Regarding Spotify and Pandora and the like, we have been spending a LOT of time discussing and debating this issue. Just not here. I apologize for that. Unlike the “old days” where everything I did was memorialized here for the ages, social media has now taken over and the majority of my communications, thoughts, feelings ideas are now floating out there somewhere, be it Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr or even Pinterest. I encourage you, friend fan or foe, to search for me on those above cited platforms and connect so as to be more readily informed of what’s going on. With that said, I started a simple non-profit to inform and promote a fairer living wage compensation for the musical artist called FAIR PAY FOR FAIR PLAY. Feel free to connect with it on Facebook if it’s a cause you believe in. There you will be able to read more about this subject than you’re even aware exists at this time. but that’s a good thing. We need YOU to. We need everyone to.
Needless to say, pardon that you’ll be joining the conversation mid-stream. But as of today, here is the latest thought about this subject:
Granted we are in the initial phase of this new trend… (streaming taking over purchases…) BUT i do believe that as with all “new things” that it’s important for us to set the rules up fairly and equitably from the start, or else it’s much harder for us to change them later. Be it anything. The problem is that the whole thing is a sham. This idea that tech companies are perpetrating on regular people, that “music can be free”… the business model itself is severely flawed… THEY happen to exist in an industry where everything is “free”. Free apps, free games, etc, because it is funded by venture capitalists. So they are now trying to pass that on to an entirely different industry — the music business — and with other people’s products, i.e. other people’s intellectual property. And therein lay the problem.
It’s FINE if tech companies want to and can afford to give away their product for free for a year or more or forever because they see a bigger picture down the road (advertising revenue, an IPO); but it’s NOT fine to demand that of other people who they don’t even know, i.e. musical artists. The ONLY way they can offer “free music” to people — their prospective clientele — is by either offsetting their expenses — what they should be paying for their inventory, in this case the music — through other revenue sources like advertising OR by funding their business through venture capitalists. Which is fine. IF they are paying for their inventory. Which in this case, they are not. They’re just stealing it.
And by doing so they are programming an entire generation to believe that “music is free”, when in fact it’s not. Music actually costs a LOT to create. Financially. Besides all the other things that go into it. Like talent. What they’re going to end up with is a world where only really crappy music is popular because really good music will not be available for streaming if these practices continue for much longer. Just something to think about..
If you want to find out more about this issue and the problems we all face as music lovers if it continues in this direction, read this excellent article about Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and why he pulled his music off of Spotify: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/15/thom-yorke-spotify-twitter