The Streaming Dilemma

Art By Yelizaveta Rogulina

In 2015, Taylor Swift took to the internet to openly slam Apple for their decision to not pay artists during a three month free trial period they ran to launch their new streaming service. In her letter, she wrote, “Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing [...] We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for no compensation.”

The letter had an immediate effect, resulting in Apple Music changing its policy the next day.  It also raised questions that still have not been resolved: is this shift of focus to streaming services fair to the artist?

Just weeks ago, Ariana Grande shattered the record for most streams in the first week of a pop album, amassing a whopping 307 million streams in the seven days following the release of Thank U, Next. Drake still holds the overall record for all genres with a staggering 745.9 million streams. And while many in the industry like Swift have spoken out against streaming services, with artists like Grande and Drake breaking records month after month that establish them as streaming juggernauts, the change is clear. The general public is not buying albums anymore, but rather electing to pay small monthly fees or nothing at all to listen to their favorite songs through these streaming services. 

But what does this all mean?

In terms of royalties, every major streaming service pays by play at rates of lower than one cent per play, excluding Pandora. This means that if an artist wants to earn the US minimum monthly wage ($1,472) from their music, using Pandora—the service with the highest pay-per-play rate—the artist must amass nearly 88,000 plays, and through Youtube—the service with the lowest pay-per-play rate—they need nearly 2,000,000. These are numbers that are astronomical to most new and lesser-known artists.

I looked to Emerson College musicians and music-lovers to weigh in on this issue and found most students support the use of streaming services and had a unique perspective on how much artists are getting paid. 

Matthew Rollins, a freshman, has released a single “Upward Motion,” and two EPs: “Violent Meditation” and most recently, “Alt-Metall,” all of which are available on all streaming services from Spotify and Apple Music to SoundCloud and Bandcamp. He acknowledged that as a small artist who is also a college student, he’s not big enough “to think about payment related stuff,” though he does “think it’s a bummer that artists can’t make much money on studio albums”—a common view voiced by many young artists working to be able to support themselves only by their artistry.

 Still, Rollins had positive things to say about the benefits of streaming services: “Using streaming services has definitely boosted my process as an artist because they allow me to share my music on a platform that my listeners are already familiar with [...] in my mind, streaming services can only benefit up-and-coming artists by giving them [this platform].” 

Furthermore, Rollins pointed out, “if streaming services didn’t exist, I would have to rely on physical albums which would be super expensive,” thus balancing issues with royalties.

In the same vein, a small indie artist, Verite, did an interview with Forbes where she argued in favor of streaming services, saying, “Spotify won’t build your career, nor is that its responsibility. It provides a platform for discovery. It will link your listeners to your merchandise and concerts, and it will provide back-end data for you to locate and analyze your followers.”

Another Emerson freshman, Henry Tyndall, who has yet to put his music on streaming services but may one day, argued, “The best thing you can do for an artist is listen to their music and tell your friends. You can't do anything to make sure their record label pays them fairly any less than you can make sure streaming services pay them fairly. Many artists pay from their own pockets to have their music on streaming services. At first, it's all about exposure. Money comes later.”

The music industry has already shifted to streaming as its primary method of consumption, and that is unlikely to change. Now, we can only wait and see the true effects this will have on the music production and artist’s incomes.

However, both Tyndall and Rollins highlighted something very important as music consumers: no matter how the music industry is changing, the best thing we can do for our favorite artists is champion them and spread the word whenever possible.