Just a few years ago it seemed like every artist was passing around articles chastising fans for illegally downloading music. How it hurts the bands. The producers. The session musicians. The labels well no fan cares about them. The songwriters. And the industry as a whole.
We all bought it. Well, musicians and the industry that is. Not so much. The RIAA sued over 35, fans for illegally downloading music back in the mid s. We heard of 12 year olds being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Grandmas whose grandsons downloaded music on their computers were taken to court and forced to go bankrupt. A grandfather actually died while in litigation and the RIAA told his family they had 60 days to grieve and then they better pay up!
Sales never went back up. The jury is still out if it will in the long run. But, unfortunately, unlike sales, streaming revenue requires massive numbers to see significant income. However now, even if each fan listens to her 10 song album on Spotify 10 times in the first few months 1,, plays β impressive! No matter how you slice it, a small to mid level artist is not going to get by with streaming income the way the numbers work out currently. If we were talking about 5 cents a play versus a half a penny, then maybe.
I love that it rewards artist for creating great music that fans want to play over and over. The more someone likes your album, the more she will play it.
And you will get paid for every play. Over time, sure, this could earn the artist much MORE money than sales. Only the artists getting millions of plays are seeing significant, livable income solely from streaming. And most of them are with labels who take the majority to all of that income.
