctional process.
- Some platforms have built their entire business on flouting piracy laws and refused to adhere to content takedown demands directly abusing the DMCA.
Google, the most influential company in the music industry, is actively resisting any efforts to reduce piracy across its key platforms
8.
Songwriters aren’t being fairly paid
- Songwriters are often paid pennies for successful tracks on major streaming and internet radio platforms, which is down to a lack of transparency and unfair proportioning of revenue.
- Technological advances and the creation of a hyper-connected creative world is increasing the threat of accidental plagiarism.
Lower royalties are discouraging an entire generation of writers with numbers in rapid decline.
[Note: Source information – Digital Music News.]
